Florida Museum of Natural History
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| Florida Museum of Natural History | |
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| Established: | 1891 |
| Dean: | Director Douglas S. Jones |
| Location: | Florida, USA |
| Website: | Official website |
The Florida Museum of Natural History shares the Cultural Plaza of the University of Florida with the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art and the Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in Gainesville, Florida. It's exhibits focus on the flora, fauna, fossils and historic peoples of Florida. Powell Hall, the main exhibit hall, is free of charge (but suggests a donation).
The museum's roots go back to the late 1800s. It moved to the University of Florida in 1906 and was chartered as the state's official natural history museum by the Florida Legislature in 1917. Formerly known as the Florida State Museum, the name was changed in 1988 to more accurately reflect the museum's mission and help avoid confusion with Florida State University, which is located in Tallahassee.
[edit] History
[edit] Mission Statement
The Florida Museum of Natural History is Florida's state museum of natural history, dedicated to understanding, preserving and interpreting biological diversity and cultural heritage.
[edit] Enabling Legislation
The role of the Florida Museum of Natural History as the official natural history museum for the State of Florida is defined by Florida Statute §1004.56 which states:
"The functions of the Florida Museum of Natural History, located at the University of Florida, are to make scientific investigations toward the sustained development of natural resources and a greater appreciation of human cultural heritage, including, but not limited to, biological surveys, ecological studies, environmental impact assessments, in-depth archaeological research, and ethnological analyzes, and to collect and maintain a depository of biological, archaeological, and ethnographic specimens and materials in sufficient numbers and quantities to provide within the state and region a base for research on the variety, evolution, and conservation of wild species; the composition, distribution, importance, and functioning of natural ecosystems; and the distribution of prehistoric and historic archaeological sites and an understanding of the aboriginal and early European cultures that occupied them.
State institutions, departments, and agencies may deposit type collections from archaeological sites in the museum, and it shall be the duty of each state institution, department, and agency to cooperate by depositing in the museum voucher and type biological specimens collected as part of the normal research and monitoring duties of its staff and to transfer to the museum those biological specimens and collections in its possession but not actively being curated or used in the research or teaching of that institution, department, or agency.
The Florida Museum of Natural History is empowered to accept, preserve, maintain, or dispose of these specimens and materials in a manner which makes each collection and its accompanying data available for research and use to the staff of the museum and by cooperating institutions, departments, agencies, and qualified independent researchers.
The biological, archaeological, and ethnographic collections shall belong to the state with the title vested in the Florida Museum of Natural History...In collecting or otherwise acquiring these collections, the Florida Museum of Natural History, except as provided in s. 267.12(3) shall comply with pertinent state wildlife, archaeological, and agricultural laws and rules.
However, all collecting, quarantine, and accreditation permits issued by other institutions, departments, and agencies shall be granted routinely for said museum research study or collecting effort on state lands or within state jurisdiction which does not pose a significant threat to the survival of endangered wild species, habitats, or ecosystems.
In addition, the museum shall develop exhibitions and conduct programs which illustrate, interpret, and explain the natural history of the state and region and shall maintain a library of publications pertaining to the work as herein provided.
The exhibitions, collections, and library of the museum shall be open, free to the public, under suitable rules to be promulgated by the director of the museum and approved by the University of Florida."
[edit] Current Facilities
In the over 100 years of operation the Florida Museum of Natural History has been housed in several buildings, from the Seagle Building in downtown Gainesville, to the three halls on-campus and one off-site research facility.
[edit] Dickinson Hall
Dickinson Hall, opened in 1971, is located on Museum Road. It currently houses over 25 million objects and artifacts in its collections, which include ichthyology, paleontology (both vertebrate and invertebrate), botany, paleoboatany and palynology, herpetology, malacology, mammalogy, ornithology, environmental archaeology, historical archaeology, archeology of the Caribbean and Florida, and the ethnography of Latin and North Americas. It also houses a state of the art Molecular Systematics and Evolutionary Genetics lab. [1]
[edit] Powell Hall
Located in the University of Florida Cultural Plaza, Powell Hall was constructed in 1995 at the corner of Hull Road near S.W. 34th Street, approximately two miles west of Dickinson Hall. It serves, along with the connected Maguire Center, as the main exhibits and public programs facility. Powell Hall was partially funded from a gift of $3 million from two University of Florida alumni couples; Bob and Ann and Steve and Carol Powell of Fort Lauderdale, and with matching funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities and from the Florida state government.
[edit] Randall Research Center
In 1996, the Randell family gifted 53 acres of a 240-acre (0.97 km²), internationally significant Pineland Site Complex in Lee County to the University of Florida, which the museum now operates as the Randell Research Center. This research and education program is an extension of the Museum's Southwest Florida Project and "Year of the Indian" archeology/education project.
In 2008 the Randall Research Center completed a two-year program to plant more than 800 native trees that replace ones destroyed in the 2004 Hurricanes Charley and Frances.[2]
[edit] McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity
A $4.2 million gift was received from William and Nadine McGuire of Wayzata, Minnesota in 2000 to establish the William W. and Nadine M. McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity. This gift was one of the largest private gifts ever given to foster research on insects and was matched from the State of Florida Alec Courtelis Facilities Enhancement Challenge Grant Program [3]. The McGuires later gave another $3 million to fund final construction of the center. This new $12 million facility for Lepidoptera research and public exhibits opened in August 2004.
