Biodiversity Blog
Sorting Fish
Those preserved specimens in natural history collections didn't get into their jars or drawers on their own. Quite a bit of work was involved, not only in the field, but also in the lab. This time lapse video from the Ichthyology Collection shows one of the first steps, sorting the specimens into jars.The Challenge of 1%
Dung beetle (Photo: Alex Wild)
Natural History collections hold material going back centuries, but the digital revolution means their holdings are now open to everyone, pending the process of digitization. Properly digitizing specimens consumes enormous resources, particularly the one we all have so little of: time.
But the Entomology Coll... Old Croone Day!
Croone as painted in 1680 by Mary Beale, one of the most prolific British portrait painters at the time.
Got plans on June 4th? Looking for something to celebrate? Might think about Old Croone Day. While it’s not official, the day honors a man who gave us a lot when it comes to the modern natural history collection.
Dr. William Croone (... Space Limitations in UT’s Fluid-preserved Fish Collection – An Opportunistic Test of a Space-efficient Shelving Strategy
By: Adam Cohen, Dean Hendrickson and Melissa Casarez
Specimens are, in many ways, like books written in languages we are still learning. New technologies like DNA analyses, high-resolution CT scanning, and modern chemistry are providing ways to “read” the complex information stored in specimens. They tell us more about their evolutionary relationsh... 
