Field Museum

Football-sized fossil creature may have been one of the first land animals to eat its veggies

“The specimen is the first of its group to receive a detailed 3D reconstruction, which allowed us to look inside its skull and reveal its specialized teeth, helping us to trace the origin of ...
Field Museum

The earliest known bird had complex tongue bones and fleshy “teeth” on the roof of its mouth—which might have helped it snag the food it needed for flight

A life reconstruction of Archaeopteryx, including the oral papillae on the roof of its mouth, a bill-tip organ at the end of its beak, and a flexible-yet-sturdy tongue made possible by an extra tongue ...
The Field Museum

Home School Field Trip Groups

Note: We are using this for information for research about future programming. We can not guarantee that classroom programming will be bilingual, but we hope to expand these resources. Field Trip ...
The Field Museum

Science of the Soil: Cultivating Healing, Community, and Sustainability

Moderated by Alaka Wali (Field Museum Emerita). The discussion will explore the history and future of botany, agriculture, holistic healing, and environmental stewardship within African American ...
The Field Museum

Tickets & Pricing

Dive into the past, present, and future at the Field Museum—there’s something for every explorer. Tickets are available online and in person at the Museum. Purchase your tickets in advance to skip the ...
The Field Museum

Illinois Free Wednesday

Pre-Registered Illinois field trips are FREE everyday of the week! Free Wednesdays are the perfect opportunity for you to explore our general admission exhibitions with your family or a group of ...
The Field Museum

UV light and CT scans helped scientists unlock hidden details in a perfectly-preserved fossil Archaeopteryx

Archaeopteryx is the fossil that proved Darwin right. It’s the oldest known fossil bird, and it helps show that all birds— including the ones alive today— are dinosaurs. And while the first ...
The Field Museum

A Fresh Science Makeover for SUE

Though SUE the T. rex’s fossils are a snapshot of life 67 million years ago, the science around extinct animals is rarely set in stone. Get an in-depth look at SUE's scientific updates and new home in ...
The Field Museum

Hot-blooded T. rex and cold-blooded Stegosaurus: chemical clues reveal dinosaur metabolisms

Schematic showing a subset of the animals that were investigated as part of the study, with warm-blooded animals in orange and cold-blooded in blue. From left to right: Plesiosaurus, Stegosaurus, ...
The Field Museum

Ancient Temple and Theater Discovered in Peru

Field Museum scientist Luis Muro Ynoñán with the carving of a mythological bird creature in La Otra Banda, Cerro Las Animas. Photo by the Ucupe Cultural Landscape Archaeological Project A team of ...
The Field Museum

Fossil mystery solved: super-long-necked reptiles lived in the ocean, not on land

Twenty-foot-long specimens described as separate species from their cousins, named after mythology’s Hydra A fossil called Tanystropheus was first described in 1852, and it’s been puzzling scientists ...