Photo by Jaime Silva (via Flickr)
Pigeons are so ubiquitous, searching our sidewalks and streets for anything edible, perched overhead on powerlines and building ledges, we don’t really give them much thought. In fact, pigeons get a pretty bad rap sometimes, are written off as nothing more than “rats with wings.” However, they are... 
By Adam Cohen, Collection Manager and Melissa Casarez, Assistant Collection Manager (Ichthyology Collection)
We, in the fish collection, often find ourselves wading in deep, murky waters when out collecting around the state in creeks and rivers with steep banks and little chance for a quick escape, if necessary. During these times, we find it ... 
By Dean Hendrickson (Curator, Ichthyology Collection) and Nicole Elmer
Satan eurystomus (Photo: Garold Sneegas)
In our last Halloween posting, the scorpionfly donned orange, black, and yellow. The species in this blog’s focus is pale and pink. This is Satan eurystomus, also known as the Widemouth Blindcat, a cave catfish, known... 
Mexican free-tailed bat (Photo: Tigga Kingston)
It’s October. The weather cools. People plan their Halloween costumes. Images of ghosts, vampires and other monsters start to fill our neighbors’ lawns or grocery store candy isles. Without a doubt, bats will be part of this montage, but do they deserve the association with scar... 
The National Science Foundation recently awarded the Billie L. Turner Plant Resource Center a new grant for approximately $817,000. The grant extends over four years to complete the digitization of more than 500,000 herbarium specimens collected in the states of Texas and Oklahoma and housed in the herbaria, as well as those of 10 partner instituti... 
Bufo valliceps. (Photo: Drew Davis)
While it might be easy to assume we don’t have toads on campus, the Gulf Coast Toad (Bufo valliceps) is one species that does live here. Waller Creek is a one place to see them, in addition to planters where they hide, or on sidewalks at twilight to consume the insects that are att... 
Photo: California Department of Water Resources (Wikimedia commons)
With their ringed tails and black “masks,” raccoons (Procyon lotor) are easy to recognize. These curious and smart mammals are native to North America. Due to their extreme adaptability and opportunistic natures, they are also part of the urban wildlife on the UT ... 
Illustration by Joseph R. Tomelleri
The only member of this minnow genus known from Texas, the Río Grande Chub, Gila pandora (Cope, 1872), lives in about a dozen sites in Río Grande tributaries of New México, and Colorado, and in one highly isolated, one mile-long section of a small stream in the Davis Mountains o... 
Male red-eared slider, posing. (Photo: Nicole Elmer)
They’re out. Stacks of them. Sometimes piled on top of each other like bricks, feet extended, much to the delight of students and visitors to the UT turtle pond. These campus charmers are turtles commonly known as “red-eared sliders,” or Trachemys scripta elegans.
The “red” come... 
Photo: Stanley Trauth 2007 (wikipedia)
A few years ago, I built several ponds near my house at the Double Helix Ranch, hoping that frogs would colonize them and I could enjoy the sound of frog calls outside my window. Several different species have come and bred there including Strecker's Chorus frogs (Pseudacris streckeri), Grey ... 
The Atta roach in a fungus garden. (Photo: Alex Wild)
A moonless springtime night at Brackenridge Field Lab. The sun will rise shortly. The Texas leaf-cutter ants (Atta texana) have started their nuptial flights as the winged virgin females and much smaller males fly about. Some of the queens are not alone in their journeys howeve... 
Virginia Opossum (Photo by Cody Pope)
At night, the UT campus slows but never quite stops. Those out and about in the dark hours might witness some of the nocturnal creatures on campus, one being the only marsupial native to North America: the opossum.
The opossum is of the order Didelphimorphia and is endemic to the Americas, the... 
For the observant visitor to the UT-Austin campus, the 40 Acres sometimes reveal botanical treasures. For example, not many local inhabitants are aware that the campus harbors native wild orchids. In recent weeks, the spring coral root orchids, Corallorhiza wisteriana have been experiencing an exceptionally good bloom.
Corallo... 
photo by Jacob McGinnis
Our campus is home to lots of different birds that are impossible to miss: an inky black grackle flying dangerously close overhead, a chubby pigeon picking at a crust of pizza. But with winter upon UT, we also have another visitor: the Cedar Waxwings. These are strikingly beautiful birds that are less obvi... 
CLICK ON IMAGE TO PLAY VIDEO.
Biodiversity Collections, specifically the Entomology Collection team, are collaborating with researchers from UT's Brackenridge Field Laboratory, University of Georgia, and more to produce a series of SciComm videos that aim to expose people to the decades of research that have gone into what we know abo... 
Photo by Alex Wild.
February 2nd was an unusually warm Saturday for winter, even in Central Texas. Many took the opportunity to work in the yard, exercise, lounge in the sun, but in Welsh Hall on campus, about 20 UT undergraduates were instead hovering over 3000 dung beetles.
This was for an event called “Science Sprints,” one-day intensives tha... 
Students in Biodiversity Discovery stream.
With construction completed in 1933, Painter Hall has been around long enough to see plenty of renovations. One of the most recent is the addition of a brand-new lab space currently in use by students in the Biodiversity Discovery and Bugs in Bugs FRI (Freshmen Research Initiative) Stream... 
Photo by Gustavo Pazmiño with BIOWEB Ecuador
Meet Hyloscirtus hillisi, a newly discovered species of Andean tree frog, named after our own Director of the Biodiversity Center: Dr. David Hillis.
This frog was discovered by a team of researchers from Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, led by biologist and UT doctora... 
You might have seen them. Pink or dry grey spheres hanging on a branch of a live oak tree. Curious, you might have picked at the thing, thought it was just some strange tree growth, then tossed it aside. But this little sphere is the larval stage home to an insect that has an amazing and complex life cycle: the Oak Gall Wasp, or Disholcas... 
