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Florida Museum of Natural History
@floridamuseum.bsky.social
5.6K followers 130 following 400 posts
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.
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floridamuseum.bsky.social
Online Exhibit 🌊 Rare, Beautiful & Fascinating

Feature: Cross-section of Hard Clam (Mercenaria campechiensis)

Clam shells form yearly growth rings that record changes in the marine environment during the life of the animal.
🎧 More with Doug Jones: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/100-years/ob...
a thick clam shell has been carefully sliced in half along the curve of its cup and propped on another shell to show layers in the curve of the body
November 24, 2025 at 9:26 PM
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Museum Resource 🏺 Caribbean ceramic ID
Saladoid is #FancyAF, polychrome painting with a glossy finish, est. 800-200 BC in Venezuela, spread into Puerto Rico & the Lesser Antilles.

Emily Kracht created these info cards for Ceramic Tech Lab. Check them out:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/ceramiclab/b...
Infographic labeled "A handy guide to Caribbean ceramic identification- Saladoid". With descriptive writing and three hand-drawn images of colorful ceramics. Descriptive writing as follows in bullet points: Fancy af. One of the first series in the Caribbean. Beginning of the "Ceramic Age". Asterisk*. Polychrome painting, with a glossy finish. Est. 800-200 BC, in Venezuela. Spread into Puerto Rico & the Lesser Antilles. People making Saladoid pots were most similar to their mainland neighbors. Relied on a more terrestrial diet. Credit: Emily Kracht (@emweasels). Asterisk (*) at the bottom reads: Though Archaic age groups may have had pottery too!
November 21, 2025 at 9:45 PM
floridamuseum.bsky.social
Scientist Spotted 🦣 BBC talked to our paleontologist Advait Jukar about fossils preserved in Florida's freshwater springs and how they help researchers understand our past and present biodiversity.

Diving into Florida’s prehistoric cave of Ice Age secrets
www.bbc.com/reel/video/p...
Diving into Florida’s prehistoric cave of Ice Age secrets
The state's blue sinkholes are the silent reminders of the time when giants roamed the Earth.
www.bbc.com
November 20, 2025 at 3:46 PM
floridamuseum.bsky.social
Good photography is a powerful tool to help tell stories and capture imaginations. 👏👏👏 Congrats to our staff Mariela Pajuelo, Kristen Grace & Jeff Gage, each recognized for their photography featuring elements of natural and cultural history! 📸 Story:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/thre...
a small praying mantis is standing on a hand reaching towards another pair of hands holding a smart phone taking a picture of it under dramatic light in a dark area a dark bird with wet feathers is holding its wings up and arching its long neck around to groom itself with its long pointy beak a child is standing in front of a ledge with a light casting upward to illuminate a portion of a wall covered in hieroglyphics hands are gently holding a small red bird next to a gauge measuring its leg while someone watches in the distance
November 19, 2025 at 6:41 PM
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Welcome Natalie Binder 👏👏👏 Natalie is our new operations manager for the Randell Research Center, a historically and ecologically unique site on Pine Island, FL. She looks forward to building on her roots as a librarian and public educator with us:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/flor...
a person with short hair and a simple floral print shirt is standing against an aged wood wall below a sign that says Randell Research Center at Pineland
November 18, 2025 at 9:21 PM
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Exhibit #SciArt 🎨 Florida Pleistocene
During warm interglacial periods, some of Florida might have appeared much like it does today in the undisturbed areas of our state.

🗝️ Check out the species in the art + key, and related fossils from our collections:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/exhibits/blo...
a painting of an nature scene with an alligator floating at the surface of a pond with fishes and manatees below and above are tapirs and elephants and other animals roaming through the thick forest around the water, and a numbered key to the illustration positioned below it reflecting the list linked in the post
November 17, 2025 at 4:19 PM
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Work with us! 👉 Invertebrate Paleontology Collection Manager
Position will manage the extensive collections, conduct fieldwork, participate in public outreach, & pursue external funding.

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

🔸 Apply @ufl.edu: explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...
a group of people in matching t-shirts are standing at a table while a man holds up one of several trays of shallow boxes with different types of shells sorted neatly into them close up of a museum display of many large fossil shells mounted carefully on a black background with small info labels there is a person in outdoors clothing kneeling at the top of a long sandy slope covered in many small dark shells with a cloudy sky overhead
November 14, 2025 at 2:54 PM
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#ICYMI 🦪 Scientists and conservationists are racing to rebuild sustainable oyster populations, something that Indigenous communities were able to steward for millennia. Archaeologists are looking in ancient middens for more data:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/when...
two hands are using a metal tool to measure an oyster shell over a tray covered in many oyster shells
November 13, 2025 at 7:51 PM
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Scientists discover telephone-cord-like optic nerves in chameleons, which were overlooked by Aristotle, Newton, and everyone else, until now...

