Lions and Tigers and Dinosaurs Oh My: The Museum Of Natural History

My aunt's friend Barbara is an archivist at the Museum of Natural History in NYC. She gave us a private tour of the back rooms where all the secrets are kept (she is also married to a Rolling Stone journalist for 25 years - awesome!). Getting to see the back archives of photos and films and other totally random stuff was one of those once in a lifetime NYC treats.
This is a butterfly from the butterfly exhibit - you can't tell from the photo, but it was the size of my hand. And notice the colors, those are for camouflage.

The museum has the most outrageous photo collection in their library. You, as the public can make special appointments to take a look. It is well worth it - imagine photos of Native Americans from the 1800's and hunting expeditions in Africa.


We also got to learn something new - in the past before cameras were readily available, they used something called lantern slides. It was the old version of a projector - and around since the 1600's. These were projections on glass plates and were the precursor to photography. It was called the Magic Lantern, and indeed many were magical......