The center houses a collection of more than six million butterfly and moth specimens, making it one of the largest collections of Lepidoptera in the world, rivaling that of the Natural History Museum in London, England. The collection includes extinct species. It started with around four million specimens, with space for significant further expansion. The collection brings together those from the Allyn Museum in Sarasota, other University of Florida collections, and the State of Florida's Division of Plant Industry collections.
Some of the research laboratories and collection can be viewed through glass panels at the back of the museum. The center has around 39,000 square feet (3,600 m²) of space for its facilities in total.[4]
[edit] Public Exhibits
[edit] Butterfly Rainforest
The Butterfly Rainforest is a display of live butterflies in a large, outdoor enclosed space attached to the museum. It is the main exhibit in the McGuire Center which is accessed from the main entrance of Powell Hall. The butterflies are brought from around the world as chrysalises and then hatched at the museum. The butterfly exhibit is currently the only permanent exhibit that requires an entrance fee.
[edit] Florida Fossils: Evolution of Life & Land
Located in Powell Hall, the Florida Fossil Hall displays the museum's own fossil collections, this exhibit describes the last 65 million years of Florida's history. This exhibit begins with Eocene Epoch, when Florida was underwater, to the Pleistocene when the first humans arrived 14,000 years ago. More than 90 percent of the 500 fossils are real and many were found within 100 miles (160 km) of Gainesville.[5]
[edit] South Florida People & Environments
This exhibit, also in Powell Hall, explores the story of the Calusa and Seminole Indians of South Florida and the environments which supported them. Walking along a boardwalk through a mangrove forest, visitors then travel underwater to view larger-than-life marine creatures and view a recreation of the house of a Calusa leader.
[edit] Northwest Florida: Waterways & Wildlife
This exhibit follows water as it flows through the unique environments of northwest Florida, the most biodiverse region of the state. This exhibit includes a hardwood hammock featuring a life-sized limestone cave, a seepage bog with its carnivorous plants, and a Native American trading scene. It too is located in Powell Hall.[6]
[edit] Changing Gallery
The Changing Gallery is 5,000 sq ft (460 m²) hall, also located in Powell Hall, which has hosted the Megaladon Exhibit, Hatching the Past, Tibet Exhibit and Lucy the Tyrannosaurus Rex from the Field Museum in Chicago, Il.
Upcoming exhibits include Grossology and CSI: Crime Scene Insects.
[edit] Research Collections
With the exception of the Lepidoptera collection, located in the McGuire Center, almost all other research collections are located in Dickinson Hall.
[edit] Mammalogy
Since 1992, the mammalogy collection at Dickinson Hall has undergone rapid growth and expansion. Between 1979 and 2007, the collection has doubled, increasing from 14,000 to over 30,000 specimens. Since 2002, the Florida Museum has acquired the University of Miami's cetacean collection and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's manatee collection.
The mammalogy collection has roughly 30,618 cataloged specimens and approximately 1,000 non-cataloged specimens. It consists primarily of skins and skulls, although entire skeletons have been prepared from all specimens acquired since 1992. There are 205 large tanned skins and 4,500, roughly 16% of the collection, has been preserved in fluid. The collection is preponderated by small mammals, primarily rodents and bats, from the southeastern US, the Caribbean, Latin America, South-America and 2,600 specimens from Pakistan.
An important component of the mammalogy collection is the marine mammal collection, consisting of 310 manatee, dolphin and over five hundred whales. The enormity of the collection is the result of a long-term cooperative effort with the U.S. National Biological Service's Sirenia research project [7] , Marine Mammal Stranding Network [8], researchers David and Melba Caldwell, and Marineland of Florida. Other major collections that have been acquired and/or cataloged over the past 15 years include:
- Cross Florida Barge Canal collection (Florida Game & Fresh Water Fish Commission - 1,800 small mammals)
- Bowen collection of beach mice, Peromyscus polionotus (Bowen 1968) - 3,400
- James Layne collection of small mammals from Archbold Biological Station (2,100).
- Involvement with the Florida Panther Recovery Program has resulted in the only significant collection of this endangered subspecies in the entire USA with fewer than 50 individuals.
Average growth rate of the collection between 1989 and 1994 is 640 specimens per year, and 800 specimens per year for the previous 5 years; this is double the growth recorded for 1972-1979 of 290 specimens per year as reported in the survey of North American collections of recent mammals. Orphaned or donated collections account for approximately 60% of reported growth.
The mammal collection is primarily a research collection, but experiences a broad range of uses beyond this primary function. It is used as a teaching collection for undergraduate and graduate students; reference collection for law enforcement as a forensic identification of endangered species; as a reference collection for carnivore feeding studies i.e. owl pellet and scat analysis; a comparative material for students and faculty of zoo archeology and vertebrate paleontology (post-cranial skeletal collection). As part of a large university, the uses of the collection are diverse including applications in biomedical studies, wildlife dentistry, and even studies of environmental contaminants. As the concern for Florida's environment increases, so does the monitoring of habitats and species by state and federal biologists, resulting in an increased interest in the historical and recent distributions of mammals in Florida by a variety of state and federal agencies.
