Hands-on Interactives

Though the beetles are behind glass, Skulls is a highly interactive experience, inviting you to touch, draw, and even imagine yourself inside various skulls. At the drawing station, use a camera lucida to sketch an American alligator skull. Over at the Predator or Prey vision station, look through a viewer to see like a lion, then flip a lever to experience the same scene as an antelope. Explore characteristics that separate carnivores from herbivores by becoming a “skull detective,” examining eye sockets, teeth, and other identifying features—and then get your hands on the skulls themselves, touching human, horse, and dolphin casts.

 

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Experience the wonder

Visit an aquarium, planetarium, rainforest, and natural history museum—all under one living roof.

3D Skull Viewer

Academy scientists partnered with Google to image specimens from our research collections using an advanced, automated 3D technique. The results? Jaw-dropping.

Warthog skull
Bandar’s Bones

For more than 60 years, Academy field associate Raymond Bandar has been collecting thousands of skulls. In a ten-case display curated by “Bones” Bandar himself, visitors to the Naturalist Center can explore a variety of skulls featuring curious traits and abnormalities.