Florida Museum of Natural History

Florida Museum of Natural History The Florida Museum of Natural History, located at the University of Florida, inspires people to care about life on Earth. This site is not a public forum.
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Our exhibits building is currently CLOSED for an expansion project. Full info: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/visit/expansion/ The Florida Museum of Natural History intends to educate, inform and provide updated information on its activities and to support and promote its objectives for these activities through its page. All Florida Museum comments are made by Museum designees. Social

media users may share ideas through commentary that is consistent with and furthers the objectives of the Museum and the University of Florida. The Museum reserves the right to remove any comments that do not fall within this purpose, including those that are: off-topic, containing links to third-party websites or content, or made in violation of Florida or federal law. By posting a comment on our social media pages, you agree to follow the University of Florida Community Commenting Guidelines, host social media channel Terms of Service, Florida and federal law, and UF regulations and policies – including but not limited to the university’s Acceptable Use of Computing Resources Policy. Your comments may be removed if they are in violation of these guidelines.

Exploring Wildlife 🐍 Florida Snake ID GuideOur popular guide to Florida's snakes helps you with a quick search on the go...
06/20/2026

Exploring Wildlife 🐍 Florida Snake ID Guide

Our popular guide to Florida's snakes helps you with a quick search on the go with pictures, or just browse to get to know our state's species before you head out for a hike.

Each snake profile has great info on where they are known to live, their preferred habitats, what they eat and when they are most active.
🐍 Browse and search: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/florida-snake-id/

Featured: Rough Greensnake (Opheodrys aestivus)
NON-VENOMOUS

Other common names: Florida Rough Greensnake, Northern Rough Greensnake, Green Snake

Most adult Rough Greensnakes are about 14-33 inches in total length. This is a long and slender bright green snake with a cream to yellow belly. The belly color extends onto the chin and lips. Juvenile coloration is similar to adults but not as vivid.

They are found throughout mainland Florida in every county, as well as the Florida Keys.

There are no other (native) bright green snakes in Florida!

💚 Superb camouflage involving both coloration and behavior renders Rough Greensnakes extremely difficult to spot among the vegetation in which they live. As a result, even healthy populations of these bright green snakes can easily go unnoticed.

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

Featured: Rough Greensnake in its natural habitat. Photo courtesy of Luke Smith.

Museum Collections 🦈 Ancient SharkSharks have skeletons made of cartilage, which rarely preserves in the fossil record. ...
06/19/2026

Museum Collections 🦈 Ancient Shark

Sharks have skeletons made of cartilage, which rarely preserves in the fossil record. Gordon Hubbell has perhaps the world’s largest and best-preserved collection of rare shark jaws and teeth, including the only complete fossilized skull of a Great White Shark.

"Dr. Hubbell found this particular specimen in the 1980s," said paleontologist Bruce MacFadden. "And about 10 years ago we decided to go back to try to relocate the locality in the middle of nowhere in the desert of southern Peru and we had “X-marked-the-spot” on a topographic map. We spent a couple of days and finally we actually found the place!"

Featured
Ancient Great White Shark (Carcharodon hubbelli) from Peru
Lived ~5 million years ago

Gift of Gordon and Kate Hubbell

Museum collection: Vertebrate Paleontology

Online Exhibit 🦈 Rare, Beautiful & Fascinating
🎧 Read and listen to more with Bruce, and browse other objects from our collections: https://brnw.ch/21x3tM4

📸 Florida Museum photo by Kristen Grace

Pollinator Week 🌻 June 22-28, 2026SOON! We're always excited to celebrate around here. Florida is grateful for pollina...
06/18/2026

Pollinator Week 🌻 June 22-28, 2026
SOON! We're always excited to celebrate around here. Florida is grateful for pollinators, both in our natural spaces and as agricultural helpers.