[edit] Ichthyology
The Florida Museum of Natural History ichthyological collection was ranked as the tenth most important fish specimen resource in the North America and the second highest by the ranking National Center by the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. Since that survey was completed, the 65,000 lot University of Miami collection was transferred and is currently being integrated into complete collection.
The collection itself contains more than 197,000 cataloged lots of which there are 2,150,000 specimens, representing more than 7,000 species. In addition, there is an unsorted backlog of about 25,000 lots, about 250,000 specimens. Most of the uncatalogued and backlog material was acquired through transfer of the important collections previously housed at the National Marine Fisheries Service biological laboratories in Miami, Pascagoula, MS, and the University of Miami. The collection currently contains primary and secondary types of more than 325 taxa of freshwater and marine fishes.
The osteological collection comprises 2,500 lots of disarticulated skeletons representing over 320 species. Skeletal holdings emphasize the southeastern United States, Caribbean, Central American and northwestern South American ichthyofaunas. Representative specimens of over 200 species have been cleared and stained. A radiograph collection and the original field notes of numerous individuals and organizations, including station sheets for virtually all U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/National Marine Fisheries Service and University of Miami research vessels, are maintained.
The principal strengths of the fish collection are, in approximate order of importance, its holdings of (1) western and eastern Atlantic shelf and deep water marine fishes, (2) western Atlantic reef fishes, (3) North American freshwater fishes, especially from the southeastern United States, and (4) freshwater fishes from certain parts of Central America, South America and the West Indies. Of the above, categories (1), and (2) are nearly equal in importance.
Most of the material acquired from the National Marine Fisheries Service Tropical Atlantic Biological (TABL) collection consists of western Atlantic fishes from nearshore shallows to moderate depths, with the families Argentinidae, Atherinidae, Balistidae, Batrachoididae, Belonidae, Bothidae, Branchiostomatidae, Caproidae, Carangidae, Clupeidae, Congridae, Cynoglossidae, Dasyatidae, Engraulididae, Exocoetidae, Fundulidae, Gadidae, Gerreidae, Haemulidae, Hemiramphidae, Lutjanidae, Macrouridae, Monacanthidae, Mugilidae, Ogcocephalidae, Ophichthidae, Ophidiidae, Paralichthyidae, Peristediidae, Priacanthidae, Rajiidae, Sciaenidae, Scombridae, Serranidae, Scorpaenidae, Scyliorhinidae, Soleidae, Sparidae, Sphyraenidae, Stromateidae, Squalidae, Syngnathidae, Synodontidae, Tetraodontidae, and Triglidae most common. These collections have been substantially augmented by the field activities of museum personnel and donations made over the last 20 years. Eastern Atlantic collections from the Gulf of Guinea are available in some abundance. The western Atlantic collections acquired from the National Marine Fisheries Service Pascagoula laboratory and University of Miami are generally from greater depths and represent some of the museum's most valuable resources. Deepwater anguilliform, salmoniform, stomiiform, aulopiform, myctophiform, and ophidiiform families are particularly well represented. For certain families, i.e. searsiidae, alepocephalidae, these collections may be among the best North American holdings from the western Atlantic region.
The holdings of western Atlantic reef fishes are among the most important in existence, with the following geographic areas most heavily collected: Florida, the Bahamas, Isla de Providencia, the Cayman Islands, the Virgin Islands and the Lesser Antilles. Smaller numbers of reef fish collections exist from Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Sombrero Island, other Lesser Antilles islands, continental islands off northern South America, Brazil, and Ascension Island. There are a substantial number of reef fishes from off the Carolinas. Major reef groups represented include the Acanthuridae, Antenariidae, Apogonidae, Blenniidae, Chaenopsidae, Chaetodontidae, Clinidae, Dactyloscopidae, Gobiesocidae, Gobiidae, Grammistidae, Haemulidae, Holocentridae, Kyphosidae, Labridae, Lutjanidae, Mullidae, Muraenidae, Ostraciidae, Opistognathidae, Pomacanthidae, Pomacentridae, Scaridae, Serranidae, and Tripterygidae. Eastern Pacific reef collections are present from the Pearl Islands south to Ecuador. Also available are a fair number of Indo-Pacific reef fishes acquired by staff collecting and by donations received from the Bishop Museum and the National Museum of Natural History. Over 200 shore and estuarine collections have been made from the Caribbean coasts of Costa Rica and Panama.
The museum's worldwide holdings of elasmobranchs, particularly squaloid sharks, have grown rapidly in the last 15 years and are an important international resource. Other elasmobranch groups prominently represented include Carcharhinidae, Dasyatidae, Gymnuridae, Myliobatidae, Rajidae, Rhinobatidae, Scyliorhinidae, Sphyrnidae, Squatinidae, Torpedinidae and Triakidae.
