Florida Museum of Natural History

Skunkvine thrives in a variety of habitats in Florida and can quickly outcompete and displace native plants. It creates a dense layer of leaves that prevents sunlight from reaching trees, bushes and undergrowth, and it can eventually weigh down trees, causing them to topple in high winds or heavy rain. 🦨 Learn more about this invasive species: https://lnkd.in/eYXNy-D8

National Moth Week 🔦🦋 July 20-28 When we think of moths, we often think of small, brown, fuzzy insects that flutter around our porch lights at night. They can be an unexpected range of colors, patterns and sizes though. Even here in Florida, you might be surprised! Some have angular shapes and patterns like this brown and black sphinx moth, while others look more delicate with dramatic tails on their wings like this luna moth. And some don't even appear to be moths such as this polka-dot wasp-moth that looks like a fancy wasp or this clearwing moth that is often mistaken for a hummingbird. Indoor Butterfly Exhibits Learn about lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) in our FREE indoor exhibit including the Wall of Wings, our rearing lab and the visible collection and research labs. A variety of exhibit experiences inside the museum bring the science behind this fascinating group of insects to life, starting with “What is a Butterfly?” and ending with conservation issues worldwide. Plan Your Visit ✨ Florida Museum General admission to the Museum is FREE, although donations are gladly accepted. There is a cover charge for the Butterfly Rainforest and special exhibits like Incredible Insects! Plan your visit 🎟️ Tickets, exhibits, parking and more: https://lnkd.in/grtzXjU #NationalMothWeek #FloridaMoths #Moths

The five species of sawfishes are globally endangered in part because their rostra (snouts) are prized trophy items. The Largetooth is now extinct in U.S. waters and the Smalltooth, once found from New York to Texas, is now largely restricted to southern Florida. "As a group, the sawfishes, of which there are five species worldwide, are endangered throughout their ranges largely because these animals are found very close to where humans live," said George Burgess. "They like to live in estuaries – the brackish water areas between freshwater and marine areas – they move up into rivers and of course all of these locations are close to where humans have habitation: where we fish, where we throw our garbage, where we put up our dams. So as a result, sawfishes are in some trouble around the world because of human activity." Featured: Largetooth Sawfish (Pristis pristis) Collected in Panama, mid-1900s Online Exhibit 🪚 Rare, Beautiful & Fascinating 🎧 Read and listen to more with George, and browse other cool objects: https://lnkd.in/ePhcfGdm 📸 Florida Museum photo by Kristen Grace

Florida Miocene 🎨 23 to 5 million years ago #FossilFriday The Miocene was a time of great change and marine life was diverse. In the oceans surrounding Florida, fossils of this amazing variety of aquatic life reveal a vibrant and changing network of habitats. From tiny mollusks to the enormous megalodon, Florida’s fossil record is rich with astounding specimens of early creatures. 🗝️ You might recognize this painting from our exhibit with a key to the animals represented: 1. Family Labridae (Wrasse) 2. Carcharhinus leucas (bull shark) 3. Squirrelfish 4. Miltha chipolana (Chipola lucine) 5. Trachyphyllia bilobata (open brain coral) 6. Acropora species (staghorn coral) 7. Orthaulax gabbi (Gabb’s conch) 8. Siratus juliagardnerae (Julia Gardner’s murex) 9. Siderastrea species (coral) 10. Family Lutjanidae (Snapper) 11. Dinocardium chipolanum (Chipola cockle) 12. Chesapecten sayanus (Say’s Chesapeake scallop) 13. Melongena sculpturata (sculptured crown conch) 14. Sea grass 15. Myliobatis species (eagle ray) 16. Turritella subgrundifera (base-keeled turretsnail) 17. Persististrombus aldrichi (Aldrich’s conch) 18. Tellina strophia (twisted tellin) Explore this painting from our exhibit and more fossils from the Florida Miocene. Bonus: ancient sharks in the fossil record (hint: why so many teeth?). Learn more: https://lnkd.in/epQKZdyq EXHIBIT Florida Fossils: Evolution of Life and Land This painting is one of many displayed in our exhibit: https://lnkd.in/gQ56udp Florida Miocene painting by Robert Barber #FloridaFossils #SciArt

Marvelous moments! 🤩 You never know what you're going to discover in our Butterfly Rainforest. 🦋 This exhibit resident is called a Painted Beauty (Batesia hypochlora) and they like to sit on foliage with their wings open on display. We don't have this species very often, so look for one if you visit soon! Tip 🦋 Butterflies in the exhibit typically live two to three weeks. The continuous population is more than 700 butterflies, so we're always releasing new residents into the exhibit. Check the window in our rearing lab to see what's emerging next! Plan Your Visit ✨ Florida Museum General admission to the Museum is FREE, although donations are gladly accepted. There is a cover charge for the Butterfly Rainforest and special exhibits like Incredible Insects! 🎟️ Tickets, exhibits, parking and more: https://lnkd.in/grtzXjU 📸 Florida Museum photos by keepers Ingrith and Ryan

