Research & Collections at the Florida Museum of Natural History

Research & Collections at the Florida Museum of Natural History The Florida Museum of Natural History Research & Collections, located at the University of Florida All Florida Museum comments are made by Museum designees.

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Benjamin Genter, a senior at the University of Florida, recently received the Henri Seibert Award for best student talk ...
09/04/2026

Benjamin Genter, a senior at the University of Florida, recently received the Henri Seibert Award for best student talk at the annual Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in New Orleans.

Ben is an out-of-state student majoring in wildlife ecology and statistics, and he has a special interest in reptiles. He is working with Coleman Sheehy, herpetology collection manager here at the Florida Museum, and with Ed Myers, a research scientist at the California Academy of Sciences.

At the meeting, Ben talked about his research on crowned snakes in the genus Tantilla, which are native to the North and South American continents. He is especially interested in the three species that live in the southeastern United States.

More about his research work and student career:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/uf-student-receives-award-for-best-presentation-at-national-biology-conference/

Tiny transmitters could unlock monarch migration mysteries in FloridaFlorida Museum and Xerces Society scientists recent...
09/02/2026

Tiny transmitters could unlock monarch migration mysteries in Florida

Florida Museum and Xerces Society scientists recently started using small, solar-powered radio transmitters—about the size and weight of a grain of rice—to track the movements of monarch butterflies. The transmitters will help researchers better understand how these insects move across the landscape and exactly where it is they go to.

🦋 Story:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/tiny-transmitters-could-unlock-monarch-migration-mysteries-in-florida/

“For decades, we’ve known monarchs return to Florida every year, but we still don’t fully understand where many of them go afterward or how they move across the landscape,” said Jaret Daniels, curator of Lepidoptera here at the Florida Museum. “These tags give us a chance to begin answering those questions in real time.”

Monarch butterflies have been proposed for listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, and learning where they travel is a critical part of developing a conservation plan to protect them.

Museum Resource 🐟 Fishes in the Fresh Waters of FloridaExplore our state's freshwater fish species, including collection...
08/31/2026

Museum Resource 🐟 Fishes in the Fresh Waters of Florida
Explore our state's freshwater fish species, including collection records, photos and map.

Shown: Choctawhatchee Darter (Etheostoma davisoni), indigenous to Florida's freshwaters
🔗 More info & browse gallery:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/discover-fish/florida-fishes-gallery/choctawhatchee-darter/

Choctawhatchee darters can be found in sandy and muddy pools of creeks and small rivers, and this species is often found near woody debris.

It has a black bridle around an extremely blunt snout, no premaxillary frenum and an incomplete lateral line. The body is light yellow brown and slender, with dark brown dashes and blotches along the side. Large males have a pink cast to the upper body.

Scientist Spotted 🌳 Doug Soltis, a distinguished professor here at the Florida Museum, collaborated with LabX on fun vid...
08/30/2026

Scientist Spotted 🌳 Doug Soltis, a distinguished professor here at the Florida Museum, collaborated with LabX on fun video shorts talking about the Tree of Life, how it helps researchers, and what we can learn by examining it.

How do scientists know elephants and manatees are closely related? What is a cryptic species? What is the oldest lineage of animals? And what are myxozoans? Plus carnivorous plants, flamingos, water lilies and fungi!

🌳 Meet Doug and check out the videos and topics:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/museum-blog/tree-of-life-evolution-doug-soltis-labx-video-collab/

OR jump right to the YouTube playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVPQsm3VV-M8&si=NyWfkbkeXEUP1qSO

LabX is a program of the National Academy of Sciences. Their goal: Bold experiments with a variety of creative—sometimes even unorthodox—approaches designed to reach diverse audiences.

