THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY IN WASHINGTON DC

About three weeks' ago I shared that we had met family members in Washington DC.  They were only visiting for a few hours and we went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.  

The African bush elephant is in the main lobby as you enter the museum.  He is a favorite of mine and is named Henry (not sure how he got his name).  Henry comes from Angola originally.

Two rodents below, a Mara and an Armored Rat.

The crab below looks like a King Crab, could be a prehistoric one, I'm not sure.  We are in the marine life area.

Below is a display of Tiger Cowries.  They are placed on the map where they were collected.

This tropical sea snail lives on coral reefs throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans, from ankle deep waters to 30 feet (9.1 m) under the ocean's surface.

Below is a photo of a photo in the same display.  It shows what one looks like if it were alive.

The adult snails don't travel very far but their tiny larvae drift on currents, accounting for the species staggering geographical range. (All my information comes from the display.)

We went through the dinosaur exhibit briefly, and I managed to get a photo of a couple, the Tyrannosaurus...

and the Triceratops.

There is a live insect exhibit and the mural is at its entrance.

We were heading to the butterfly exhibit which I posted here.  

I didn't take too many photos of the insects but will share these.  It was crowded. 

These are White-spotted Assassin Bugs of west and south African origin.

The only other photo I tried to take was of a Pink-toed Tarantula, but it came out so blurry it is hard to tell what it is.  If you aren't adverse to looking at big hairy spiders, you can go to this link to see what it looks like, or not!  As mentioned it was very crowded with lots of curious children, so we went onto the butterfly exhibit where we were heading to in the first place.  I have already provided a link to those, but to save you scrolling up I will repeat it here.  That was crowded too but we didn't mind waiting in line.

We passed through another exhibit where a life-size Narwhal was hanging from the ceiling.  There was a sculpture in the same area.

Its description is below.

Another sculpture...

and another description.

One more photo from the museum, a cartoon showing that though we have different names for everything, the scientific name stays the same.

The rest of my photos from this day were taken outside.  Let's start off with a yellow hibiscus.

Normally I would have taken many more photos of this pretty...

but I stopped at three.

And one pretty purple flower.

Nearby is a large water fountain that is used as an ice-rink during the winter.  We were happy the spray of the water was cooling us down.

 It is surrounded by lampposts.  

There is a banner of artwork hung from each one.

Across the street is the 

National Archives Building.

By this time we are making our way back to the car.  I see one last thing that I wanted to take a photograph of, so that I can remember to go there next time we take a trip into the city.  

Once we got back to where we had parked our cars, we said goodbye to our family and each started for home.