American Museum of Natural History Research Library
author: American Museum of Natural History

American Museum of Natural History. Hall of Small Mammals.; Corridor of Small North American Mammals; Corridor of North American Small Mammals; North American Small Mammal Corridor; North American Small Mammals; Small North American Mammals; Hall of Small Mammals of North America; Corridor of Small Mammals; Small Mammals; Hall of Small Mammals
birth: 1963
death: present
Permanent exhibition. Opened December 18, 1963. Located on Floor 1, Section 13a. The Hall of Small Mammals at the American Museum of Natural History, which is a branch of the larger Hall of North American Mammals, presents a variety of animals in small dioramas depicting their natural habitats, from the Canadian tundra to the brush country of southern Texas. Background artists for the dioramas were James Perry Wilson and Matthew Kalmenoff; foreground artists were Tomas Newbery, Freidoun Jalayer, Raymond deLucia, and George Peterson; taxidermists were David J. Schwendeman, Jonas Bros. Inc., Denver, and James Hagenmayer Studio (1; 2, 2006, p. 168-169).
The Hall of Small Mammals was created as a part of a 10-year exhibition program approved by the Board of Trustees in 1959, which aimed to take advantage of new techniques and data and to update old halls and create new ones (3, 1968/69, p. 10). Each window in the hall reveals one or more mammals in a detailed natural setting at a particular season and time of day. Descriptions of such key characteristics as behavior, typical diet, and reproductive traits are included for each species (1).
In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, the habitat groups depicted the nine-banded armadillo, black-footed ferret, prairie dog, common woodchuck, peccary, flying squirrel, Kaibab squirrel, weasel, marten, kit fox, badger, kangaroo rat, mink, wolverine, muskrat in such habitats as the Northern Rockies, Northern Arizona forest, Crater Lake in Oregon, Grand Tetons in Wyoming, Louisiana marshes, Canadian tundra, Death Valley, California, Mount Katahdin, Maine (4, 1972, p. 108-109; 5).
As of 2017, the full list of dioramas in the corridor is as follows:
Black-footed Ferret, Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota
River Otter in Ontario Canada
Nine-banded Armadillo, Rio Grande, Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, Texas
Groundhog (Common Woodchuck), Cohocton, New York
Northern Flying Squirrel, Trapper Peak, Bitteroot National Forest, Montana
Collared Peccary, Chihuahua Desert, Big Bend National Park, Texas
American (Pine) Marten, Crater Lake National Park, Oregon
Ermine and Vole, Baxter State Park, Maine
Wolverine, near Ennadai Lake, Nunavut, Canada
Abert’s (Kaibab) Squirrel, Kaibab National Forest, Arizona
American Badger, Jackson Hole, Grand Tetons National Park, Wyoming
American Mink, Pine Barrens, New Jersey (6)