Museum Resource 🐍 Florida Snake ID GuideEasy visual ID and searchable tool for learning about our state's snakes includi...
08/29/2026

Museum Resource 🐍 Florida Snake ID Guide
Easy visual ID and searchable tool for learning about our state's snakes including habitat, range, diet and look-alike species.
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/florida-snake-id/

Featured: Florida Kingsnake (Lampropeltis floridana)
NON-VENOMOUS

Most adult Florida Kingsnakes are about 36-48 inches (90-122 cm) in total length. These snakes are variable in coloration from brown to yellow. They have more than 40 yellowish crossbands down the back and a degenerate chain-like pattern along the sides. The scales between the crossbands lighten with age. The neck is indistinct. The scales are smooth and shiny. Juveniles are mostly black with white or yellowish crossbands down the body.

Florida Kingsnakes are found throughout the Florida peninsula south of a line from Taylor County to Duval County, and they are known from Key Largo in the Florida Keys. However, Florida Kingsnakes are known to interbreed with Eastern Kingsnakes (Lampropeltis getula) throughout large portions of their northern range.

👉 Up until 2016, Florida Kingsnakes were considered a subspecies of the Eastern Kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula). The decision to elevate this previous subspecies to a distinct species appears to be widely but not universally accepted.

Full info and browse more:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/florida-snake-id/snake/florida-kingsnake/

Sept 8 🎣 Science on Tap: Keeping it (Swamp) EelWe're joining UF Thompson Earth Systems Institute at Cypress & Grove Brew...
08/28/2026

Sept 8 🎣 Science on Tap: Keeping it (Swamp) Eel

We're joining UF Thompson Earth Systems Institute at Cypress & Grove Brewing Co. to learn how swamp eels arrived in Florida’s waters, what makes them so successful, and what scientists are learning about their role in Florida’s freshwater ecosystems.

Rob Robins, our ichthyology collection manager, will be talking about these eel-like freshwater fishes with remarkable biological adaptations that have helped them spread from their native range to waterways around the world.

Event info:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/event/sot-keeping-it-swamp-eel-9-8-26/

Scientists recently started using small, solar-powered radio transmitters—about the size and weight of a grain of rice—t...
08/27/2026

Scientists recently started using small, solar-powered radio transmitters—about the size and weight of a grain of rice—to track the movements of monarch butterflies. The transmitters will help Florida Museum and Xerces Society scientists better understand how these insects move across the landscape and exactly where it is they go to.

Story:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/tiny-transmitters-could-unlock-monarch-migration-mysteries-in-florida/

Monarch butterflies have been proposed for listing under the U.S. Endangered species act, and learning where they travel is a critical part of developing a conservation plan to protect them.

🌊 Over the course of 20 years, an international team of scientists collected and carbon-dated more than 7,500 marine f...
08/26/2026

🌊 Over the course of 20 years, an international team of scientists collected and carbon-dated more than 7,500 marine fossils from ocean beds around the world.

Scientists used the dataset to determine which of several environmental factors contributes most to time averaging, a phenomenon in which organisms that lived in different time periods are mixed and preserved together in the same fossil bed.

The results indicate that sedimentation is more important than other factors, such as the number of burrowing animals in a given area or the durability of fossils.

“What continually amazes me is just how much time a bunch of fossils collected from a single sediment layer can represent. In some cases, well-preserved fossil organisms that are found next to each other might have lived hundreds or thousands of years apart,” wrote paleontologist Rafal Nawrot.

Story:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/paleontologists-spent-20-years-carbon-dating-thousands-of-marine-fossils-then-used-them-to-decode-a-process-fundamental-to-earths-history/

Study:
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2615368123

Knowing that the rate of sedimentation is the single most important factor in determining the extent to which fossils of different ages become mixed will unlock research avenues that were previously restricted.

“The dataset is incredibly powerful. We’re now working on multiple follow-up projects that explore various aspects of time averaging and related processes. You can use it to answer a lot of questions, but of course, we started with the big one,” said Michal Kowalewski, the Thompson chair of invertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum.

Through this unique collaboration, Michal and his colleagues have what is possibly the largest collection of fossil carbon dates ever compiled, which can now be used on a variety of research topics that would have been intractable otherwise.

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