Bishop Museum

Bishop Museum’s scientists conduct research across Hawaiʻi and the Pacific, from discovering and studying species to investigating ecosystems, archaeology, and biodiversity. Their work combines field research, scientific collections, and modern tools like genomic analysis to better understand and protect Hawaiʻi’s natural and cultural heritage.

Bishop Museum is home to scientists studying some of the biggest questions about Hawaiʻi and the Pacific — including what species live here, how they evolved, how ecosystems change, and what can be done to protect them. Researchers conduct fieldwork across the islands and Pacific, study specimens collected over more than a century, and increasingly use tools such as genomic analysis to investigate biodiversity and conservation. That work ranges from searching for and naming species in Hawaiian lava tubes to studying endangered land snails, exploring marine biodiversity, and investigating how ancient Hawaiian agricultural systems developed. Bishop Museum scientists also collaborate with communities, cultural practitioners, universities, government agencies, and researchers around the world. The result is active, often behind-the-scenes science that can change what we know about Hawaiʻi and the Pacific — sometimes revealing that a species thought lost is still alive, or that a familiar landscape holds an entirely new story.

Some of Bishop Museum's scientists spend their time looking for creatures most people will never see. Researchers are exploring Hawaiʻi's lava tubes for tiny animals found nowhere else, studying endangered land snails to understand what they need to survive, and investigating the largely unseen biodiversity of deeper coral reefs. In 2026, Bishop Museum scientists also helped describe two marsupial species in New Guinea that had been considered extinct and were previously known only from fossils. These discoveries show what makes this work so compelling: sometimes scientific research isn't simply confirming what we already know. It is revealing that the natural world still has surprises left to find.

SERVICE AREAS — Oʻahu • Statewide

WHO THEY HELP — ʻOhana • Keiki & Youth

WHAT THEY DO — Arts & Culture • Education & Youth Development • ʻĀina & Environment

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