Bucky, the museum’s beloved giant beaver replica, spent many years travelling the country or in storage. He briefly returned to the museum’s Mammal Gallery in Ottawa for a limited engagement, to charm visitors during Winterlude and the 50th anniversary of the beaver as Canada’s national mammal. Find out how Alan McDonald, Senior Collections Technician, prepared Bucky for this important public appearance ..read more

Embark on a journey through time with two curious students at the museum’s National Herbarium of Canada. Tracing botanist John Macoun’s footsteps from 1901, they explore transformed landscapes to rediscover the Arctic butterbur (Petasites frigidus). Did they find it? Uncover their adventure blending science, history and a dash of mystery ..read more

The Canadian Museum of Nature is one of 80 institutions worldwide digitizing their biodiversity literature and making it freely available as part of the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Already, the museum has contributed more than 600 books and 65,000 pages to this global biodiversity community. Find out how we do this and why it is so important ..read more

Find out more about our research team's discovery in the forest of the Canadian Museum of Nature: Xenodusa cava, a beetle species that lives in association with ants ..read more

Located on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, the Beaver Pond site features animal and plant fossils from almost four million years ago. First discovered in the 1960s, the site contains remains of a Boreal-type forest and wetland, suggesting a much warmer Arctic climate. Find out how museum scientists and volunteers are analyzing these fossils to better understand our past – and our future ..read more

From fireflies and weevils to ladybugs and scarabs, beetles are extremely diverse. They also play important roles in the ecosystem, aiding with decomposition, reducing pest populations and pollinating plants. Students Tierney Kist and Skyler Martineau are spending the summer collecting and recording all kinds of beetles at the museum’s Natural Heritage Campus in Gatineau, Quebec. Take a look at what they found ..read more

When student intern Rebecca Keough began digitizing samples of water fleas (Cladocera) from a 1978 Northern Saskatchewan expedition, little did she know she would meet one of the original scientists, Jackie Madill. The two immediately hit it off and Rebecca got to learn all about the incredible field trip that took place almost 50 years ago ..read more

The museum’s Rare Book Collection has more than 4,000 titles dating as far back as the 1500s. It includes histories of expeditions, musings on nature, and maps and images. Kyla Ubbink is a professional conservator assessing the condition of each book in the collection so the museum can better preserve them. Find out what she has found so far ..read more

Did you know that Mont Saint-Hilaire, just outside of Montreal, is one of the most important sites for minerals in the world? In April 2024, the museum opened a new display highlighting the rare and spectacular mineral specimens found there, including by amateur collector extraordinaire, Gilles Haineault ..read more

What do the northern tundra of Nunavut, the Arctic waters near Cambridge Bay, a lake bottom in Yellowstone National Park and the fields of Charlevoix have in common? They were just some of the remarkable spots where the museum’s botany team collected new specimens of algae, moss, lichens and vascular plants. Check out some of the highlights here ..read more