Museum Resource 🧵🪡 Seminole Doll Collection In the early 1900s, Florida became a tourist destination. The Seminole and Miccosukee realized that they could sell dolls to tourists to make money, which they needed because they were living in desperate poverty. Their environment had changed due to dwindling game and the draining of the Everglades for agriculture. But there's so much more to the history and artistry of Seminole dolls. Taweekaache (tah-wee-GAH-chee), which means “design” in the Mikasuki language, is how Seminole and Miccosukee women refer to patchwork. The dolls are dressed in traditional garments and depending on when and where they were made, will have patchwork, strips of fabric or rickrack accents. The facial features, hair, and other accents tell us a lot about the artist and era of the dolls. Some dolls were even made of wood instead of the more familiar palmetto fiber. Learn more about our collection of Seminole dolls and how making and selling dolls impacted the Seminole and Miccosukee economy and culture. https://lnkd.in/eb9HeJBJ

Heather Rose Kates and team recreated the evolutionary history of nodulating plants and their close relatives with genetic data. Using herbarium specimens, they analyzed DNA sequences from nearly 15,000 species and generated, to date, the largest tree of life constructed from scratch for this or any group. “We had basically two years to assemble 15,000 tissue samples from the nitrogen-fixing clade, sequence them and build a tree,” said Robert Guralnick, a co-author of the study and curator of biodiversity informatics at the Florida Museum. Story: https://lnkd.in/eKVH4CHY Study: https://lnkd.in/e6jyCt2u Authors: Heather R. Kates, Brian C. O’Meara, Raphael LaFrance, Gregory W. Stull, Euan K. James, Shui-Yin Liu, Qin Tian, Ting-Shuang Yi, Daniel Conde, Matias Kirst, Jean-Michel Ané, Douglas E. Soltis, Robert P. Guralnick, Pamela S. Soltis & Ryan A. Folk

Colorful Dancing Spiders 🕺💃 Free Gallery Exhibit Last day: July 21! Discover the vibrant world of spiders and the innovative research being done at the University of Florida to learn more about the arachnids’ surprisingly good vision. Exhibit info: https://lnkd.in/eCYVwNhC Read about the research: https://lnkd.in/gAf3rWCX Featured photo: Lisa Taylor applies black eyeliner on a sedated male jumping spider. This experiment helps scientists understand which colors make males more attractive to females and which aspects of their courtship display matters most. Photo courtesy of Tyler Jones

Florida Museum and University of Florida researchers continue to look at the best way to support insect pollinators with wildlife-friendly plants, from grower to consumer to garden, with an eye on pests and pesticides. “This research is part of a broader effort to develop best practices when it comes to the production, management, and use of wildlife-friendly plants—across the continuum from production to landscape design and use,” says Jaret Daniels, curator here at our McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity and co-author of the study. “The opportunity to enhance landscapes in the built environment is critical for biodiversity conservation and to help better connect people to wildlife. But we want to ensure that any recommendations are informed by science and actually have the indented benefit—[to] help not hinder wildlife or exacerbate consumer confusion.” Full article via Entomological Society of America: https://lnkd.in/gu8_sDYQ Study: https://lnkd.in/grBpVSxy Authors: Bernadette M Mach, Sacha E Glynn, Jaret C Daniels, Adam G Dale

The United States has lost its only stand of the massive Key Largo tree cactus in what researchers believe is the first local extinction of a species caused by sea level rise in the country. The decline of the Key Largo tree cactus and the necessity of its removal has given researchers an idea of what to expect in the future as species contend with a rapidly warming world. The reality of climate change manifests itself in a complex series of related events that put additional pressure on species that are already stressed. “Unfortunately, the Key Largo tree cactus may be a bellwether for how other low-lying coastal plants will respond to climate change,” said Jennifer Possley, director of regional conservation at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and lead author on a study that documents the population’s decline. The Key Largo tree cactus (Pilosocereus millspaughii) still grows on a few scattered islands in the Caribbean, including northern Cuba and parts of the Bahamas. In the United States, it was restricted to a single population in the Florida Keys, first discovered in 1992 and monitored intermittently since. Salt water intrusion from rising seas, soil depletion from hurricanes and high tides, and herbivory by mammals had put significant pressure on the population. By 2021, what had been a thriving stand of about 150 stems was reduced to six ailing fragments, which researchers salvaged for off-site cultivation to ensure their survival. Full story: https://lnkd.in/eJ5zFcYJ