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Department of Anthropology

Anthropology at The Field Museum is all about what makes us human, our place in nature, our common concerns and our differences.

Environment, Culture, and Conservation

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ECCo is a team of scientist-explorers expert in translating museum knowledge into lasting results for conservation and cultural understanding.

Department of Zoology

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Composed of six divisions, Zoology aims to discover, document, and explain the diversity of the world's animals.

Department of Botany

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Why there are so many different plants and fungi in the world? How is this diversity is distributed and how best should it classified? What roles do these organisms play in the environment and in human cultures?

Department of Geology

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The Geology Department at The Field Museum is focused on paleontology, systematics, evolutionary theory and meteoritics.

Founded on collections originally assembled for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, The Field Museum now houses 24 million anthropologial, botanical, geological and zoological specimens and objects from around the world. These collections--from narwhal horns to treeferns, fish fossils, and Chinese rubbings--help us understand and conserve the world's biological and cultural diversity. The Museum's research, collection, and conservation areas are home to dozens of scientists and students studying, managing, and telling the world about this incredible library of diversity.

New species of Barbet discovered in Peru

Graduate student and research scientist and colleagues discover and describe new barbet from the foothills of the eastern Peruvian Andes.

Read more about New species of Barbet discovered in Peru

Rapid Inventories

Scientists in Environment, Culture, and Conservation (ECCo) are conducting fast surveys of some of the most remote, unexplored places on the planet. Meet the team, and check out their process, results, and impact.