KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum

❄️ Closure Notice ❄️

Due to inclement weather, the Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum will be closed on Saturday, January 24, and Sunday, January 25. Please check our website or social media channels for updates regarding reopening. Stay safe and warm!

Hey, KU students — we’re hiring! 😎

We’re looking for a Visitor Experience Assistant to help create positive, memorable, and engaging experiences for visitors at the KU Natural History Museum. Ready to apply or learn more? ➡️ rockcha.lk/dy3a

Welcome back, Jayhawks! Our team at the Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum is wishing you a fantastic start to the spring semester! #KUNHM #rockchalk ❤️💙

Hey KU students — we’re hiring! 🐍
Join us as a Herpetology Curatorial Assistant and help organize, prepare, and catalog specimens in the KU Herpetology Collection. Must be able to work 4 hrs/week & be comfortable handling fluid-preserved amphibians and reptiles.

Learn more & apply ➡️ rockcha.lk/nzq

It’s time for ✨Prepapalooza✨!

Mammalogy vs. Ornithology (plus Entomology 🪲) in a 3-day race to prep specimens. These collections are our global record of life on Earth & are essential for discovery and understanding change over time.

Vote your fave: 🐦 🐭 🪲

Top left: Photograph of a mid-trunk vertebra from a Miocene fossil aquatic snake: Acrochordus sp. (BSIP 41786). Top right: a line diagram of a similar vertebra in the same, anterior, view showing the placement of numbered landmark points used in shape analysis in this study (type 1 landmarks in yellow; type 2 landmarks in red). At the bottom is a morphospace plot showing the first two principal component scores of acrochordid vertebrae, distinguishing the new fossil material in red on the right.

New fossils of Acrochordus (Serpentes, Caenophidia) from the Middle Miocene of Kutch, western India: quantitative taxonomic evaluation & palaeoclimatic insights onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #PapersinPalaeontology

Lock in our 2025 membership rates today! 🔒
Prices increase January 1, 2026—join now to save and enjoy:

🔹 Free admission to the KU Natural History Museum
🔹 Access to exclusive members-only events
🔹 ASTC Travel Passport
🔹 10% off at the museum gift shop
🔹 …and more!

Join today! ➡️ rockcha.lk/1d1353

Hey undergrads—want to go on a research adventure? Join KU Entomology’s @vhgonza.bsky.social on a NSF-funded project studying plant–pollinator interactions in Colombia! 🇨🇴🌿

🗓️ June 1–July 25, 2026
@kubiology.bsky.social

Apply now ➡️ rockcha.lk/kwv

In the Panorama, fall foliage never goes out of season. 🍂

Missing our iconic exhibit? We are too. But its temporary closure will be worth the wait! In just a few more months, the gallery will reopen with a new climate-control system, upgraded lighting, and new glass panes.

Once thought extinct, the black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes) made an incredible comeback after being rediscovered in 1981. KU Mammalogy holds hundreds of specimens—some from the 1800s—that still drive conservation research. See their story on our 5th floor!

🐝 Love insects? Join our team! We're hiring 4 Student Research Assistants to work with the Snow Entomological Collection.

✅ Min. 10 hrs/week
✅ Detail-oriented
✅ Bio interest & Excel skills a plus!

Apply now ⬇️
rockcha.lk/yiy

Only a few spots left for our members-only tour at the McGregor Herbarium! 🌿 Explore how KU Botany staff and volunteers prepare plant, lichen & fungus specimens and learn about grassland biodiversity.

Not a member yet? Click the link to join & get the event details ➡️ rockcha.lk/i11

Rate your hometown dinosaur! 📝 Join the Lawrence Reviewed project on #NationalFossilDay and tell us what you think about Silvisaurus condrayi, Kansas’s official state land fossil! @kulibraries.bsky.social

📍Dyche Hall, 3rd Floor
🗓️ Oct 15 | ⏰ 10AM–12PM
➡️ rockcha.lk/pjs

Thanks to the KU Office of Research for the spotlight! Happy to be part of the @kunhm.bsky.social and continue contributing to preserving and digitizing the collections 🩵. #KUEntomology #PostdocAppreciationWeek #KUSEMC

➡️ research.ku.edu/news/article...

KU postdoc preserves history of the natural world before it disappears

Staff Spotlight 🌟 Learn how Samanta Orellana, a Postdoctoral Researcher at the BI/NHM is expanding global access to insect biodiversity!