June 27 🦋 Pollinator Palooza
Join us at First Magnitude Brewery to pick up a free plant, grab a bite to eat and try out special beer. Full info and plant list:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/event/pollinator-palooza-2026/

Museum Resource 🌼 Florida's Wildflowers & Butterflies
Our guide to 50 of Florida's most common wildflowers and butterflies will help you learn about flowers that grow best in your area. Browse:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/wildflowers/

More about
https://www.pollinator.org/pollinator-week

06/17/2026

June 27 🦋 Pollinator Palooza

🐝 We're heading to First Magnitude Brewery for our popular festival to celebrate Pollinator Week!

🍻 Grab a bite to eat and have beer

🪴 Choose a FREE native plant

🐛 Chat with butterfly researchers about their conservation work

🔬 Meet more Florida Museum scientists!

What: Pollinator Palooza
Where: First Magnitude Brewing Co.
When: Saturday, June 27 | 12-4 pm

🌞 Check our calendar for full info and plant list:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/event/pollinator-palooza-2026/

Online Exhibit 🐘 Wondrous Creatures"I make sculptures of prehistoric animals that represent the wonder to be found in na...
06/16/2026

Online Exhibit 🐘 Wondrous Creatures

"I make sculptures of prehistoric animals that represent the wonder to be found in natural history," said artist Ariel Bowman. "I am intrigued by animals that evolved with distinct features, such as unfamiliar tusks, strange elongated limbs and unusual proportions. I use clay to bring these extinct creatures back to life, sculpting folds of flesh and filling their bellies with air."

Wondrous Creatures explores wonder as an inspiration and a bridge between art and science.
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/exhibits/online/wondrous-creatures/

Featured:
Être à Court de Temps (Pushed for Time)

About the Art:
This piece speaks to the human idea of time. I chose to sculpt this eighteenth-century clock because it was an object of prestige that expressed the King’s interest in the sciences. It showed not only the time and date, but also movements of the sun around the Earth.

About the Science:
Platybelodon is an extinct genus of elephant that lived 10 million years ago in Africa and Eurasia. It was known for its distinctive shovel-tusk which has inspired many theories to determine its purpose. It was about the size of a modern day Asian elephant, and weighed around 2 tons.

Photo courtesy of Joshua Hobson

Only two more Tot Trot dates this season!We walk, we hop, we point, we clap! We learn about nature all around us! Our po...
06/15/2026

Only two more Tot Trot dates this season!

We walk, we hop, we point, we clap! We learn about nature all around us! Our popular toddler program promotes child-focused sensory experiences and investigation with an emphasis on families exploring science together.

🐾 Each Tuesday has a different theme and one program per month is FREE! Check our website for the meet-up location with map.

🦎 June:
June 16- Reptiles
June 23- Bioblitz, FREE Day

📌 Our Tot Trots program takes a break for the hot summer months. Look for our return in the fall!

Program info, prices and more dates:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/kids/tot-trots/

Length: About 1.5 hours

Age: Recommended for children ages 2-5 years old

When: Most Tuesday mornings at 9am

Where: Instead of meeting at the Museum, we will meet at the picnic tables at the UF NATL Natural Park Entrance located on the corner of Natural Area drive. *Full info on our website*

One of the ocean’s most recognizable corals is the iconic “organ pipe coral”. It was long believed to be a single widesp...
06/14/2026

One of the ocean’s most recognizable corals is the iconic “organ pipe coral”. It was long believed to be a single widespread species but scientists have recently discovered it includes at least 15 genetically distinct lineages.

"From their skeleton, these corals can look very similar, which is why their diversity remained hidden for so long,” said Laura Macrina, a post-doctoral fellow at the King Abdullah University Of Science And Technology - KAUST, who led the study. “Genomic tools now allow us to look in much more detail into their evolutionary history and understand how coral species are connected – or separated – across different regions.”

The discovery is particularly significant for the Red Sea, where researchers identified two coral lineages that appear unique to the region, adding to growing evidence that this sea is one of the planet’s great cradles of marine biodiversity.

All of the corals collected and analyzed for this study are now stored in natural history museums, where scientists around the world will have access to them for future studies.

