Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History is the oldest and largest natural history museum in the world

The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History is located at Yale University in Connecticut and is one of the oldest and largest natural history museums in the world. The museum was founded by philanthropist George Peabody in 1866. The museum is famously known for its Great Hall of Dinosaurs, which includes the 110 foot mural The Age of Reptiles and the permanent exhibits, which are dedicated to human and mammal evolutions, the birds, minerals and Native American of Connecticut and Egyptian artifacts.

The mission of the museum is to serve the University by advancing people's understanding of the earth's history through geology, biological and anthropological research. The museum is an administrative unite of Yale University and reports through the provost to the University, President and Yale Corporation.

The museum is run by 100 staff members and has been in their current location since 1925 and expanded to the Peabody Museum, the Bingham and Kline Laboratories, parts of three additional buildings and a field station on Long Island Sound.

There are several world-important collections at the museum. The most notable are the vertebrate paleontology collections, which are among the largest and most important fossil collections in the United States. The Collection of Incan artifacts from Machu Picchu, was named for the Yale archaeologist who discovered the ruin. There is also the extensive collection or ornithology, which is one of the largest and most taxonomically inclusive in the world.

The Museum was the first to erect the full-scale reproduction of a Pterosaur's, which is a 3m tall, 7m long, and 3.33 metric ton statue sculptured in clay and cast in bronze, set on a 4m tall granite base. The skin is based on fossilized skin impressions that were left by a closely related ceratopsid.

Other exhibits include Fossil Fragments: The Riddle of Human Origins, which is dedicated to human evolution. The Birds of Connecticut Hall, which has over 722 specimens, eleven dioramas on the plant and vertebrate ecology of Connecticut, an extensive collection of minerals from Connecticut, Native American artifacts, The Hall of Ancient Egyptian Artifacts and an extremely fragile and expensive boulder sits out front.

The museum has curators who represent Anthropology, Botany, Invertebrate Zoology, Invertebrate Paleontology, Herpetology, Mammalogy, Mineralogy, Meteorite and Historical Scientific Instruments. The staff include curators, assistant curators, curatorial affiliates and volunteers.

The Dioramas at the museum are considered masterpieces, which move visitors' eyes effortlessly from the specimens in the foreground to the background. The diorama is accepted casually as if it were a window into the natural world. The dioramas combine three dimensional foreground material with a curved background and domed ceiling to tell the story of the ecosystem.

The museum was featured in an episode of The Simpsons, `Burns, Baby Burns', where Mr. Burns has a relationship and makes love in 1939 at the museum after his 25th graduation class reunion, in front of the exhibit that features Eskimo's and penguins, which is similar to the permanent diorama exhibit on the third floor.