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.

Freezing Arctic microbes for the future
Roger Bull and Warwick Vincent report on an international project that will send samples of Arctic freshwater microbes to the museum for permanent cryogenic preservation.
The rocks in fishes’ heads tell amazing stories
When I collect and research fish specimens for the Canadian Museum of Nature’s collection, I’m often particularly interested in the rocks in their heads. These tiny rocky structures, just millimetres in size, are called otoliths, or ear stones. For fishes, …