AMNH Announces Impact: The End of the Age of Dinosaurs, Opening November 17

A Museum preparator works on the head of what will be a life-size model of Triceratops featured in Impact: The End of the Age of Dinosaurs. Alvaro Keding/© AMNH

New exhibition shows how an asteroid impact 66 million years ago changed life on Earth forever

Opens for Member Preview Days on November 14

Opening at the American Museum of Natural History on November 17, Impact: The End of the Age of Dinosaurs explores the striking before-and-after story of the asteroid impact 66 million years ago that annihilated non-avian dinosaurs, along with 75 percent of the plant and animal species on the planet, and opened the door for new ecosystems and animals to evolve. Featuring fossils and fossil casts, life-size models, dramatic dioramas, an immersive animation, and engaging interactives, Impact reveals the latest scientific understanding of this cataclysmic event, taking visitors through a story of extinction, survival, recovery, and adaptation spanning millions of years.

Visitors begin by stepping back in time to experience the rich biodiversity of the Cretaceous Period, which was catastrophically disrupted by the asteroid that crashed into Earth on what is now the Yucatan Peninsula, plunging the planet into a global winter. In addition to its most famous victims—the non-avian dinosaurs—the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event eliminated all flying reptiles, the pterosaurs, as well as massive marine reptiles including mosasaurs and plesiosaurs, marine invertebrates including ammonites, and many species of mammals, amphibians, birds, insects, and plants. Impact: The End of the Age of Dinosaurs highlights these ill-fated species as well as the plants and animals that survived this major turning point in Earth’s history and faced a drastically changed world. The extinction of dinosaurs paved the way for the evolution of new flora and fauna, including lush rainforests and the explosion of mammal diversity, which ultimately led to our human lineage.  

The K-Pg event is the last of five major mass extinction events. Some researchers think we’re about to enter another extinction, one caused not by a volcano or asteroid impact but by human activities, including those that contribute to climate change. Visitors will learn about other extinction events, as well as about the vital ongoing work to sustain Earth’s incredible biodiversity.

Highlights of the exhibition include:

• Life-size models of a 27-foot-long mosasaur—among the most fearsome and widespread marine reptiles of the Cretaceous—attacking a long-necked plesiosaur measuring 30 feet
• Touchable exhibits including a cast of a mosasaur tooth, a real fossil of a Triceratops toe, a cast of Triceratops skin, and a fossil ammonite
• A stunning diorama showing the rich diversity of Cretaceous life in what is now the western United States, including intricate life-size models of a Triceratops and a recently discovered hook-handed insect-eating dinosaur called Trierarchuncus prairiensis, as well as other members of their ecosystem, including turtles, frogs, and even a predatory mammal—Didelphodon—that might have eaten small dinosaurs and other animals
• An immersive panoramic video experience that visualizes the moment the asteroid struck the Earth, and the earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, near-total darkness, and acid rain that followed
• A digital game that invites visitors to take a personality quiz that assigns them a lineage from the Cretaceous—and, later in the exhibition, to find out which ones persisted after the impact
• Life-size models of the largest and smallest land mammals that ever lived and are now extinct: Indricotherium, which weighed more than three times as much as an African elephant; and Batodonoides, which weighed less than 1 gram (0.04 oz)
• A digital interactive exhibit that introduces visitors to the sophisticated tools used to track near-Earth objects today and allows “testing” of a deflection technology that may help prevent another asteroid impact
• Video stories highlighting how conservation action can protect against ongoing biodiversity loss, including controlling introduced species, protecting habitats, and regulating industry
• A layered collage by artist Clare Celeste Börsch that celebrates the beauty and diversity of life on Earth, while acknowledging the urgent reality of species loss

Impact: The End of the Age of Dinosaurs will open to the public on Monday, November 17, 2025. Museum Members will be able to preview the exhibition starting on Friday, November 14, through Sunday, November 16. 

The exhibition is curated by five Museum scientists whose combined expertise creates a uniquely full and interdisciplinary narrative of this momentous event. Leading this effort is the Museum’s Macaulay Curator in the Division of Paleontology Roger Benson, a dinosaur paleobiologist and the curator-in-charge of fossil amphibians, reptiles, and birds and fossil plants. Other curators include Mark Norell, curator emeritus in the Division of Paleontology whose work has generated new ideas about bird origins; Michael Novacek, curator in the Division of Paleontology whose research focuses on mammals; Neil Landman, curator emeritus in the Division of Paleontology who specializes in invertebrate fossils; and Denton Ebel, curator and meteorite specialist in the Division of Physical Sciences. Ana Luz Porzecanski, director of the Museum’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, is a consultant for the exhibition. 

Tickets that include admission to Impact: The End of the Age of Dinosaursstart at $30 for adults, $17 for children (ages 3-12), and $24 for seniors and students (free for Members). Tickets can be purchased in advance at amnh.org/tickets.  

Generously sponsored by J. and G. Jacobson and family

ABOUT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY (AMNH)

The American Museum of Natural History, founded in 1869 with a dual mission of scientific research and science education, is one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. The Museum encompasses more than 40 permanent exhibition halls, galleries for temporary exhibitions, the Rose Center for Earth and Space including the Hayden Planetarium, and the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation. The Museum’s scientists draw on a world-class permanent collection of more than 30 million specimens and objects, some of which are billions of years old, and on one of the largest natural history libraries in the world. Through its Richard Gilder Graduate School, the Museum offers two of the only free-standing, degree-granting programs of their kind at any museum in the U.S.: the Ph.D. program in Comparative Biology and the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Earth Science residency program. Visit amnh.org for more information.