Holdings of freshwater fishes are greatest from the southeastern United States, particularly Florida. In addition, an effort has been made to obtain as complete a taxonomic and geographic coverage of freshwater species as possible from throughout North America. As a result, over 90 percent of the freshwater fish species from the United States and Canada are represented in the collection. Best represented are members of the Catostomidae, Centrarchidae, Cyprinidae, Elassomatidae, Fundulidae, Ictaluridae, Lepisosteidae, Percidae, Petromyzontidae and Poeciliidae. Freshwater fishes from Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, Hispaniola, Guatemala, Panama and Costa Rica are currently represented in moderate to large numbers in the collection. The Florida Museum of Natural History's Hispaniolan holdings are unsurpassed and the Venezuelan holdings are growing continuously. A wide spectrum of characoid, gymnotoid and siluroid families, cichlids, and poeciliids are especially well represented
[edit] Malacology
The mollusk collection was initiated through the efforts of T. van Hyning, the first director of the museum, and was small and composed mostly of local taxa until 1965. In 1973, the mollusk collection consisted of 22,174 cataloged lots and ranked 19th in the US. The collection has grown rapidly since, through numerous field surveys and acquisition of relinquished collections. Since 2000, Malacology has also hosted a growing collection of non-molluscan marine invertebrates. About 100,000 species of mollusks are known, and the collection holds over 30,000 species among 400,000 lots of specimens. Over 300,000 lots are now databased and accessible online. The collection is among the five largest in the US, and one of the most rapidly growing. It is second largest mollusk collection in the world in online accessibility.
The collection is especially strong in regional taxa. Malacology has one of the largest collections of terrestrial and freshwater mollusks from the southeastern US. Overall marine mollusks comprise 38% of cataloged holdings; freshwater species make up 18% and terrestrial taxa 44%. Gastropods comprise 83%, bivalves 16%, while all other mollusk classes combined <1% of the collection. Three quarters of the collection is from the western hemisphere, while 18% is from tropical Australasia and surrounding Pacific and Indian Ocean islands. The mollusk collection has unique strengths in land, freshwater and marine mollusks. The museum has the largest land snail collection in the world from Hispaniola, Mexico-Central America, Pakistan and Thailand, and also has especially large holdings from the southeastern United States, West Indies, Andean South America, Madagascar, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. Freshwater mollusk collections are strong for the southeastern United States, Mexico, Central America, Andean South America, and the Philippines. Large subtropical and tropical West Atlantic and Indo-West Pacific holdings characterize the marine collection, and tropical marine collections are undergoing rapid growth. These strengths reflect a former regional focus of the museum and research focus of the curators: on terrestrial and freshwater mollusks of Middle America and Southeast Asia, and on tropical marine mollusks, respectively.
[edit] Botany and the Florida Herbarium
The botany collection is an excellent representation of the vascular flora of Florida and the southeastern United States coastal plain, including abundant material from the 19th century. The bryophyte and lichen collections encompass Florida and tropical areas, especially Costa Rica, Venezuela and Brazil. The Fungal Herbarium is comprised of Florida fungi, especially agarics and polypores, and the wood collection is worldwide with a tropical emphasis. The addition of a preeminent brings the total museum botanical collection holdings to around one-half of a million specimens.
Noteworthy additions include the A. A. Cuthbert Herbarium of approximately 5000 specimens, the plant holdings of the Florida State Museum (4711 specimens, including the Herbarium of S. C. Hood), several thousand more S. C. Hood collections, 15770 specimens of lichens, liverworts and mosses collected by Severin Rapp, wood blocks and vouchers of American wood and economic trees from the New York State School of Forestry, George E. Ritchey specimens from the U. S. Plant Introduction Garden, Edward and Robert P. St. John Florida ferns, innumerable West and Arnold collections and those received through inter-institutional exchange. The herbarium also benefited from the prominent studies of H. Harold Hume (Zephyranthes, Ilex, and Camellia) and William A. Murrill (Crataegus and fungi) and in 1989 Angus K. Gholson, Jr. donated his entire herbarium (15000 specimens), library and related equipment and supplies. This is an excellent collection especially rich in its representation of the flora of the Florida Panhandle.
[edit] Herpetology
With approximately 202,000 specimens, the herpetology collection is estimated to be the 9th largest in the US. Its skeletal collection, with more than 11,000 disarticulated skeletons and a small number of cleared and stained specimens, is 5th largest. An average of 3,800 specimens a year are catalogued. The collection contains 60 holotypes and 919 paratypes representing 176 taxa. Additional taxa are in the process of being described.
Though worldwide in scope, the collection contains approximately 2,300 species from the Neotropics, 600 from Asia, 390 from the Nearctic, 350 from Africa, 275 from the Palearctic, and 220 from Australia/Oceania. Large holdings of land tortoises and varanid lizards resulted from Walter Auffenberg's research, and his work on the 'HERPETOLOGY OF PAKISTAN' produced the world's largest Pakistan collection. Large numbers of sea turtles came from Archie Carr and his students. Wayne King's surveys of Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guyana, assembled the largest collection of Latin American crocodilians. Sizable collections of Kinosternid turtles were donated by John Iverson, softshells by Peter Meylan, and Panama amphibians and reptiles by the late Howard W. Campbell. Samuel R. Telford, Jr., provided extensive collections from Japan, Burma, Panama, Venezuela, Tanzania, and Pakistan, and smaller numbers from Zaire, Thailand and the Philippines. Recorded vocalizations of 46 species of amphibians and 20 species of reptiles are catalogued in the museum's Bioacoustic Archives.
