If you happened to be strolling down the East Mall on the warm afternoon of April 23rd, you might have noticed some tables holding cases of pinned insects, or perhaps some skulls and specimen jars. The event you passed was for Texas Biodiversity Day, and the Biodiversity Center participated to promote outreach and awareness, and to assist... 
by Dr. Travis LaDuc, Curator of Herpetology, Department of Integrative Biology
(Photo: Ian Wright)
The Spot-tailed Earless Lizard (Holbrookia lacerata) is a small (70 mm snout-vent length), enigmatic lizard historically found across much of the Edwards Plateau, parts of the Permian Basin in west Texas, and parts of the south Te... 
Bdallophytum americanum.
Every once in a while, we botanists discover things out in nature that, at first glance, appear to defy classification. The present photograph is a case in point. While botanizing in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, I stumbled upon weird little stout spikes up to four inches tall poking out of the ground. What wer... 
This rare, mostly underground ant species was not known from UT’s Brackenridge Field Lab until this year, when Curator of Entomology Alex Wild found one by chance under a stone. He snapped this photograph, possibly the first photograph taken of H. inexorata in the field. Colonies are small and subterranean, often near other species of ants. The wor... 
Biodiversity Discovery FRI Students Christiana Peek, Evan Samsky, Hannah Gilbreath, Thomas Johnston and Ari Nehrbass prepare to sample vegetation at BFL (Photo: Alejandro Santillana)
By Nicole Elmer and Dr. Susan Devitt
The Freshman Research Initiative is a pioneering program allowing first-year students chances for hands-on resea... 
American eels
This was written by Nicole Elmer, Melissa Casarez, and Dean Hendrickson
Citizen-science and social networking outreach efforts often yield benefits for researchers. This is no more evident than here in the University of Texas’ Hendrickson Lab (home of the Fishes of Texas project) with a recent surprising discovery of... 
