Photo: Dick Daniels (http://carolinabirds.org/)
If you step outside, you can probably hear this bird in a nearby tree, cooing softly. Or you might see it foraging on the ground, its head bobbing back and forth on its plump beige body.
This is the white-winged dove (Zenaida asiatica). Its name tells you how to tell it apart from ot... 
Illustration: Nicole Elmer
The origin of viruses is a hotly debated topic. It’s unclear how they first evolved. However, there are many ideas floating around out there. There are three classical hypotheses but many new ideas and discoveries challenging them.
The first one is the virus first hypothesis, and states that since viruse... 
Female Green Anole, looking a little brownish-green. (Photo: Travis Laduc)
With more time than usual at our homes, and the weather not searing hot yet, it’s a great opportunity to get outside and become familiar with the species we have in our own backyards! The Green Anole (Anolis carolinensis) is a common lizard not difficu... 
by Dr. Alex Wild (Curator of Entomology, Biodiversity Collections) and Nicole Elmer (Biodiversity Center)
Adult Gulf Fritillary (Photo: Alex Wild)
Austin is a butterfly town. About 150 kinds are known to occur in our area, a mix of temperate and tropical, desert and deciduous forest species. Although many people know the famous... 
Illustration: Nicole Elmer
The history of viruses is difficult to trace because they don’t exist in the fossil record. Unlike our beloved dinosaurs, viruses don’t have bones that can be fossilized, and they are just too small and fragile.
However, there is another way viruses can make their mark in the fossil record, and that’s th... 
Photo: Kathryn Gatliff
The Northern Mockingbird is probably one of the easiest birds to identify, if not by their bold maneuvers to protect their territory, then certainly by their characteristic song. In fact, their scientific name Mimus polyglottos is based entirely on their vocal natures: “mimus” is Latin for mimic and “polyglo... 
Illustration: Nicole Elmer
Viruses are remarkably diverse. Some have RNA genomes, some have DNA genomes. Others have single-stranded genomes, and some have double-stranded genomes. But within this diversity, they still have common features. They are tiny, with a diameter less than 200 nanometers, hundreds of times smaller than mos... 
A female Tipula crane fly in an Austin garden
Spring continues to roll through Austin, paying no heed to our human worries of viruses and lockdowns. Rains fall, trees leaf out, bluebonnets speckle the roadsides, and crane flies flutter clumsily across our lawns.
Crane flies?
Few insects are as strongly evocative of the Texan sprin... 
Photos: Larry Gilbert
At Brackenridge Field Lab, the Spanish Oaks (Quercus buckleyi) is found mainly in the old pasture zone. This tree is sometimes also called “Texas red oak” or “Buckley’s oak.”
The tree is native to Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. It grows on average between 30 to 50 feet tall. The largest known species grows right here in... 
by Gary P. Garrett, Dean A. Hendrickson, Adam E. Cohen (Ichthyology Collection)
illustrations by Joseph Tomelleri
The University of Texas Biodiversity Center Fish Collection holds over 73,000 jars with more than 1.7 million specimens of 1,785 species. Most (>75%) are from Texas freshwaters, representing 216 counties. However... 
A quick overview of 15 years of UT Fish Collection growth and collaborations with Texas Parks and Wildlife
by Dean A. Hendrickson, Adam E. Cohen, Gary P. Garrett
As stated in the Biodiversity Center’s Collections webpage, the challenges for our collections are to: 1) “document biodiversity,” 2) “understand how biological processes... 
Via a talk given by Dr. Larry Gilbert at BFL, September 2019
Brackenridge Field Laboratory is an 82 acre biological research site that is part of a nearly 400 acre land tract. It’s a site of rich biodiversity and an excellent area of research and outreach. Before it became the BFL, however, it was once something quite different with a very differen... 
Texas has eight species of juniper native to the state. Some prevent slope erosion, some play havoc with allergies, and some go into a gin made by Integrative Biology professor, Dr. Molly Cummings.
Dr. Cummings uses berries from two Texas junipers for two different gins made by WildGins Co., a gin company headquartered in Austin and run by Cummings... 
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... 