“Museum collections are libraries of life that hold a huge number of unread books,” wrote study co-author Gustav Paulay, curator of invertebrate zoology here at the Florida Museum. “Unfortunately, there is limited support for studying specimens, thus much undiscovered diversity lurks in collections.”

🪸 Story: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/hidden-in-plain-sight-dna-reveals-15-overlooked-coral-lineages-in-the-indo-pacific/

June 27 🦋🐝 Pollinator Palooza at First Magnitude BreweryPick up a free plant, grab a bite to eat and have beer to celebr...
06/13/2026

June 27 🦋🐝 Pollinator Palooza at First Magnitude Brewery
Pick up a free plant, grab a bite to eat and have beer to celebrate Pollinator Week with us. Chat with researchers from our Daniels Lab about their conservation work with at-risk butterfly species and the plants they rely on to thrive.

Plant for pollinators! 🪴 Each visitor can choose one plant from a variety of native species, available on first come, first served basis until we’re out [plant list on event page].

We’re excited to be at First Magnitude Brewing Company again for this fabulous festival to support pollinator conservation.

What: Pollinator Palooza
Where: First Magnitude Brewing Co.
When: Saturday, June 27 | 12-4 pm

Event info:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/event/pollinator-palooza-2026/

Museum Resource 🌼 Florida's Wildflowers & ButterfliesWhat's growing in your garden? The flowers you plant will attract d...
06/12/2026

Museum Resource 🌼 Florida's Wildflowers & Butterflies

What's growing in your garden? The flowers you plant will attract different kinds of pollinators and even support them in their larval stages.

Our guide to 50 of Florida's most common wildflowers and butterflies will help you learn about flowers that grow best in your area. You can search by color or county, or just scroll through to get ideas.

Or toggle to the butterfly side of our guide and learn what to plant to entice them to your yard!

Browse:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/wildflowers/

Fossil Spotlight 🐈 Loves’ false sabercatIt's hard to imagine living in Florida in a time you might encounter large preda...
06/11/2026

Fossil Spotlight 🐈 Loves’ false sabercat
It's hard to imagine living in Florida in a time you might encounter large predators like this. Look at those teeth!

Loves’ false sabercat, Barbourofelis loveorum, is an extinct sabertoothed carnivore that was about the size of a modern jaguar, weighing approximately 150 lbs. It preferred a thickly wooded habitat and was an ambush predator that may have been able to bring down prey much larger than itself.

Fossils of Barbourofelis loveorum have been found in Florida, California, and Oklahoma.
More: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/florida-vertebrate-fossils/species/barbourofelis-loveorum/

Featured fossils:
Loves’ false sabercat
Species: Barbourofelis loveorum
Specimen: # UF 24447, 36855

This excerpt is from a painting in our fossil hall that is even more interesting, populated with more early animals of Florida's history.

Florida Miocene 🎨 23 to 5 million years ago
The Miocene in Florida saw the arrival of the great megafauna land dwellers. From sabertoothed carnivores to grazing rhinos to incredibly tall giraffe camels, a diverse variety of animals lived and thrived in our state.

🗝️ Check out the key to the animals in the painting:

1. Epicyon saevus (fierce hyena-dog)
2. Teleoceras proterum (short-legged rhino)
3. Sabal species (sabal palm)
4. Barbourofelis loveorum (false saber-toothed cat)
5. Protohippus gidleyi (Gidley’s three-toed horse)
6. Egretta species (heron)
7. Aepycamelus major (giraffe camel)
8. Synthetoceras tricornatus (3-horned slingshot)

There are more paintings from our Florida Fossils exhibit and fossils from our collections on our website!
Start with this painting:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/exhibits/blog/florida-miocene-painting-by-mauricio-anton/

Florida Miocene painting by Mauricio Antón

Address

3215 Hull Road
Gainesville, FL
32611

Opening Hours

Monday 10am - 5pm
Tuesday 10am - 5pm
Wednesday 10am - 5pm
Thursday 10am - 5pm
Friday 10am - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 5pm
Sunday 1pm - 5pm

Telephone

+13528462000

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