Museum of Natural and Cultural History
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uomnch.bsky.social
Museum of Natural and Cultural History
@uomnch.bsky.social
5.7K followers 260 following 330 posts
Oregon's science and culture museum. Located on the University of Oregon campus in Eugene, Oregon. State repository for archaeological and paleontological artifacts.
@mnch_uo on Instagram and @uo_mnch on TikTok.
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uomnch.bsky.social
It's up through the end of March (Sunday, March 29, is its final day). Hope you can make it!
February 4, 2026 at 11:41 PM
uomnch.bsky.social
The local newspaper of the time, Grant County News, mentioned Louisa as building a croquet course, hosting parties, and making homemade ice cream. The stripes on this portrait, painted by Jeremy Okai Davis, are a reference to Neapolitan ice cream. /🧵🏛️🎨
A painted portrait of the historical photo from the last post. It's Louisa Sewell, a young Black woman, seated and holding a Black child in the classic Madonna and child pose. The background is a vibrant rust orange with patterns of "pixelated" dots. Louisa's dress is a deep-hued blue with white flowers. On the right of the canvas are three stripes: pink, white, and brown.
February 4, 2026 at 12:19 AM
uomnch.bsky.social
check out this starter pack we put together, too:
go.bsky.app/Ko2Bvky
January 22, 2026 at 6:58 PM
uomnch.bsky.social
Alright, thanks for reading my #SquirrelAppreciationDay photodump. Thanks to Andrew (archaeologist) for the modern skull photoshoot and Sam (paleontologist) for the fossil skull photoshoot and for finding a real acorn for scale.

Lastly, thanks to the campus squirrels. Stop taking my lunch.
A squirrel sits on a tree branch in the museum courtyard. Its fluffy red tail hangs down, ostensibly for balance but really for cuteness. It's eating something with its cute grabby hands...probably my lunch.
January 21, 2026 at 9:11 PM
uomnch.bsky.social
This tiny tiny tooth fossil is from a flying squirrel from about 17 million years ago, collected near Paulina, Oregon! All these fossils are evidence of woodlands & forests in the areas these squirrels lived in.
An acorn. Next to it sits a little pedestal with an individual fossil squirrel tooth on top. The tooth is the size of the stem of the acorn (very very small). This tooth is from a flying squirrel from 16 million years ago. 
January 21, 2026 at 9:05 PM
uomnch.bsky.social
OH this is a skull & a right lower jaw, sorry, I forgot to mention that!

The earliest members of the squirrel family (37 million years agoish) lived in and were dependent on trees. Ground squirrels (prairie dogs, marmots, etc.) didn't evolve until about 20 million years ago.
A top-down view of the skull & lower right jawbone, again.
January 21, 2026 at 9:01 PM
uomnch.bsky.social
IT'S FOSSIL SQUIRREL TIME.

This is the type specimen of Protosciurus, a genus of tree squirrels. It was collected by Thomas Condon (one of the @uoregon.bsky.social's first three professors) in 1870 and is 28 million yearsish old. It was found in the John Day Formation.
A blue background with an acorn. About twice the size of the acorn is a fossil skull, the type specimen of Protosciurus condoni - the top is separated from the lower jaw, but they are arranged close together. Tiny little teeth stick out from the lower jaw.  A top-down view of the fossil skull and jaw. The skull is turned upside down, exposing 8 tiny dark grey teeth. The jawbone has four teeth exposed. 
January 21, 2026 at 8:56 PM
uomnch.bsky.social
Meanwhile, dead modern squirrels are inside our comparative collection. Our deputy director of archaeological science Andrew Boehm really answered my call for "squirrel pictures."

Peep that drawer full of squirrel bones and then peep that there are two more behind it. 👀
Andrew Boehm grins and holds a drawer with 19 small boxes in it, all full of various squirrel bones. My favorite label is "unidentified squirrel mandibles," which is also my new band name. Archaeologist Andrew Boehm has a clean squirrel skull perched on his fist, staring at him. He stares back.  Andrew now holds the squirrel skull so it looks at the camera, staring deeply into my soul. He smiles as if it's not creepy.
January 21, 2026 at 8:50 PM
uomnch.bsky.social
Our campus squirrels at @uoregon.bsky.social love our Native Plants Courtyard. And my lunch.

I think these are either Eastern fox squirrels or Eastern gray squirrels (ODFW identifies 4 native and 2 invasive species of tree squirrels in Oregon) but please, squirrel experts, jump in here.
The background is one of the museum courtyard porticos with a Chabre gargoyle of a raven. In the foreground, a grey squirrel struts toward the camera, its fluffy tail perked up in interest.  A perfectly shaped angel of a squirrel struts down a tree like a model down a catwalk. One of the museum's interpretive signs is visible in front of the tree, reading "Red Alder." Part of the museum courtyard. The baby mammoth sculpture in the background, the foreground is green grass and a grey squirrel sits demurely on its hind legs, looking at the sculpture.
January 21, 2026 at 8:42 PM
Reposted by Museum of Natural and Cultural History
smilodonichthys.bsky.social
Wally! I remember him from when we had him at Bill Sullivan's old place 😊 so glad he's being worked on again! NARG has meetings the first Wednesday of every month at the Tualatin Heritage Center in Tualatin, OR, from 6-9pm. Meetings are open to the public. There's a lecture & we share our fossils
December 29, 2025 at 10:37 PM