A monarch butterfly cozies up to milkweed in a Chicago yard. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

Aster Hasle, a conservation scientist at the Field Museum, said, “Our role in the Midwest is to build that population back up. There is a lot that we can do here to provide habitat that’s going to help.”

Covered display at the Field Museum on Jan. 31, 2024. (WTTW News / Eunice Alpasan)

“What’s disappointing is that it takes a federal law to push institutions and agencies to comply and to even just create consultation with tribes,” said Eli Suzukovich, director of cultural preservation and compliance for the Office for Research at Northwestern University.

(WTTW News)

Updated federal regulations require museums to obtain “free, prior and informed consent” from affiliated tribes before displaying or doing research on Native human remains or cultural items.

The Field Museum’s rare copy of John J. Audubon’s “Birds of America” is now on public view. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

The Field Museum’s rare copy of John J. Audubon’s “Birds of America” is now on public display, as part of an exhibit that doesn’t shy away from Audubon’s complicated legacy.

“The Sunflowers Quilting Bee at Arles” by Faith Ringgold, 1991.

February marks Black History Month and cultural institutions around Chicago are hosting events celebrating the city’s art and culture scene. Here are a few events you should check out.

(Brenna Hernandez / Shedd Aquarium)

If you’re seeking activities that don’t break the bank this winter, look no further than local museums, zoos and gardens. A number have announced free admission days in 2024.

This bouquet, grown and arranged by Englewood-based Southside Blooms, is now part of the Field Museum’s permanent Economic Botany collection. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

“Our work is part of the sweep of human history. It’s very humbling,” said Quilen Blackwell, co-founder of Southside Blooms.

FILE - In this Feb. 5, 2018, photo, Garth Dallman, center, and Bill Kouchie, right, both from the dinosaur restoration firm Research Casting International, Ltd., begin the of dismantling Sue, the Tyrannosaurus rex, on display at Chicago's Field Museum. (Teresa Crawford / AP Photo, file)

For years, the massive mostly intact dinosaur skeleton that came to be known as Sue the T-rex was at the center of a legal battle. The latest dispute involves who inherits what’s left of the money created by the sale of Sue.

Lawyers and defendants in the Ed Burke trial appear before Judge Virgina Kendall on Nov. 16, 2023. (WTTW News)
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The jury heard the first direct testimony from someone who prosecutors allege Burke sought to extort by weaponizing his powerful position as chair of the City Council’s Finance Committee and the longest serving member of the City Council. 

(Credit: Rüdiger Bieler)

Named Cayo margarita as a nod to Buffett’s song “Margaritaville,” the bright yellow specimen is a worm snail, a type of mollusk that sticks to hard surfaces within the coral reef and forms a tubular shell around itself.

Field Museum staff collected 1,000 dead birds Thursday from the grounds of McCormick Place. (Courtesy of Taylor Hains)

Chicago is one of the deadliest cities for migrating birds and Thursday’s “insane abundance of migratory action” led to “insane mortality,” birders said. The remedy is as simple as flipping off a light switch.

Bruno de Medeiros, assistant curator of insects, with just a handful of the beetles in the Field Museum’s collection. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

Beetles, and weevils in particular, are thought of as destructive pests. Bruno de Medeiros, assistant curator of insects at the Field Museum, is upending those preconceptions.

A peregrine falcon in flight. (Kev / Pixabay)

Another week, another wildlife sensation. This time it’s a pair of protective peregrine falcon parents who are dive-bombing pedestrians downtown in order to steer them away from their nestlings.

The Field Museum of Natural History. (Field Museum / Facebook)
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With a NASCAR street race set to take place outside their front doors, Chicago’s lakefront museums have had to shift gears and adjust operations in advance of the big event July 1-2.

(WTTW News)

Researchers at Northwestern University found that people who live directly next to Lake Michigan or along one of the major interstate highways running through Chicago are regularly exposed to more air pollution than residents in the rest of the city.

(Field Museum / Facebook)
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Admission for a Chicago adult will increase from $9 to $15 at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and from $18 to $21 at the Field Museum. The Park District Board of Commissioners approved the hikes Wednesday.