[edit] Ornithology
The recent bird skeleton collection of 24,500 specimens, representing about 3,000 species, is approximately fifth largest in the world in number of specimens and species. In 1992, the museum received the recent bird skeleton collection assembled by Prof. Pierce Brodkorb of the University of Florida's Department of Zoology. The skeleton collection has grown by 140% since 2002. It contains specimens from 47 U.S. states and 103 countries.
The largest collections by state:
| Florida 11,169 | California 638 | Maine 227 | Massachusetts 218 | Georgia 213 |
| Alaska 201 | New York 154 | Texas 142 | Arizona 140 | Virgina 124 |
The top ten countries are:
| US 13,282 | Mexico 745 | Netherlands 397 | Costa Rica 320 | Kenya 312 |
| Panama 252 | Zimbabwe 217 | Suriname 213 | Canada 198 | Australia 124 |
Taxonomically the collection ranges across the class Aves, representing 23 orders, 128 families, and 950 genera.
The bird skin collection contains approximately 20,500 specimens representing at least 2,300 species. These are mostly study skins, but in recent years the division has prepared a large proportion of new specimens as flat skins or spread wings with associated skeletons. In 1992, the division also received a collection of approximately 3,000 skins. The skin collection has grown by 23% in the last five years. Also wide-ranging taxonomically, it represents 27 orders, 129 families, and 850 genera. Rarities include skins of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers and extinct Dusky Seaside Sparrows, Passenger Pigeons, and Carolina Parakeets.
The egg collection, consisting of 10,400 sets representing 733 species, is 11th largest in North America in number of sets and 15th largest in number of species. It represents approximately 90% of the species and subspecies of North American birds. The egg collection has grown by 1% in the last five years. It is cataloged in a card file that includes original collectors' data slips or page references to the collector's field notes. Especially well represented are sets from New England and Florida. The collection is rich in sets of raptor eggs, including Bald Eagles, Ospreys, Broad-winged Hawks, Red-shouldered Hawks, Crested Caracaras, American Kestrels, the Florida races of Seaside Sparrows and Clapper Rails. Rarities include sets of Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, and Bachman's Warbler eggs.
The bird sound collection, in the museum Bioacoustic Archives, with 20,500 cataloged recordings representing about 3,000 species, is the fourth largest in the world in number of species. In the western hemisphere it is the second largest in number of species and third largest in number of recordings. The sound collection is completely digitized.
Geographical strengths include North America, especially Florida, and the Neotropics, with smaller but notable numbers of recordings from Africa, Australia, and Southeast Asia. Some taxonomic groups especially well represented are tinamous, trogons, woodpeckers, antbirds, New World flycatchers, wrens, New World wood warblers, and corvids.
[edit] Vertebrate Paleontology
The FLMNH vertebrate fossil collections feature rich samples of all vertebrate classes, mainly from the Cenozoic Era. Included are about 400,000 specimens. Holotypes number about 200 specimens. The FLMNH vertebrate fossil collections also include the former Florida Geological Survey Collection and the UF Department of Zoology Fossil Bird Collection. Each of these collections is maintained in a separate catalog, under the acronyms UF/FGS and UF/PB, respectively. The FLMNH collections provide the most complete basis available for study of Cenozoic vertebrate paleontology in the southeastern United States and the Caribbean Basin.
[edit] History of the Vertebrate Paleontology Collections
[edit] University of Florida (UF) Collection
The UF collection currently contains about 385,000 specimens assigned to over 234,000 unique catalogue numbers and over 150 holotypes. The UF collection has experienced rapid, sometimes explosive, growth since the 1950s and now ranks in the top five nationally in terms of total catalogued specimens. Consistent with our museum's mission as the official repository for Florida's natural history specimens, about 90 percent of this collection comes from about 1,000 separate localities throughout Florida. A particular strength of the UF collection is the extraordinary array of land-animals from the past 25 million years in Florida, forming the best record documenting the evolution of ancient vertebrate life in eastern North America over this interval. Other major strengths of the UF collection include extensive holdings from Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, and other Caribbean islands, fossils from Central and South America (especially Bolivia, Honduras, and Panama), and specimens from the late Eocene to Oligocene "Badlands" of western Nebraska. On-going field work begun by our new curator Jonathan Bloch in 2004 will over time produce a significant collection of Paleocene and early Eocene vertebrates from basins in Wyoming and Montana.