Learn More ⬇️
research.ku.edu/news/article...

We had the best time celebrating Kansas biodiversity this past weekend at the Kansas State Fair! 🌻🐸🐝🦅#KUForKansas

🎉 Join our team! 🎉

We are seeking applications for a Student Public Education Assistant. This student hourly position will help assist in education programs for school groups visiting the museum and provide support for program development.

To apply or learn more, click the link ⬇️
rockcha.lk/avx

Join us in welcoming our new cohort of grad students & BioGEM scholars to the KU Biodiversity Institute! 🎉

They’ll be diving into collection-based research across several of our divisions while exploring biodiversity science and gaining hands-on research experience. Welcome all!

We’re so honored to place in 3 of 6 categories at this year’s Best of Lawrence! 🏆 Huge thanks to everyone who voted—your support means everything! ❤️

🥇 Community Landmark
🥈 Place to Take an Out-of-Towner
🥉 Best Gift Shop

Research shows cellophane bee is built for the chill Click for a new study from University of Kansas researchers in the journal Ecology and Evolution

Our new study on cellophane bees and their cold tolerance news.ku.edu/news/article...

Exciting news from KU Ichthyology! 📣🐟 Research Affiliate Gloria Arratia, a global catfish expert, edited & contributed to the recently published volume "Catfishes: A Highly Diversified Group".

📸: Hypancistrus zebra by Leandro Sousa
@kunewsservice.bsky.social ➡️ 🔗 tr.ee/hdBog8tMGc

Outreach drawer collections and visual science communication enhance public engagement with native bee diversity in Colombia Scientific research is often confined to academic circles, limiting public awareness of critical discoveries. This document highlights the transformative impact of science communication through an ent...

Andrés a PhD candidate in @ku-eeb.bsky.social and @kunhm.bsky.social studying the diversity and ecology of neotropical bees! Check out his recent project on outreach opportunities with bee collections in Columbia!

nhcm.pensoft.net/article/1575...

🦴 This #FossilFriday, we're celebrating our Vertebrate Paleontolgoy team’s 3-week dig in Turkey! From late Paleocene to middle Eocene sites, they uncovered fossils from a unique island ecosystem—including a rare embrithopod jaw fragment! Way to go KU crew + collaborators!

🎉 Record-Breaking Month! 🎉

A BIG thank you to the 4,245 visitors who explored the KU Natural History Museum in July — our highest monthly attendance ever! 🐝🦖🦅We’re thrilled to share Earth’s incredible biodiversity with so many curious minds!

Summer just got a whole lot cooler. 🌻❄️

Sunflower Summer has been extended through August 8 — which means there’s still plenty of time for Kansas K–12 students to visit the KU Natural History Museum and 200+ other museums and attractions — for FREE!

Sign up 👉 sunflowersummer.org

Invertebrate paleontologists to improve how data is used in their discipline Click for more on conclave of paleontologists, data scientists and publishers at KU

On Aug. 4–5, the KU Paleontological Institute will host top scientists from Yale, @harvard.edu, @floridamuseum.bsky.social & more during a workshop to rethink how fossil data is shared—making it more FAIR: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable & Reusable. 📄➡️📊

biodiversity.ku.edu/news/article...

Double the celebration! 🎉🐭🦇 Congrats to KU Mammalogy graduate students Alex Hey & Danny Ibanez on successfully defending their master’s theses!

Alex studied hybrid woodrats (Neotoma) in the field using Nanopore tech; Danny explored Hipposideros bat genomics in the Solomons.

PhDs up next at KU! 🎓

The future of semiconductors is in great hands! The FuSe² Team at @universityofkansas.bsky.social, including our very own outreach pros Teresa MacDonald & Eleanor Gardner, hosted high school students for a brain-inspired computing workshop! 🧠 💻

Thanks to @NSF for supporting this project.

Leaving the beautiful #CostaRica 🇨🇷 after a few wonderful weeks! I deeply appreciate the hospitality of local researchers at Universidad de Costa Rica (in San José and Guanacaste 🥰), and the support given by @kunhm.bsky.social to make this trip possible! More soon! #Anthribidae #FranzLab #Collections

Student Spotlight! 🌟 KU doctoral student Kristen Miller is turning heads with her discovery of Swaindelphys solastella, a 60-million-year-old marsupial from Texas’ Big Bend.

Read more: rockcha.lk/4et
📸: KU Marketing | 🖼️: Kristen Tietjen