The Whittlesey crates were crates of artifacts and plant specimens recovered from the Upper Xingú Rainforest by the New York Museum of Natural History's Whittlesey/Maxwell Expedition of 1987. The expedition ended in disaster, as some of its members were lost in the jungle and the rest killed in a plane crash. Some of the other crates also contained plant specimens including large, wrinkled seed pods, and preserved lizards in jars of formaldehyde. At least some of the crates were packed with fibers of a local plant, the Mbwun Lily.