Website: http://www.nmnaturalhistory.org/
The Collections: This is the most recent visit on my list this year, as I was just down in Albuquerque this October for the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's annual meeting. While there, I spent some time in the NMMNS collections to look at their Miocene mammal material from around New Mexico. I was far from the only paleontologist there, but I was in the minority in terms of what I was looking for: pretty much everyone else there was visiting the extensive Triassic collections, as New Mexico preserves some of the best and most important fossils from this period.
The Exhibits: The exhibits in this museum were all designed at the same time (in the '90s, I believe), making them a remarkably coherent (if occasionally slightly outdated) overview of New Mexico's geologic past. The Triassic hall is especially good, with a block of New Mexico's State Fossil, the early dinosaur Coelophysis, and an excellent collection of crocodile-like phytosaur material on display. I was also a big fan of the Ice Age hall, which was ahead of its time in integrating information on climate change through time. Other highlights include a reconstruction of the giant sauropod "Seismosaurus" (actually a big Diplodocus), and a Cretaceous conservatory. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the museum is its fantastic collection of paleoart, which includes the likes of important work by Margaret Colbert (depicting Triassic life in New Mexico), Ely Kish (including an imposing mural of Jurassic titans and a charmingly prosaic reconstruction of fish in a Jurassic lake), and Jay Matternes (whose famous Eocene mural painted for the Smithsonian wound up here, somehow).
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