About 3.5 billion years ago, the ocean gave rise to the first life on earth. Today, our planet’s oceans are home to an amazing diversity of life in a wide range of habitats from tropical coral reefs to the frigid polar seas.
The Irma and Paul Milstein Family Hall of Ocean Life highlights the dramatic and complex web of life beneath the waves in an immersive gallery watched over by one of the American Museum of Natural History’s most iconic exhibits: a ninety-four-foot-long, twenty-one-thousand-pound model of a blue whale. Habitat dioramas in this grand hall provide portraits of marine species, while exhibits on the mezzanine showcase a variety of ocean habitats, including scenes from the ancient seas.
Many parts of the modern ocean are still poorly known, and less than 5 percent of the deep ocean has been explored. It’s hard to comprehend how something as huge and mysterious as the ocean can be fragile, but the threats are real. Some marine species are being driven to the edge of extinction by overfishing, while global climate change, development, and pollution threaten delicate ocean ecosystems. Understanding the ocean and its inhabitants is key to safeguarding the future.