Tag archives: Santa Barbara Museum of 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 […]

Gloria Swanson starred in Cecil B. DeMille’s silent film Male and Female, but the leading player in this 1919 photo is Santa Cruz Island. If you look closely at the beach, you can just make out a few of the palms Paramount used to dress up the rugged location of Frys Harbor. “Two large barges […]

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 […]

Meet Consul fabius, the Tiger Leafwing. This butterfly belongs to a group with camouflaged undersides that make them appear as mere dead leaves when resting. The Tiger Leafwing species has a second disguise as well. When flying, its boldly patterned topside causes it to resemble another species – the Tiger Longwing. All longwing butterflies are […]

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 […]

Most natural history museum collections are organized by the evolutionary relationships between species. Many drawers provide an in-depth view of a particular species or genus. This drawer is different: it’s what curators call a synoptic collection because it provides an overview of something – in this case, moth species found in Ventura County. These moths […]

This detail is from a 1658 edition of a work that began in the late 1500s: The Theater of Insects, or Lesser Living Creatures by British physician Thomas Moffet. Originally published in Latin, it was translated into English and appended to the back of Edward Topsell’s History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents. That enormous tome […]

These strikingly green shells belong to the Emerald Green Snail, Papustyla pulcherrima. The species is endemic to (only found on) Manus Island off the shores of Papua New Guinea. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the species as near threatened. Habitat destruction is the primary threat, as the rainforest trees the species relies […]

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 […]

You’re looking down the asymmetrical blowhole of a Dwarf Sperm Whale (Kogia sima), a small, toothed whale that is rarely seen because of its cryptic lifestyle. Adults of this species max out at under nine feet in length. If this skull seems a bit dolphinesque to you, it might interest you to know that dolphins […]

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 […]

No, this isn’t a collection of antique corn dogs – it’s a scientifically valuable record of regional biodiversity. These are Botta’s Pocket Gopher (Thomomys bottae) specimens in the Vertebrate Zoology Collections at Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. To the consternation of many farmers and gardeners, gophers seem particularly abundant in the region right now, […]

Each segment in this elegant structure is a chamber that once sheltered an individual animal. In effect, it’s an apartment block just a millimeter wide. The image is black-and-white because it was taken with a scanning electron microscope, a device that creates images of tiny objects by bombarding them with electrons rather than sensing visible […]

Did you think this was a Dodo? You’re not a dodo for thinking so. The bird depicted in this chromolithograph is the famous Dodo’s closest relative, the Rodrigues Solitaire. Both species of flightless birds are now extinct. François Leguat was marooned on the island of Rodrigues in the 1690s and described the Rodrigues Solitaire in […]

Pierre-Joseph Redouté was among the great flower painters of any age. During Napoleon’s reign he was commissioned to paint the roses in Empress Josephine’s garden at Château de Malmaison, her villa outside of Paris. She was devoted to horticulture and filled gardens with both native and exotic roses. Redouté’s fine detailed watercolors were translated into […]