Welcome to the Department of Museum Research and Collections!
We oversee the management and curation of the Alabama Museum of Natural History collections and develop interdisciplinary research programs focusing on museum-based research. An increasing portion our collections can be found in the online database Arctos. Browse this site to learn more about who we are and what we do.
Last month, Dr. Adiel Klompmaker (UA Museums’ Curator of Paleontology) and Dr. Cristina Robins (a UA Museums’ Research Associate) participated in the 8th Symposium on Fossil Decapod Crustaceans organized in Zaragoza, Spain.
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A new paper in Diversity, authored by a team of international collaborators that was headed up by Dr. John Abbott (Director of The University of Alabama’s Department of Museum Research and Collections) and Dr. Cornelio Bota Sierra (Postdoctoral Research, The University of Alabama Museums) about the Diversity of Nearctic Dragonflies and Damselflies has been published.
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From June 16-21, Dr. John Abbott (Director of The University of Alabama Museum’s Research and Collections) and Kendra Abbott (Alabama Museum of Natural History‘s Research and Outreach Coordinator) traveled to Colombia to conduct a Dragonfly ID and Genetics Workshop, as part of the GEODE research project.
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When trying to study changes in insect populations, researchers are hindered by one big problem: We don’t know as much about bugs as we need to. “We know almost nothing,” said Kendra Abbott, entomologist and museums research and outreach coordinator at the University of Alabama.
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The remains of a 70-million-year-old carnivorous lobster have been found in Alabama, and the fossil is so well preserved it resembles well-cooked bacon.
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This story is part 11 of the AL.com series “Ancient Alabama,” examining the natural forces that made Alabama what it is over the past 500 million years, and how those forces still shape the state today.
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Alabama has an incredibly rich fossil record, with most geological periods since the start of the Phanerozoic about 540 million years ago represented on the surface. When rocks and sediments are exposed, fossils can often be found.
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Bama Bug Fest will return in-person to celebrate the diversity and benefits of arthropods at the Alabama Museum of Natural History on April 9. What hatched as a small nature-themed museum event a few years ago has metamorphosed into the Bama Bug Fest, a community celebration of “bugs.”
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On Saturday, March 26, a class field trip was scheduled for students enrolled in the undergraduate Paleontology & Society course offered through the selective Blount Scholars Program at the University of Alabama. The classic fossil locality Harrell Station Paleontological Site in Dallas County was the destination of this trip.
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