In 426 AD, a noble we now know as K’inich Yax K’uk‘ Mo‘ (Great Sun First Quetzal Macaw), arrived in the Copán Valley of Honduras, Central America, and founded a dynasty of Maya kings that endured for over 400 years. Where Yax Ku’k Mo originally traveled from is still a mystery, but we have learned t
Chickasaws repurposed Spanish objects for everyday use Cultural Heritage Ancient DNA
The Indo-West Pacific is the largest, most biodiverse marine ecosystem on Earth, and many of the species it supports have comparably wide ranges. Writing in “The Origin of Species,� Charles Darwin noted that “… many fish range from the Pacific into the Indian Ocean, and many shells are common to the
species are related to each other, which he accomplished through an analysis of DNA
Pamela Soltis, a distinguished professor and curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History, has been selected as a 2022 fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest scientific society. Soltis is among 508 scientists, engineers and innovators who were chos
Killingsworth receives award for outstanding geoscience graduate students Evolution DNA
An international team of scientists has identified at least 11 species of fish suspected to have land-walking abilities. The findings are based on CT scans and a new evolutionary map of the hillstream loach family, which includes the only living fish species caught in the act of walking: a rare,
The team used CT scanning and DNA analysis to trace the evolutionary history of the
To be fair, the newly described Waray dwarf burrowing snake is pretty great at hiding. In its native habitat on the islands of Samar and Leyte in the Philippines, the snake usually surfaces only after heavy rains, similar to earthworms washing up on suburban sidewalks after a downpour. So, it
A close examination of the snake’s DNA and physical features, including its scales
Herbarium Methodologies Learn about herbaria and the techniques we use to preserve and study plant specimens. A herbarium is a collection of plant samples preserved for long-term study. These collections are diverse, including pressed, dried and mounted plants, seeds, wood sections, pollen, microsc
dried and mounted plants, seeds, wood sections, pollen, microscope slides, frozen DNA
The Florida Museum of Natural History recently recognized operations coordinator Kurt Auffenberg as the 2010 recipient of the Thompson Van Hyning Award. The service award, the highest given to museum employees who are not faculty members or students, honors the museum’s first director, Thompson V
: Ray and Kirk dig Florida Creative Outreach: TreeTender at Dragon Con Cattle DNA
Our last Volunteer Enrichment Workshop of the season was a blast! Nicole Fuller, Collections Manager of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s Environmental Archaeology collections and program, along with our director, Michelle LeFebvre, provided an overview of cutting-edge environmental archaeolog
archaeology geochemical and biochemical analysis techniques (e.g., isotopes, ancient DNA
A new book by Nicolas Delsol, a courtesy faculty member and former researcher at the Florida Museum of Natural History, reveals the profound role cattle played in shaping the Americas. Delsol is currently in the Laboratoire d’Archéologie at Université Laval in Quebec, Canada. In this book, Delsol
their impact in the Americas by using a broad range of methods, such as ancient DNA
Florida Museum of Natural History student François Michonneau recently received a $15,000 National Science Foundation grant to research sea cucumbers in Japan. The NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant program provides partial support for projects to improve the quality of research in the b
by combining physical evidence from the specimens he collects, with a complete DNA