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

Study:
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
six frames of the same pale green chameleon from the front show its bulbous eyes facing in many different directions a digital scan of a lizard skull with a large triangular fin at the top nearly the same size as he skull itself and highlighted in purple are several blobs and tubes that seem to gather behind where the eye is and run off down the jaw and back towards the spine
November 10, 2025 at 6:03 PM
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Only eat oysters in months with an ‘r’? Rule of thumb is at least 4,000 years old
🦪 www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/oyst...

"Oysters in the Southeast spawn from May to October, and avoiding oyster collection in the summer may help replenish their numbers."
Only eat oysters in months with an ‘r’? Rule of thumb is at least 4,000 years old
Foodie tradition dictates only eating wild oysters in months with the letter "r" – from September to April – to avoid watery shellfish, or worse, a nasty bout of food poisoning. Now, a new study sugge...
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu
November 7, 2025 at 10:14 PM
floridamuseum.bsky.social
#SciArt Spotlight 🎨 Florida Pleistocene
This exhibit painting brings to life what the marine environments around Florida might have looked like during the Pleistocene.

🗝️ Check out the species in the art + key, and related fossils from our collections:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/exhibits/blo...
a painting of an underwater scene near the sandy floor that is covered with shells, crabs, urchins and sea grass while overhead swims fish, turtles, manatees and a seal, and a numbered key to the illustration positioned below it reflecting the list in the linked blog post
November 6, 2025 at 7:54 PM
floridamuseum.bsky.social
Scientists and conservationists are racing to rebuild sustainable oyster populations, something that Indigenous communities were able to steward for millennia. 🦪 Archaeologists are looking in ancient middens for more data:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/when...

Study: doi.org/10.1016/j.ja...
two scientists are in conversation seated at a work table with shells in their hands and in a pile in front of them in front of metal cabinets in a storage room of some kind
November 4, 2025 at 8:40 PM
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Tempered by time, Choctaw pottery connects ancestral past with living present
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/temp...

A question for archaeologists was why Pensacola potters elected to use oyster and clam shells as well as the freshwater mussel shells used by the broader Mississippian culture.
Tempered by time, Choctaw pottery connects ancestral past with living present
Key Points Archaeologists rely on pottery artifacts to understand the everyday lives of the people who made them. Analyzing the artifact’s composition, technique and decoration can help scientists ...
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu
November 3, 2025 at 7:22 PM
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#SpookySeason Skeletons 🩻 Online Exhibit
Museum technology is shifting how fish skeletons are processed, providing more access for research, education, outreach & global collaboration.

Inner Beauty 🐠 Skeletons Revealed from the Museum’s Fish Collection
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/exhibits/onl...
several views of a colorful scan of a fish from the front shows is small eyes and gaping mouth with rows of spiky teeth and from the side shows it has a wide sloping face and a small body
October 31, 2025 at 7:34 PM
floridamuseum.bsky.social
Last call! 👉 NAGPRA Bioarchaeologist and Coordinator
This is a this full-time, TEAMS exempt staff position.
🏛️📌 Apply by Oct 31, 2025

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

🔸 Apply via @ufl.edu: explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...
the front of a low, long building with steep earthen walls and a shallow metal roof has a simple portico that reaches out to the street in front and two rows of four flag poles on either side
October 30, 2025 at 2:27 PM
floridamuseum.bsky.social
Last call! 👉 Florida Museum Registrar
🏛️📌 Apply by Oct 31, 2025

The Registrar oversees the technical and regulatory aspects of collection accessions, permitting, & exchanges.

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

🔸 Apply via @ufl.edu: explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...
a person is standing on a narrow library corridor looking through a card catalog on one side and holing open drawers full of short planks of wood a person is leaning over a drawer in a cabinet full of shallow drawers full of tiny boxes of small fossils in a collections room of some kind
October 28, 2025 at 9:01 PM
floridamuseum.bsky.social
Online Exhibit 🌿 Rare, Beautiful & Fascinating

Feature: Florida Yew (Taxus floridana)

This critically endangered native Florida plant produces Taxol, an anticancer drug. Florida yew is not harvested commercially due to its rarity.

