What is oVert? oVert, short for openVertebrate, is a new initiative to provide free, digital 3-D vertebrate anatomy models and data to researchers, educators, students and the public. Over the next four years, the oVert team will CT scan 20,000 fluid-preserved specimens from U.S. museum collections
Even delicate structures, such as the muscles in the hand of this Tanzanian screeching
Brazilian free-tailed bats are expert flyers, capable of migrating hundreds of miles and regularly traveling more than 30 miles a night. But they pull up short at a narrow ocean channel that cuts across the Bahamas, dividing bat populations that last shared an ancestor hundreds of thousands of years
collapsed in 2009 Reed and Speer suddenly had dozens of free-tailed bat specimens at hand
The great white shark is one of the largest living predatory animals and a magnet for media sensationalism, yet its evolutionary history is as misunderstood as its role as a menace. Originally classified as a direct relative of megatooth sharks, the white shark’s evolutionary history has been
With Hubbell’s hand-drawn maps and descriptions of the landscape, researchers returned
When most people hear the words Guantanamo Bay, they immediately think of the infamous prison built there in 2001. But for Roger Portell, an invertebrate paleontologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History, Guantanamo means the chance to collect marine fossils on an island that is otherwise larg
The younger terrace fossils, on the other hand, look like they formed fairly close
One of the hardest parts of working from home these days is being separated from hands-on projects in the lab and collections. Museum people want to have their stuff nearby. As the manager of the Ceramic Tech Lab, I normally have many different projects going on: identifying and sorting pottery fro
Using the flat side of the paddle with my hand inside, I whacked it evenly around
It was a chilly February day. A handful of Florida teachers gathered on the edge of a dirt pit in rural Levy County. Wind whipped across the open landscape, toying with scarves and making the little flags scattered around the pit dance on their long stems. Florida’s weak winter sunlight was sharp in
These hand-chosen teachers were here to dig for fossils as part of a professional
Happy Earth Day, Friends! We could not think of a more perfect day to share a summary of the 2025 season at the Randell Research Center (RRC) and to reconnect as a group through a revival of the Friends of the Randell Research Center Newsletter! Around the world, Earth Day unites billions of people
It has also been wonderful to meet so many of you and see first-hand your dedication
On May 25, 2024, the Florida Museum of Natural History’s newest exhibit, Science Up Close: Incredible Insects was unveiled to the public. This exciting exhibit gives attendees the opportunity to encounter remarkable bug species and converse with entomologists. Visitors can also view an extensive col
allowing them to collect on ACT properties, and a wish list of desired bugs in hand
Their mission? To extract an ice core from a polar ice cap and inspect its geological markers for climate change indicators.
Using the controller, they grabbed a hand ice auger, bored it into the compacted
A $2.5 million National Science Foundation grant will launch a new initiative to “teleport” specimens from museum shelves to the internet by CT scanning 20,000 vertebrates and making these data-rich, 3-D images available to researchers, educators, students and the public. The oVert project, short
Specimens must be hand-selected, shipped, tracked, scanned, uploaded to MorphoSource
