Travels in the Great Tree of Life
at the Yale Peabody Museum

Opening Saturday,
February 16, 2008

Travels in the Great Tree of Life is a new, family-friendly, multimedia exhibition that explores how we discover the complex relationships that link all living organisms. Some that look alike, such as New World cacti and succulent euphorbs from Africa, turn out to be only distantly related, while the fearsome Albertosaurus is closely related to the tiny hummingbird. Other relationships are surprising: the elephant and the tiny elephant shrew are related, and both are in the same lineage as the aardvark and manatee! The exhibition includes interactive displays, specially commissioned films, amazing specimens from the Peabody’s collections, and—look carefully—a live animal or two!

All living things—from the smallest microorganism to the largest vertebrate and redwood tree—are genetically related. This genetic relatedness is expressed as an immense evolutionary “Tree of Life,” or phylogeny, which provides the framework for our modern understanding of biology. Not only does the “Tree” display the full diversity of life, it also reveals the history of similarities and differences among the lineages of organisms as these have changed through time.

In addition to helping us understand the amazing diversity of life on Earth, phylogenetic research is also critically important in areas as diverse as human health, natural resource management and agriculture. This exhibition also examines how knowledge of the Tree of Life is being used to save endangered species and understand the origins of disease.

Featured in the exhibition is Rafflesia (at left), rare plants of the tropical forests of southeast Asia that produce the world’s largest flowers, nearly 3 feet (one meter) across and weighing up to 15 pounds (7 kilograms).

Photo credit: R. Beaman

Video clip courtesy of Dennis Vogt. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Travels in the Great Tree of Life is supported by the National Science Foundation through the Angiosperm Tree of Life, CIPRES and EuphORBia: A Global Inventory of the Spurges programs.