Recently, Chicago Parent went to the Field Museum, where Bill Stanley, the museum's collection manager for mammals, took us on a tour of flesh eating beetles, and centuries old elephants and flying squirrels. We were amazed by the broad reach of the Field Museum collection.

"The bird collection here was used to figure out why Captain Sullenberger had to put down his plane in the Hudson River a few years ago. They had to figure out what type of bird it was and whether that bird was resident or migrant," Stanley says. "They had to take DNA from the specimens here to answer that question."

Each slide below has a short, fascinating video of some of the specimens that will never make it out onto the Field's display floor - but that might be crucial to a discovery 500 years from now. Click through and enjoy.

Video recording and editing by: Kevin McCarey and Corey McCarey
With contributions by: Liz DeCarlo