🎧 With Kent Perkins: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/100-years/ob...
close up of a pressed preserved plant that has numerous elongated evergreen leaves running up and down along each side of many entwined stems and tiny flower pods clustered at the bas along some sections of leaves
October 27, 2025 at 8:11 PM
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Congrats Elise! 👏👏👏 The Southeastern Museums Conference has recognized Florida Museum registrar Elise LeCompte with the James R. Short award, given in honor of lifetime (20+ years) service in the field.

About her career (and recent retirement):
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/elis...
headshot of a person with short sandy blond hair and rim-less glasses wearing a white blouse printed with stylized flowers against what might be an outdoors scene
October 23, 2025 at 7:36 PM
floridamuseum.bsky.social
Devil’s tooth fungus 😈 Spooky natural history

This alien fungus is sure to unsettle even the bravest mycologists! When it absorbs excess moisture, it exudes a red liquid that looks like blood from pores in its cap. Read more: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/spoo...

📷: ngkoons, CC BY-NC
two pale orange mushrooms are nestled in soft moss, one feathery and funnel shaped and one oblong and studded with large droplets of dark red fluid
October 22, 2025 at 7:22 PM
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Oct. 23 🍺🐛 Bugs, Bones and Brews

Spooky season at First Magnitude Brewing with our Daniels Lab researchers, vertebrate paleontology collection & the UF Thompson Earth Systems Institute team.

Hickory Horned Devil Hazy IPA 🍺 with jalapeno peppers

Event: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/event/bugs-b...
a person is crouching to look at a jack-o'-lantern that is in a plastic display to contain several large grasshoppers on a table with informational signs a person in a fly swatter costume is talking to a laughing person while another person dressed as a butterfly is watching
October 20, 2025 at 8:15 PM
floridamuseum.bsky.social
We're hiring! 👉 Florida Museum Registrar
The Registrar oversees the technical and regulatory aspects of collection accessions, permitting, and exchanges.

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

🔸 Apply via @ufl.edu: explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...

🏛️📌 Apply by Oct 31, 2025
two people are sitting at a work station in a storage room looking at ceramics pieces and cataloging them on paper and into a computer a shallow tray with dividers holds a cluttered assortment of aged bones and horns three very large jars each hold a preserved specimen of a marine creature like urchins and sponges
October 16, 2025 at 4:18 PM
floridamuseum.bsky.social
Archaeologists partnered with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma to better understand why Pensacola potters, who lived in Mobile Bay and adjacent coastal regions to the east and west around A.D. 1150-1700, used marine shell temper in their pottery.
Story:
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/temp...
in the foreground are numerous rounded clay pots half buried in flaming logs and hot coals of a fire on the ground and in the background are two people crouching to carefully move them around three people in outdoors clothing are standing and kneeling around a spot of red clay being dug out of a grassy area on the shore of a calm bay under bright sunlight people are seated in chairs and on benches in a circle around a good size fire in the center of a clearing while several people work in a wood pile nearby to feed the flames
October 15, 2025 at 7:51 PM
floridamuseum.bsky.social
Winter worm summer grass 😨 Spooky natural history

Ancient texts refer to a shape-shifting organism that lives out the winter as a worm and transforms into a plant during the summer. The horrifying answer might be in these cicadas: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/spoo...
several husks of young cicada insects covered in pale webbing are sprouting large fungal formations like a tassel from their head
October 14, 2025 at 5:38 PM
floridamuseum.bsky.social
We're hiring! 👉 NAGPRA Bioarchaeologist and Coordinator
This is a this full-time, TEAMS exempt staff position.

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

🔸 Apply via @ufl.edu: explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...

Please share! 🏛️📌 Apply by Oct 31, 2025
a rectangular sign that says Dickinson Hall sits in front of a low, long building with steep earthen walls and a shallow metal roof has a simple portico that reaches out to the street in front and two rows of four flag poles on either side
October 13, 2025 at 7:30 PM
floridamuseum.bsky.social
Oct. 23 🍺🐛 Bugs, Bones and Brews

Spooky season at First Magnitude Brewing with our Daniels Lab researchers, vertebrate paleontology collection & the UF Thompson Earth Systems Institute team.

Hickory Horned Devil Hazy IPA 🍺 with jalapeno peppers

Event: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/event/bugs-b...
a large pale green caterpillar with black blotches has large barbed spines protruding from its shoulders and running down its back in smaller sizes
October 10, 2025 at 3:30 PM