Natural History Museum

Today is an exciting day at the Museum as we open the doors to the 61st Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition! 📸🎉 The exhibition features 100 inspiring and powerful images of our natural world, selected from a record-breaking 60,636 entries! As the world’s most prestigious wildlife photography exhibition, it celebrates the extraordinary variety of life on our planet and raises awareness of the many threats facing species worldwide. The exhibition is supported by Lead Corporate Sponsor, Nuveen, a TIAA company.

Congratulations to our Wildlife Photographer of the Year winners! 🎉    Selected from a record-breaking 60,636 entries from 113 countries and territories, we’re thrilled to share this year’s overall Grand Title winners.     🏆 Wim van den Heever is our Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025, awarded for his mesmerising image, ‘Ghost Town Visitor’. Capturing a rare brown hyena visiting the remains of an abandoned diamond mining town in Kolmanskop, Namibia, his image shows how nature interacts with urban spaces in unusual ways.     🥇 This year’s Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year is Andrea Dominizi. Andrea’s powerful ‘After the Destruction’ brings attention to the threats faced by longhorn beetles if their habitats are destroyed and lost. 

Sea cucumbers: marine invertebrates, nature’s recyclers, and definitely not a fruit or vegetable. 🌊🥒 For millions of years, these ancient creatures have been moving slowly across the sea floor, recycling ocean waste. ♻️ But do you know the name for a group of sea cucumbers? 🤔

Yesterday evening we welcomed His Majesty, The King, and His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales, to the Museum for a Countdown to #COP30 event. 🌍 Through bringing together climate and nature leaders and ambassadors from across the globe, it was great to see important discussions about how we can tackle these issues together. Bringing people together to tackle biodiversity loss and climate change is more important now than ever. 🌿

Climate change and biodiversity loss are inextricably linked. We need to tackle both together if we are to address the planetary emergency. 🌳 We’ve published our latest policy brief, which uses analysis from our Museum scientists to show the importance of joined up action to address biodiversity loss and climate change. This includes new analysis on ecosystems in Brazil – the host of climate #COP30 next month. Specifically, we’ve taken learnings from early implementation of conserving 30% of land by 2030 (or ‘30by30’)  to show the role that nature must play in climate mitigation and adaptation. Want to learn more? Read our new policy brief here 👇 https://lnkd.in/e7HGi-hZ.   

Seen as symbols of wisdom in ancient Greek and Roman mythology, owls have been the subjects of many myths and legends through the centuries! There’s still a lot we get wrong about these fascinating birds. Can you guess which of the following facts about owls isn’t true?

Did you know that our Fixing Our Broken Planet programme is creating advocates for the planet all over the UK? 🌱 We’re delighted to announce the recipients of our Interconnected grants, which support regional partners to deliver activities and events tackling the planetary emergency. 🌍 This year, we’re excited to welcome organisations from all four nations of the UK, creating advocates for the planet across Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England. This year’s grantees include the Newry & Mourne Museum and The Linen Hall Library in Northern Ireland, Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales, the Watt Institution in Scotland and the The Bowes Museum and Wheal Martyn Clay Works in England. Find out more about the exciting activities these organisations have planned here: https://brnw.ch/21wWjRj

October is here, which means it’s almost time for hedgehog hibernation! 💤 As our small spiny friends settle down for the winter, we have a question: do you know what baby hedgehogs are called? 🦔 Take a guess, then head to the comments to find out! ⬇️

As we continue to transition into a new season, we’re celebrating a blooming beautiful summer at the Museum! 🐝🌸 This season brought an impressive number of visitors - both people and winged guests! Throughout the summer, we hosted pollinator counts, recording the diverse insects that filled our gardens over the last few months. Our visitors turned community scientists recorded an impressive 441 pollinators, including butterflies, wasps and bees – and even some mint moths! These species all play a vital role in keeping our ecosystem thriving. These efforts not only helped us better understand our local biodiversity but also connected our visitors with the wonders of the natural world. 🦋

Tickets for the Pokémon x Natural History Museum pop-up shop are released today! ⚡     Patrons and members who joined the priority list can book from 9am, and priority list sign-ups will receive an email with booking instructions from 11am.      Any leftover tickets will be released later today, so check back here for further announcements!  👀