Prior to 1953, the UF collection consisted of only a few hundred specimens, mostly acquired through public donation, and of little scientific value. Beginning in 1953, serious fossil prospecting began at the University of Florida, initially lead by Robert S. Bader and Walter A. Auffenberg, both then members of the Department of Biology. Clayton Ray became the museum’s first curator of vertebrate paleontology in 1959. He left in 1963 to take a position at the Smithsonian. Recognizing the importance of vertebrate paleontology in Florida, in 1964 museum director J. C. Dickinson hired two vertebrate paleontology curators, S. David Webb and Thomas H. Patton. Together they quickly moved the museum’s research program to the forefront of the field, symbolized by their hosting in Gainesville the prestigious annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in the fall of 1964, the first time this meeting had been held in the Southeastern United States. Patton left in the mid-1970s to pursue a career in the legal profession, and was replaced in 1977 by Bruce J. MacFadden. Webb retired in 2003, and Jonathan I. Bloch was hired to fill the vacant curator position. Since 1964 the FLMNH VP curators have mentored many dozens of graduate students, produced numerous books, monographs, and research papers, and directed field operations in Florida, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and the western U.S. Another important feat was the creation of the Florida Paleontological Society and the forming of a strong bond between the professional paleontologists at the museum and the amateur fossil collectors throughout the state of Florida. Although technically curators in other museum divisions, Walter Auffenberg (Herpetology) and Charles A. Woods (Mammalogy) both had research interests that included paleontology and helped build the collection.
In addition to the curators, other full-time staff at the FLMNH have made significant contributions to the UF collections. The first fossil preparator was Howard H. Converse, who worked at the museum from the late 1960s through the mid 1980s. He was followed by Russell McCarty, who retired in 2006. Jane Mason is the current vertebrate paleontology preparator. Gary S. Morgan was collections manager from 1981 through 1993, and oversaw the curation of massive numbers of specimens from the Love Bone Bed, Thomas Farm, Leisey Shell Pit, Bone Valley, Haiti, and elsewhere. He was replaced by Marc Frank (1994-1998) and Richard C. Hulbert (2000-present).
[edit] Florida Geological Survey Collection
The Florida Geological Survey fossil vertebrate collection (FGS) was started during the 1910s and was originally housed in Tallahassee. Under the direction of E. H. Sellards, Herman Gunter, and S. J. Olsen, the FGS collection was the primary source of fossil vertebrate descriptions from Florida until the early 1960s. World-renown paleontologists such as George G. Simpson, Edwin H. Colbert, and Henry F. Osborn wrote scientific papers about specimens in the FGS collection in addition to Sellards and Olsen. In 1976 the entire FGS fossil vertebrate collection was transferred to the Florida Museum of Natural History with support from a National Science Foundation grant. The UF/FGS collection is composed of about 22,000 specimens assigned to about 10,000 catalogue numbers, and almost all of them were collected in Florida. The majority of specimens in the UF/FGS collection are mammals, followed by reptiles, birds, and a relatively small number of amphibians and fish. Although there are some sites that are unique to the UF/FGS collection, many of the sites overlap with holdings in the main UF and UF/PB collections. The major strengths of the UF/FGS collection are historically important samples from the early Miocene Thomas Farm locality, the middle Miocene and early Pliocene deposits of the Bone Valley Region, Polk County, and from the late Pleistocene Vero locality, Indian River County.
[edit] Pierce Brodkorb Collection
The Pierce Brodkorb Collection (UF/PB) was amassed by Professor Brodkorb of the University of Florida over his long and renown career as one of the world's foremost experts on fossil birds. His heirs donated his extensive collections of modern bird skeletons and fossil birds to the Florida Museum of Natural History in 1992. The modern skeletons are housed by the museum's Ornithology collection. Brodkorb's fossil bird collection was curated and computer cataloged with support from the National Science Foundation. The UF/PB collection is composed of about 8,500 cataloged specimens and includes 42 holotypes. About 85 per cent of the UF/PB specimens were collected in Florida, and range in age from early Miocene to latest Pleistocene. Other large holdings are Pleistocene birds from Bermuda and the Bahamas.
[edit] Archeology
[edit] Caribbean Archeology
The Caribbean Archeology Program Collection was founded in 1960 by Dr. Ripley P. Bullen. The program is based around one of the largest systematic collections of pre-Columbian artifacts in North America. What the collection lacks in size is compensated for by its diversity. The collection contains systematic collections from sites on the islands of Antigua, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Marie-Galante, Martinique, Puerto Rico, St. Lucia, St. Martin, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Surinam, Tobago, Trinidad, Turks and Caicos, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Venezuela, each collection has accompanying documentation.
The “Bullen” collection was recently re-inventoried and reorganized. During this reorganization, type collections; composed of all the artifacts illustrated in Bullen’s publications, were also created. These collection catalogs, which are based on the tables published in the Bullens' reports, are available for all of the islands and sites represented in the collection. Presently a map of the West Indies and a list of the islands and the sites represented in the collection are available to the public.
The collection includes artifacts recovered during excavations directed by Dr. Charles A. Hoffman, Jr. on the islands of Antigua and St. Kitts, a study collection derived from the excavations directed by Dr. Kathleen A. Deagan from the sites of En Bas Saline and Puerto Réal, Haiti, a collection of important artifacts donated by Mr. Leon Wilder that were surface collected from sites in Grenada and a number of artifacts recovered from sites in Jamaica and Grenada that were recently donated by Mr. Geoffrey Senior.
