Life Depends On It

Biodiversity is life. It is the very foundation upon which all life on Earth depends.

Biodiversity highlights the Museum’s rich natural history collection to explore the inhabitants of the rainforest, African savanna, American prairie, the arctic and the coastal waters of the northern Pacific. See the plumes and hear the calls of birds-of-paradise, and get an up-close look at the giant claws of an anteater or the pincers of a scorpion. Discover the unique physical and behavioral adaptations of animals all over the globe, the life and death struggles of survival and the complex food webs that exist.

The Bison Diorama

Biodiversity also features the Museum’s bison diorama, a treasured memory for multitudes of Museum visitors and refurbished by the skilled hands of Paul Marchand. The bison diorama is the only portion of the original installation of this exhibit hall that remains. While the rest of the Vertebrate Hall was remodeled in 1965 and removed in 2015, the bison exhibit remained unchanged. The bison themselves have a storied past – two cows and a calf came to the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences from the Buffalo Zoo in the 1890s, and the group even traveled to Atlanta Georgia for inclusion in the 1895 International Exposition.

Support for Biodiversity comes from The John R. Oishei Foundation, First Niagara Foundation, Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo, Bay and Paul Foundations, Seymour H. Knox Foundation, Hadley Exhibits and Members of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences Board of Managers.