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New Year ...
more nature to discover!

As we welcome 2021, we encourage you to embrace winter and be inspired by the wonders of nature. 

In compliance with the Province of Ontario's declared state of emergency, the Museum remains closed until further notice.

Continue to connect with us for engaging online content. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and visit us on nature.ca. 

Highlights

Special video series
Wolf DNA study

Our Virtual Open House continues! Go behind the scenes and enjoy fascinating glimpses into the many areas of science happening at our Natural Heritage Campus. In this recent video, Veronica Chevasco, Postdoctoral Fellow in Genomics, talks about research into the hybridization of North American wolves, coyotes and dogs through analysis of contemporary and ancient DNA. 

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Birds, eggs and nests!
A rare look at our national bird collection

Greg Rand, Assistant Collections Manager, Vertebrate Zoology, offers us a special look at our national bird collection. See amazing specimens up close, including taxidermied birds, study skins, eggs and nests. This is another fascinating episode in our series of 30 Virtual Open House videos.

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Upcoming talk for Nerd Nite Toronto
Arctic botany adventures
January 28, 2021, 7 pm

Join Paul Sokoloff, Senior Botany Research Assistant, in a virtual “Nerd Nite” as he explores past and present Arctic plant research at the Museum. Paul will share some of the many adventures he’s experienced on his nine botany expeditions in the Arctic. The event will be streamed on Facebook. Go to facebook.com/NerdNiteToronto for details. 

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Snappy science, virtually!
Ignite and Annual Public Meeting
February 3, 2021, 4:00 pm - 5:30 p.m.

Join us for some fascinating yet brief presentations by our scientists. The Ignite! motto is "enlighten us, but make it quick." Speakers are each given five minutes to talk about their area of expertise. This event will begin with a short presentation by President and CEO Meg Beckel to serve as the Museum's Annual Public Meeting.

Information and registration

In the prep lab
Preparing finds from a fossil graveyard

For the last several years, a team of palaeontologists from the Canadian Museum of Nature, led by Dr. Jordan Mallon, has been digging up a fossil graveyard of horned dinosaurs—called Centrosaurus apertus—from the badlands of Alberta. Seen here are some of the distinctive bones of the frill, which arose from the back of the skull to cover the neck. These bones allow the scientists to identify the species. There are hundreds more bones from this “bonebed” being prepared at the museum’s research and collections facility in Gatineau, Quebec. So much fossil material from a single site can tell palaeontologists a lot about dinosaur population structure.

Attention teachers!
Virtual school workshops

Calling all teachers! Book your class (grades 3-7) for our new virtual workshop on minerals launching in March. Highly interactive and curriculum-linked, the presentation covers the rock cycle, types of rocks, mineral formation and uses, and more! Enjoy demonstrations and highlights of our Earth Gallery.

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Collections Corner

Fossil treasure
Edmontonia longiceps

Edmontonia longiceps was a plant-eating, armoured dinosaur that lived between 72 and 70 million years ago. The skull in the above image was collected by renowned dinosaur-hunter Charles M. Sternberg in 1924 in the Horseshoe Canyon Formation of Alberta. There are close to 100,000 specimens in our fossil collections. This one is a holotype specimen (CMN-FV 8531), which means it is the primary reference specimen for the species.

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Editor: Laura Sutin
Questions or comments can be sent to lsutin@nature.ca

Photos:
Squirrel: Jill Wellington, pixabay.com
Match strike: pixabay.com
Centrosaurus apertus illustration (detail): Nobu Tamura

Canadian Museum of Nature
Canadian Museum of Nature
P. O. Box 3443, Station D / PO Box 3443, Stn. D
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1P 6P4