Survey and excavation projects are an integral part of the Caribbean Archeology Program. Since 1987, research teams from the museum have undertaken surveys and excavations in Antigua, the Bahamas, Grand Cayman, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
[edit] Ceramic Technology Laboratory
The Ceramic Technology Laboratory was established in 1977 under the direction of Dr. Prudence Rice, then UF professor of Anthropology. Pottery analysis plays an integral role in archaeological research at the museum as it constitutes the predominant material remaining at most archaeological sites investigated by museum curators. In addition pottery constitutes a very significant proportion of the Anthropology collections. The Ceramic Technology Laboratory is equipped for basic paste characterization studies: binocular microscope for gross identification of temper or paste constituents; a petrographic microscope for precise mineral identification in thin section; an electric furnace used for refiring experiments and for comparative investigation of clay samples collected from the vicinity of archaeological sites. Analysis of physical and mineralogical properties of the pottery are undertaken to provide precise data to address research questions regarding chronology, provenience or manufacturing origins, processes of production, culture change, and the development of social and economic complexity in prehistoric Florida, the Southeastern US, and the Caribbean Basin. The department is committed to the continuance of this research program as the capacity for in-house specialized analysis of pottery enhances the competitiveness for research grants.
The Ceramic Technology Laboratory houses an extensive pottery type collection of prehistoric and historic period aboriginal pottery from Florida and the Southeastern U.S. The Florida materials represent type specimens assembled by Ripley Bullen, John Goggin, and Gordon Willey, pioneers of Florida archeology. The type collections serve as a primary comparative resource for museum scientists, graduate students, and visiting researchers. The Ceramic Technology Laboratory also curates fragments of pottery samples used in paste characterization studies.
[edit] Florida Archeology
The Florida Archeology Collection includes artifacts spanning 12,000 years of human history in the Southeast. While the focus of this collection is on Florida, some materials from Georgia and other localities are included. These items are curated as a tangible record of the people who have made Florida their home. The Florida Archeology Collections come from Central and North Florida and the Panhandle regions. All counties including and north of Sarasota, De Soto, Hardee, Polk, Osceola, and Indian River counties are included in this collection. Exceptions to this rule are sites situated within Colonial St. Augustine and historical sites with no pre-Columbian material present, collections from these locales are included in the Historical Archaeology Collections. Counties to the south are part of the South Florida Archeology Collections. Information concerning policies associated with our collections are found below.
The Excavated Collections include all archaeological materials that have been excavated using systematic recovery techniques. While recovery techniques vary depending on the project, site, and supervising archaeologist, all of these collections have associated provenience data. Documentation such as field notes, maps, and photographs are often available with the collection. Below is a select list of sites in the Florida Archeology Collections.
[edit] Abraham's Old Town
Abraham's Old Town or Pilaklikaha is a multicomponent site in Sumter County. The site includes a ceramic period occupation (Pasco and Sand-Tempered Plain) and possibly a preceramic component. The site's significance is its identification as Pilaklikaha, a town inhabited by Black Seminole Indians during the early 1800s. The collection includes lithics, ceramics (both European and Seminole), glass beads, trade pipe fragments, bottle glass, brick, cut nails and other metal fragments recovered during excavations from 1998-2001.
[edit] Aucilla River Prehistory Project
The collection contains prehistoric lithic, bone and mammoth ivory tools, ceramics, historic materials, plant remains, and Pleistocene and Holocene fossils from assorted sites along the Aucilla River. Notable items in this collection include the fossilized bones of Pleistocene animals exhibiting butcher and cut marks, numerous stone Paleoindian projectile points, and carved ivory shafts.
[edit] Bolen Bluff
Bolen Bluff is a multicomponent site located south of Paynes Prairie. The site was excavated by Ripley Bullen in 1949. Large portions of the site were destroyed and used for fill during highway construction. The collections include numerous stone points and tools including: Suwannee, Bolen, Arredondo, and Pinellas points, as well as: stone adzes, hoes, drills, and scrapers. Pottery types span the entire range of ceramic periods in the area: Orange, Transitional, Deptford, Weeden Island, St. Johns, and Alachua.
[edit] de Soto Survey
The de Soto archaeological survey project was conducted from 1986-1991 to locate and identify early Spanish-Indian contact period sites in north Florida. The six surveys identified or revisited over 750 archaeological sites in 15 counties (Alachua, Baker, Bradford, Citrus, Clay, Columbia, Gilchrist, Lafayette, Madison, Marion, Putnum, Sumter, Suwannee, and Union). Some of the major sites identified and excavated were: the location of the Spanish mission at Fig Springs, the Spanish mission of Santa Fe and the Indian Pond site.
[edit] McKeithen Site
The McKeithen Site is a Weeden Island (AD 200-900) site in Columbia County excavated during the late 1970s. The site is composed of a village area and three mounds. The collections from the site include an excellent variety of Weeden Island ceramics, including numerous whole or almost whole vessels from different areas of the site. The collections also include a variety of stone points and tools, grinding stones, mica, and some faunal and floral remains.
[edit] Richardson Site
The Richardson Site is a Potano Indian village near Orange Lake that dates from the late pre-Columbian and early Spanish mission period. The site provides us with valuable information on Potano houses and early Spanish missionization. Collections include a large collection of Alachua pottery, lithics, glass beads, wrought nails, and faunal material.
