An eight-foot-tall pink paper elephant made a brief appearance at the American Museum of Natural History for a photo opportunity around the annual Origami Holiday Tree. The giant pink paper pachyderm, created through the paper-folding wizardry of celebrated Origami artist Sok Song, was photographed for an upcoming book highlighting Song’s work. Song’s creations — large and small — have graced fashion runways, advertising spreads, and the Origami Holiday Tree at the Museum.

Produced for the American Museum of Natural History on December 16, 2009.

‘Journey to the Stars,’ the newest space show playing in the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, features extraordinary images from telescopes on the ground and in space and stunning, never-before-seen visualizations of physics-based simulations.

Curators Ben Oppenheimer and Mordecai-Mark Mac Low discuss the science behind ‘Journey to the Stars’ along with collaborator Lika Guhathakurta, a NASA astrophysicist. The team reveals how this immersive theater experience required expertise from scientists around the world and go into some of the research necessary to bring it to the big screen.

Produced for the American Museum of Natural History on November 25, 2009.

The Origami Holiday Tree has marked the start of the holiday season at the American Museum of Natural History for more than 30 years. Following this years theme of Origami, A to Z, the 13-foot tree is covered with paper letters and alphabetically-corresponding objects: an A and an Apatosaurus, a B and a butterfly, a C and a chimpanzee, an F and a frog, an M and a mastodon, an S and a sabertooth tiger, and a T and a Tyrannosaurus rex. Many of the models were chosen to showcase the rich diversity of mammals featured in the exhibition Extreme Mammals: The Biggest, Smallest, and Most Amazing Mammals of All Time.

Museum President Ellen V. Futter was joined by youngsters from the Goddard Riverside Head Start Program and accompanied by the Josh Rutner Quintet.

Produced for the American Museum of Natural History on November 24, 2009.

Traveling the Silk Road: Ancient Pathway to the Modern World, now on display at the American Museum of Natural History, brings to life the most celebrated trade route in human history through sights, sounds and artifacts.

Follow Mark Norell, Chair and Curator-in-Charge of Paleontology at AMNH, as he gives an insightful tour of Silk Road, traveling from Xi’an, the capital of China’s Tang Dynasty; Turfan, a verdant oasis and trading outpost; Samarkand, a center for prosperous merchants who thrived on the caravan trade; and Baghdad, a cosmopolitan hub of commerce and scholarship that flourished as a leading intellectual center of the time.

Produced for the American Museum of Natural History on November 12, 2009.

The Butterfly Conservatory: Tropical Butterflies Alive in Winter is back at the American Museum of Natural History for the twelfth year. Visitors can mingle with up to 500 live butterflies among tropical flowers and vegetation.

Watch as Hazel Davies, AMNH’s Manager of Living Exhibits, and Whitney Doreen Ortiz walk through the vivarium and interact with butterflies from around the world — blue morphos, striking scarlet swallowtails and large owl butterflies.

Produced for the American Museum of Natural History on October 14, 2009.