Soot-Covered Bird Corpses Cough Up Environmental Secrets
The specimens have revealed the terrifying intensity of early industrial pollution.
It’s a story about mystery, grime, and a phoenix rising from the ashes—so of course it started in Chicago.
The Field Museum, a Greco-Roman citadel of natural history on the shores of Lake Michigan, is famous for its Egyptology exhibit and for displaying Sue, the largest T. rex ever discovered. But among scientists and biologists, it carries a different distinction. In its basement and archives, the Field Museum holds more than 3 million specimens: drawers and drawers full of the stuffed corpses of long-dead creatures.
Among these dead are
