Florida Museum of Natural History

@floridamuseum.bsky.social

The Florida Museum of Natural History inspires people to care about life on Earth. Located on the University of Florida campus, we are also the state museum.

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 6:22 PM

Mammoth Moves 🦣 During our exhibit building closure, our exhibit team and paleontologists temporarily moved our iconic mammoth to replace the flooring – no small feet, um, feat!

🦣 Blog + photos: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/exhibits/blo...

📢 Reopening our exhibits building on Nov. 23, 2026!

a person on a ladder is using large calipers to measure the hip width of a large mammoth skeleton in a museum gallery

an old blurry and poorly lit vintage shot of two people on a scissor lift carefully attaching a skull to what looks like a large mammoth skeleton in a work room

a somewhat aged photo of a group of 15 people posed in a museum lobby in front of a mammoth skeleton under big windows

a mammoth skeleton is looming over a museum gallery with blue walls and a blue sky themed ceiling decoration cast in diffused sunlight from high windows

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 7:16 PM

#SpookySeason Science 🐠 Online Exhibit
Ichthyologists use two main techniques to prepare skeletons from preserved specimens of all shapes and sizes without losing their skeletal positions.

Inner Beauty 🩻 Skeletons Revealed from the Museum’s Fish Collection
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/exhibits/onl...

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 8:27 PM

Spooky natural history 😱 Horrific hunter

Measuring up to 2 inches long, cicada killer wasps evolved their disturbingly large proportions to immobilize cicadas so their young can slowly eat them alive. More: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/spoo...

📷: Alejandro Santillana, Insects Unlocked, CC0

a detailed close-up of a large dead wasp curled up on its side with heavy abdomen with a sharp stinger

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 9:05 PM

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

Shown: Gulf Darter (Etheostoma swaini), indigenous to Florida's freshwaters
🔗 More info & browse gallery:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/discover-fis...

two specimens of small, elongated fishes with lobed fins and dark gray-brown mottled coloring on their bodies. There are bright orange and soft blue stripes on their larger fins and small patches of orange along their bellies

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Oct 2, 2026, 7:15 PM

Museum Collections 🧵 Seminole Dolls
The Seminole and Miccosukee doll collection at the Florida Museum covers the 1930s to early 2000s:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/sflarch/ethn...

Explore some of the details like faces, jewelry and hairstyles represented:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/sflarch/ethn...

close up of a selection of dolls with elaborate and detailed patchwork clothing and round heads made of some kind of rough fiber material

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Oct 1, 2026, 7:35 PM

#ICYMI Archaeologists have long debated how pottery from Native Americans of the Mississippian culture in what is now the Southeast U.S. wound up in Tampa Bay, FL.

The answer: a secretive guild of migrant pottery artisans: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/arch...

Study: doi.org/10.1017/aaq....

Three white trays filled with microscope slides. One slide is tilted up, labeled 'NW-1310' with a specimen.

A hand holding a small, weathered stone star-shaped object against a backdrop of fragmented rock textures.

eight pieces of irregular, ancient pottery are lined up in two rows next to glass slides with a thin section of brown substance that might be a sample cut from the potsherds

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Sep 30, 2026, 3:11 PM

The BIG news 📢 Nov. 23, 2026

Our reopening date has been confirmed! 🎉 We are so happy to welcome everyone back to our exhibits building just in time for the holidays.

Much more news to come as we wrap up construction and prepare to reopen our doors. 📢 www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/visit/expans...

a large mammoth skeleton with huge, curving tusks looms over head against the blue walls of a museum gallery with dappled sunlight falling against one side of an entrance to a Water Shapes Florida exhibit doorway

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Sep 29, 2026, 1:47 PM

Work with us! 🐾 Assistant Curator of Environmental Archaeology
This is a 12-month, tenure-track position 👇

🔸 Full info: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/nhdept/caree...

🔸 About the Department of Natural History at the Florida Museum: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/nhdept/

🏛️📌 Apply by Oct. 16, 2026

A person wearing glasses uses a digital caliper to measure a shell from a tray of numerous shells in a lab.

Two people kneeling by a rectangular archaeological excavation site, using brushes to clear dirt from stones.

Four people work in a storage room filled with shelves of boxes, using laptops and lamps to examine specimens.

An adult and two students examine seashells and small fossils in plastic bins in a classroom with educational posters on the walls.

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Sep 28, 2026, 2:57 PM

Vaughn Shirey, a curator at our McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, is fascinated by his chosen field of study, but also sees a connection between conservation & creativity.

