Tag archives: natural history
This chunky Botta’s Pocket Gopher (Thomomys bottae) at Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History lived his life at the Santa Barbara Airport, where he was collected October 29, 1963. A robust male, he’s one of the largest specimens preserved in the drawer in the background. Before preparing this taxidermy, scientists measured him as over 11 […]
This piece of Monterey Shale reveals the work of our local boring clams, so called because they bore into the rock to create a secure home. Curators at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History who study bivalves (clams, oysters, scallops, and mussels) don’t find these animals boring at all. The mollusks have a rough […]
This hand-colored etching of butterflies was produced in the late 18th century by Carl Gustav Jablonsky, an artist/naturalist who was also the private secretary to the queen of Prussia. This page was part of the book Natural System of All Known Domestic and Foreign Insects (1783–1806), an 11-volume set that formed one of the most […]
This elegant group of insects is a detail from an engraving by George Wolfgang Knorr from the 1771 book Deliciae Naturae Selectae, coauthored with Philipp Ludwig Statius Müller. Knorr’s illustrations are based on specimens found in European cabinets of curiosity and other Dutch and German natural history collections of his era. In this view, a […]
This is a marine organism magnified 100 times. The black-and-white scanning electron microscope view reveals the calcium carbonate skeleton of Cradoscrupocellaria tenuirostris. It’s a bryozoan – one of a staggeringly diverse group with about 30,000 species worldwide. We shared a different one back in March. All bryozoans are made up of a series of compartmented […]
If this curious pattern looks familiar, perhaps it reminds you of something you’ve seen at the Sea Center on Stearns Wharf. The life-size model of an adult Gray Whale is speckled with clusters of whale barnacles. These are small invertebrates that hitch a ride on the world’s biggest vertebrates. As the whale swims, they filter-feed […]
Though plantlike in appearance, this is actually a specimen of a soft-coral colonial animal. It’s Eugorgia daniana, a species of gorgonian. Unlike their hard-coral cousins, gorgonians don’t build reefs but are still capable of creating impressive structures. A gorgonian’s body has a firm internal axis that looks like a dead tree. Depending on the type […]
This vivid orange butterfly is Anaea andria (formerly Paphia troglodyta). The image is mostly a real butterfly, preserved by a unique type of print: the lepidochrome. They are made by pressing a prepared specimen of a butterfly or moth onto printing paper treated with a thin coat of gum arabic adhesive. The body of the […]
This elegant hand-colored engraving is now on display in The Collectors: A Life in Lepidoptera at Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. It’s one of many antique natural history prints that collectively depict how the science of entomology has been furthered by the passion of collectors and the skill of artists. The butterflies pictured here […]
Looking at this moth “picture” may topple you into the uncanny valley – it’s mostly a real moth, from a species now known as Hyalophora cecropia. This page from a rare book in the library at Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History features an astounding type of print: a lepidochrome. For each image, a prepared […]
This skull may look strangely smooth in front. This animal only has molars, with no teeth in the front of their jaws. It’s the skull of a manatee, whose prehensile lips make possible the gentle nibbling of seagrass. Their teeth emerge at the back of the jaw, slowly advance, and fall out, to be replaced […]
This three-inch-long Joro Spider (Trichonephila clavata) lurked in the manicured landscaping at a high-end coastal business in Santa Barbara County. Although harmless to humans, it is a potentially invasive species. There is some evidence it can outcompete native orb-weavers in southeastern North America. Native to east Asia, the species was observed in Georgia in 2014, […]
The SB Museum of Natural History announced this week that Matthew Adams has been appointed its new Board of Trustees Chair, along with new board of trustee members David Telleen-Lawton and Hank Mitchel. Adams served on the trustee board and works as the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner at Mission Wealth. Telleen-Lawton has a […]
Flamingos famously feed with their heads upside-down, filtering algae, brine shrimp, and other food from shallow water. A closer look at the beak here reveals filtering structures composed of keratin, the same protein that makes up hair, hooves, horns, etc. This skull of a Lesser Flamingo (Phoeniconaias minor) is among over 44,000 specimens curated by […]
It’s the time of year when Wood Ducks pair up! Audubon painted this lively image in New Orleans in 1821. He dramatized the courtship and nesting habits of this species while showing the remarkable patterns and colors of their feathers. The Wood Ducks are from the Museum’s collection of prints from the American edition of […]
In December and January each year, certain beaches on the Channel Islands and other protected parts of California’s coast become sites of noisy and dramatic conflict. It’s the beginning of breeding season for the Northern Elephant Seal (Mirounga angustirostris). During the early part of the breeding season, the huge adult males – known as bulls […]
This is not a craft project; it’s a natural defense! As they go through life, marine snails in the genus Xenophora adhere things to their shells, presumably making them harder to eat and maybe even harder to identify as a potential meal. The one at lower right includes the long, straight spine of a sea […]
This is Ficus eospila, a carnivorous snail from the fig shell group with a dazzling foot like the train of a black-and-white ball gown. Howard/Berry Curator of Malacology Henry W. Chaney, Ph.D. photographed this individual on a 1993 collecting trip in Western Australia with Barry Wilson PhD then at work on the two-volume compendium, Australian […]
It may look small next to a pencil, but this skull is big, for a bat. It belongs to Eumops perotis, the largest bat species in the United States. These helpful insect-eaters are strong fliers but may face difficulties from declining water sources. This one was found dead and contributed to Santa Barbara Museum of […]
A splendid menagerie of natural history specimens filled four large volumes of Albertus Seba’s 18th century publication Thesaurus or Cabinet of Curiosities. A Dutch pharmacist and collector of curiosities, Seba amassed a vast collection of exotic natural objects by trading medicine and services to sailors at the port of Amsterdam as ships arrived from the […]
