Specimen Interactives

Three different perspectives on the evolution of mammals are conveyed in this suite of interactive kiosks. Designed as a resource to enhance the specimens on display, each installation allows visitors to identify and access in-depth information about the specimens before them, including their full scientific name, their geographic range, how they fall into the context of the distant past, and related stories. Two of the interactives focus on the planet’s changing geography and climate and their effect on the evolution of mammals. Visitors can drag a playhead across a timeline and witness the global events on a map. They can travel across the Cenozoic’s 65 million year history to see how ice ages, shifting continents, and other events have influenced the direction of species. A third kiosk traces the origins of modern mammalian orders with an animated phylogenetic tree. The animation radiates and grows from a single point to convey the idea of an evolutionary explosion. Filament-like forking lines trace the diverging trajectories of species over the past 70 million years. The color-coded branches dramatically demonstrate how mammals evolved from a single origin.