Shadow puppets for science: Exploring the biodiversity of imagination
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/events/blog/...

Five people gather around a table covered in various black cut-out silhouettes of insects and plants.

People gather around a white sheet illuminated by a light, attracting various moths and insects at night.

A man with glasses and a beard holds a black paper cutout of a moth.

A person in a tropical shirt looks at various insect cutouts suspended on a blue-lit fabric.

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 4:42 PM

Scientist Spotted 🦜 Our ornithologist Glaucia Del-Rio talked to the 'Okay, But Birds' podcast about Amazonian antbirds and her research in their newest episode:

Okay, but griffins, and ligers, and birds, oh my!
www.okaybutbirds.com/episodes/e41
🦜

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Sep 24, 2026, 7:26 PM

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

Shown: Jaguar Guapote (Parachromis managuensis), non-indigenous to Florida's freshwaters
🔗 Info & browse:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/discover-fis...

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Sep 22, 2026, 2:31 PM

Archaeologists have long debated how pottery from Native Americans of the Mississippian culture in what is now the Southeast U.S. wound up in Tampa Bay, FL. The answer: a secretive guild of migrant pottery artisans.

Story: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/arch...

Study: doi.org/10.1017/aaq....

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Sep 21, 2026, 3:19 PM

#ICYMI 🦀 Sea snakes are known to have a variety of marine hitchhikers living on them. Biologists expected to find oceanic rafting crabs in the genus Planes in the mix, but found the wrong species instead. Story: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/plan...

Study onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

close up on a bright yellow surface covered in irregular raised circles that could be scales of some kind and in the middle is a very small and nearly transparent animal that looks somewhat like a crab

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Sep 18, 2026, 1:26 PM

Pam & Doug Soltis, @ufl.edu distinguished professors based out of the Florida Museum, recently received this year's Peter Raven Award by the American Society of Plant Taxonomists.

They're adept at making complex scientific topics easy to understand. Story: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/pam-...

two people are sitting at a wooden table in a library surrounded by shelves of books and there are sheets of paper with pressed plants attached to them spread out in front of them

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Sep 17, 2026, 2:22 PM

Eleven undergrad students at @ufl.edu are the first to assemble the pignut hickory tree genome. The work was part of a hands-on research course open to all majors and taught by instructors here at the Florida Museum: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/it-t...

Study: academic.oup.com/g3journal/ar...

there are four large yellow-green fruits on a branch covered with thick clusters of long, pointed leaves

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Sep 15, 2026, 8:49 PM

Museum Collections 🌾 Fakahatchee Grass
This clumping Florida-native grass is a larval food plant for the Byssus skipper butterfly. From UF/IFAS: gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/plants/ornam...

Collection:
Species: Tripsacum dactyloides
Specimen: # FLAS 149700
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/herbarium/

Herbarium specimen of a long tuft of reedy grasses folded up and carefully attached to a white sheet with an information label at the bottom and a FLAS Herbarium stamp near the top.

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Sep 14, 2026, 1:36 PM

We're hiring! 🐾 Assistant Curator of Environmental Archaeology
This is a 12-month, tenure-track position 👇

🔸 Full info: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/nhdept/caree...

🔸 About the Department of Natural History at the Florida Museum: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/nhdept/

🏛️📌 Apply by Oct. 16, 2026

A woman in a striped shirt holds a fragment of pottery while standing in a storage area with shelves of archival boxes.

A person wearing a cap sits on a beach, holding a sieve over a bucket with other buckets and nets on the sand.

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Sep 11, 2026, 6:04 PM

Planes on a snake? Sea snakes are known to have a variety of marine hitchhikers living on them. Biologists expected to find oceanic rafting crabs in the genus Planes in the mix, but found the wrong species instead.

Story + study: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/plan...

Three clear vials of fluid each have a very tiny nearly transparent crab in them and an information label on the side

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Sep 10, 2026, 9:08 PM

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

Shown: Goldline Snakehead (Channa aurolineata), non-indigenous to Florida's freshwaters
🔗 Info & browse:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/discover-fis...

@floridamuseum.bsky.social Sep 9, 2026, 3:58 PM

Museum Collections 🐾 Beautiful armadillo
Browse our fossil vertebrate collections in a searchable database with photos and map:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/vertpaleo/pr...

Featured
Species: Dasypus bellus
Specimen: # UF/VP 61906

About this extinct armadillo: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/florida-vert...

an oblong slab of fossil has an unusual surface that looks like a series of many small overlapping shingles in slightly irregular rows. Below it is a 4 inch scale bar labeled Florida Museum of Natural History.

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