5. Cicada Specimen

Though the Staten Island Museum just opened its newest location on the grounds of Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden in 2015, its roots stretch all the way back to 1881. The museum boasts an important collection of natural specimen and historic artifacts, including a mastodon tooth, and the largest collection of cicadas in North America. You can see a few of them in this exhibition.

The cicadas are accompanied by the field notes and spectacles of William T. Davis, one of the founders of the Staten Island Museum. Davis was a naturalist, entomologist, conservationist and historian who was know for his work documenting and studying cicadas.