Research and Collections

Cryogenic-Collection Facility

This liquid-nitrogen facility is able to store natural-history collections at −170°C.
Arctic Centre

Knowledge and Exploration

Expanding our capacity to meet Arctic environmental challenges and inspire future Arctic scientists.

Collections-Based Research to Understand the Natural World

The Canadian Museum of Nature is a scientific leader in species discovery and Arctic research.

Our multidisciplinary team of scientists conduct leading-edge research in the natural sciences.

Animals, fossils, minerals, plants and algae—more than 14.6 million specimens are preserved in Canada's natural-history collection.

Access data from the museum's collections: search, map results, and download data and images. Search our collections.

The museum's multidisciplinary team specializes in collection-based research in the life sciences and Earth sciences.

Doing collection-based systematics studies at the museum? We award travel grants. Apply now.

Check out this view on Arctic-related activities, events, research, etc. at the museum.

The library and archives are open by appointment. Search our catalogue online.

Fossil Riches of The Old Crow River
The Old Crow River in northern Yukon is an area significant for its Pleistocene fossils. During the ice age (2.6 million to 10,000 years ago), it formed part of the Beringian Refugium, an arid, glacier-free area that attracted many animals—both extant and extinct—whenever surrounding regions were ice-covered. For much of the year, the Old Crow […]
Seeing the Small with Electrons
Researchers at the Canadian Museum of Nature work at an incredible array of scales, from mountain ranges and whales, down to diatoms and atomic structures. At the smaller end of this range, we need microscopes to help us better describe our samples, but even large-scale fields of study can benefit from a close look at […]