VIDEO: The Natural History Museum's Mammoth Gets Its Yearly Cleaning

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — The giant exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History collect a lot of dust during the course of a year. But luckily for us, the museum finds a way to make cleaning fun, and informative.

The museum has gotten into the practice of letting the public watch when popular exhibits get there yearly cleaning. On Monday, the 11,000-year-old mammoth skeleton in the Paul and Irma Milstein Hall of Advanced Mammals got its annual scrub.

Surprisingly, it only took museum staff about 15 minutes to clean the gigantic skeleton. The cleaners used some sort of high-pressure vacuum and a super-long and fluffy duster to give the bones a nice shine.

Check out a video of the cleaning below:

More than 50,000 people viewed the video of the mammoth's cleaning. Most Facebook commenters thanked the museum staff for keeping the exhibits in good condition.

"This make me happy! We were just in the adjoining room & noted the huge amounts of dust & (sadly) debris in the glyptodont exhibit. Hope you get there next! Thanks for maintaining this cultural jewel." Facebook user Sean Barry said.

The mammoth skeleton, named Mammuthus, was discovered in Indiana, according to the American Museum of Natural History's website.

Photo by KatieThebeau via Flickr/Creative Commons