Natural History Department
The Florida Museum of Natural History holds more than 20 million objects, or specimens, and maintains active collections in Archaeology (material culture), Botany (plants), Herpetology (reptiles and amphibians), Ichthyology (fishes), Invertebrate and Vertebrate Paleontology (fossil animals), Malacology and Invertebrate Zoology (shells and other spineless animals), Mammalogy (mammals), Ornithology (birds) and Paleobotany (fossil plants). The Allyn Museum's world-class Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) collection of more than one million specimens from 95 percent of the known butterfly genera has been relocated to the new McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity. Collectively, the collection totals over 2 million specimens.
The department's primary center is Dickinson Hall, which was named for Director Emeritus Dr. J. C. Dickinson, Jr. Its design reflects the pyramidal structures of Native Americans - Southeastern United States temple mounds from the front and Mesoamerican pyramids from the rear. The building is the signature piece of one of Florida's most-renowned architects, William Morgan.
Former exhibit space on the upper level of Dickinson Hall has been transformed into new classroom, laboratory and collections space. The UF Herbarium, a joint operation of the Florida Museum and the Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences, was the first new occupant. Composed of more than 500,000 bryophytes and vascular plants, 15,000 wood samples and 3,000 seeds, the collection leads the state in plant identification. Orchid research is at the cutting edge of the museum's emerging program in molecular systematics.
The Mammalogy collection was recently relocated to the top floor of Dickinson Hall. It consists primarily of skins and skulls, although entire skeletons have been prepared from all specimens acquired during the last 15 years. Important components are the marine mammal collection and involvement with the Florida Panther Recovery Program. It is likely the largest collection in the world of endangered Florida Panther specimens and also features extensive manatee skeletal material, a very large and diverse cetacean collection and an extensive collection of small mammals of Pakistan.
The Ornithology program, also relocated to the top floor of Dickinson Hall, curates the world's fifth-largest collection of recent bird skeletons and fourth-largest collection of bird sounds. Research has demonstrated the enormous role humans have played in the global extinction of bird species.
The Ordway Laboratory of Ecosystem Conservation, located next to the Ornithology collection, currently houses graduate students and postdoctoral research associates who study the effects of human activities on bird populations and communities in Florida, South America and central Africa. Research focuses on the effects of urbanization on birds.
The Ethnographics collection, also relocated to the top floor of Dickinson Hall, contains almost 5,000 objects related to living human cultures. The collection includes ceramics, textiles, wooden objects, and baskets. The Native American basketry collection is one of the most representative of Native American cultures in the world. These objects come from all over the world, but the majority come from Native American cultures of North and South America.
Dickinson Hall's middle floor is home to living and fossil representatives of the natural world. The Herpetology collection is estimated to be between the 6th and 10th largest in the U.S.
The Ichthyology collection ranks second as a national center. It is a rich resource of biodiversity information and is an unparalleled source of information on three key South Florida ecosystems: Florida Bay, the Everglades and the Florida Keys. The division also maintains the International Shark Attack File.
The Malacology collection is the fifth largest in North America, and the second largest in the world in terms of online access. Its extensive holdings provide some of the best documentation available of change and extinction in North American freshwater habitats during the last century. The collection is reknown for land and freshwater snails, and tropical reef mollusks. The Invertebrate Zoology collection, currently housed with Malacology, is the newest addition to the museum. Initiated in 2000, it is already among the 10 largest in the US, with a rapidly growing collection of reef invertebrates worldwide in scope.
In Paleontology, the museum houses three outstanding programs. The Paleobotany collection of fossil plants is international in scope, including specimens from 26 countries. Its greatest strength is in Cretaceous-Tertiary angiosperms, the world's oldest flowering plants. The Invertebrate Paleontology collection includes material collected within the last 30 years from sites across Florida, the Southeastern U.S., and the Caribbean. Vertebrate Paleontology has an estimated 730,000 total specimens of which 371,600 are cataloged, including bones from mammoths and mastodons to the world's oldest horse. More than 90 percent of the collection comes from about 2,000 Florida marine and non-marine sites.
Human cultural collections are curated on the bottom level of Dickinson Hall. The largest component of the collection is artifacts excavated from Florida archaeological sites by museum and Anthropology Division faculty and students. In addition to pre-Columbian Florida, the museum has the world's largest systematic collection of Spanish colonial artifacts and North America's second largest collection of pre-Columbian artifacts. The Division's extensive Ethnographic collection moved to a new storage room on the upper level of Dickinson Hall in 2003. See the section on Dickinson's upper level above for a description of the collection. Work by museum archaeologists has greatly improved our understanding of the human impact on and response to global climatic change.
Though developed primarily for research, the collections are used for teaching undergraduate and graduate students and by law enforcement agencies for the forensic identification of endangered species. Other uses are as diverse as the university itself. Applications include biomedical research, wildlife dentistry, historical biogeography 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. Museum collections document the past and recent distributions of animals on our planet. In this important way natural history answers questions about the future.
The Randell Research Center is a research and education program of the Florida Museum located in Pineland, Florida. Its mission is to learn and teach the archaeology, history and ecology of southwest Florida. The RRC also operates the Calusa Heritage Trail, a 3700-foot interpreted pathway that leads visitors among the mounds, canals and other features of the Pineland archaeological site. Parking, public restrooms and picnic facilities are available at the trailhead at 13810 Waterfront Drive, Pineland.
For more information about the Department of Natural History, contact:
Dr. David W. Steadman, Associate Director for Research and Collections and Chair
Florida Museum of Natural History
University of Florida-Dickinson Hall
PO Box 117800
Gainesville, FL 32611-7800
Tel: (352) 273-1940
Fax: (352) 846-0287
E-mail: dws@flmnh.ufl.edu
Ms. Pam Dennis, Sr. Secretary
Florida Museum of Natural History
University of Florida-Dickinson Hall
PO Box 117800
Gainesville, FL 32611-7800
Tel: (352) 273-1941
Fax: (352) 846-0287
E-mail: pamd@flmnh.ufl.edu
For more information about the Randell Research Center, contact:
Dr. William H. Marquardt, Curator
Florida Museum of Natural History
University of Florida-Dickinson Hall
PO Box 117800
Gainesville, FL 32611-7800
Tel: (352) 273-1917
Fax: (352) 846-0287
E-mail: bilmarq@flmnh.ufl.edu