[edit] Spanish Mission collections
The collections from Spanish mission sites are an important part of the Florida archaeological collections. The Florida Archeology curates large collections from 11 mission sites: Baptizing Spring, Fox Pond, Santa Fe, Fig Springs, Indian Pond, Scott Miller, San Juan, Beatty, Blue Bead and Baldree and the sites on Amelia Island. There are also numerous other Spanish mission period sites associated with missions or haciendas, including: Moon Lake, Richardson, Zetrouer, Carlisle, and Peacock Lake.
[edit] Tatham Mound
Tatham Mound is a Safety Harbor mound located near the Withlacochee River in Citrus county. The site was also in use at the time of the Soto entrada as evidenced by numerous Spanish artifacts dating to mid-1500s. The collections include Safety Harbor ceramic vessels, Pinellas points and other lithic tools, and many shell artifacts: gorget, celt, dippers, and beads. Spanish artifacts include: metal beads and pendants, Nueva Cadiz and other glass beads, and metal artifacts including chisels, spikes, and armor fragments.
[edit] Donated Private Collections
Private collections donated by individuals and families represent an important aspect of the Florida Archeology collections. These collections include provenienced artifacts from all over Florida and a limited amount of material from other areas of North America. Many of these collections are from well-known sites and are valuable sources of exhibit quality artifacts and research collections. These collections range in size from small surface collections from single sites to collections that cover large portions of the state and include thousands of artifacts. A representative sample of donated private collections curated at the museum includes the following collections organized by family name.
| Becker | Burkhardt | Haufler | Hendrix | McMullen (Osceola, Polk, Volusia Counties) |
| Means | Ohmes | Pearsall | Simpson | McDonald (Brevard County) |
[edit] Bullen Projectile Point Typology Collection
The Ripley Bullen Projectile Point Type Collection is the original assortment of artifacts Bullen used to create the first formal point typology for Florida in 1967. Bullen's typology was revised in 1975 and published as A Guide to the Identification of Florida Projectile Points. This collection is curated as an original reference collection for visiting researchers and the general public.
[edit] Osteological Collections
Human osteological collections curated at the Florida Museum of Natural History include skeletal remains from pre-Columbian and historic archaeological sites across Florida, Georgia, and several localities in the Caribbean. These collections are maintained for research and teaching purposes. Access to these collections is limited to the academic community and professionals in the private sector involved in scholarly research.
[edit] Historical Archeology
The historical archeology collections of the Florida Museum of Natural History consists of more than 2 million excavated specimens from more than 100 sites throughout Florida and Latin America. They include the largest known systematic collection of Spanish colonial archaeological specimens in the country, representing sites of domestic, military, religious and commercial sites dating from 1492 through the nineteenth century.
The collection also incorporates archaeological specimens from a variety of non-Spanish eighteenth and nineteenth century sites, including homesteads, plantations, trading posts, forts and towns.
In addition to systematic collections resulting form excavation, the Historical Archeology Department also maintains extensive collections of type specimens, comparative specimens and published specimens for historical archeology. The materials span the period of 1493-1900, and are used extensively as a reference collection, a comparative collection and a teaching collection.
[edit] The St. Augustine Collections
The materials from St. Augustine, Florida (1565-present) were generated by systematic archaeological excavations from a forty year period (1959-1999) on 33 Spanish colonial, British colonial, African American, American Indian and post-colonial sites in St. Augustine, Florida. They include more than 1 million items of glass, metals, stone, shell and bone. They are curated jointly by the University of Florida, the Florida Division of Historical Resources and the City of St. Augustine at the museum.
[edit] The Latin American Collections
Some of the earliest historical archeology collections in the region are found in our collection. John Goggin's ambitious program of historical archeology during the 1940s and 1950's generated a large collection of materials from sites throughout the Caribbean and Central America. His collaborations with such researchers as Emile Boyrie of the Dominican Republic, José Cruxent of Venezuela and Irving Rouse of Yale additionally resulted in the exchange of smaller comparative collections from throughout the region.
Excavations in Haiti conducted by Charles Fairbanks and Kathleen Deagan between 1979 and 1988 also generated two large Historic-era collections that are being curated at the Florida Museum of Natural History on behalf of the Haitian government.
[edit] The Historical Florida Collections
In addition to the collections from St. Augustine and Latin America, the Historical Archeology collections also include materials excavated from a variety of towns, missions, plantations and forts in Florida and the southeastern United States.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ When mastodons ruled south Florida - Dec. 14, 2007
- ^ Florida Museum’s Randell Center completes Pineland tree planting program
- ^ Statutes & Constitution :View Statutes : Online Sunshine
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ Fossils Excavated From Bahamian Blue Hole May Give Clues Of Early Life
- ^ FOXNews.com - Evolutionary 'Big Bang' Created Florist's Paradise - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News
- ^ Sirenia research project
- ^ Marine Mammal Stranding Network
[edit] External links
- Florida Museum of Natural History
- McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity
- Butterfly Rainforest
- Randell Research Center
- Curtis Phillips Center for the Performing Arts
- Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art
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