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. Browse this site to learn more about who we are and what we do.
A large molecular study has confirmed what was thought for a while: some isolated groups with at most a handful of species each are so unique that they have no close living relatives remaining. Five new families were named and two were revived.
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Predation is an evolutionary force shaping sea floor communities, with the record of drilling predation being particularly useful to study predatory behavior on short and long timescales. Most predatory drill holes are caused by gastropods, but octopods within Octopodoidea also produce characteristic drill holes, yet remain severely understudied in deep time.
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Octopodoidea are a highly versatile and diverse group of marine predators comprising > 200 species today, but their diversity and ecology in deep time are virtually unknown. Because these soft-bodied cephalopods have a low preservation potential, only a single body fossil species has been documented.
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Alabama’s Harrell Station, roughly 45 miles west of Montgomery and 150 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, seems like the last place someone would go to explore the ocean. But crumbling out of the dusty ground, which has been wrinkled into gullies of white chalk, are the remnants of an ancient sea.
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Alabama’s Harrell Station, roughly 75 kilometers west of Montgomery and 250 kilometers inland from the Gulf of Mexico, seems like the last place someone would go to explore the ocean. But crumbling out of the dusty ground, which has been wrinkled into gullies of white chalk, are the remnants of an ancient sea.
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While most are completely harmless, there are a handful of venomous caterpillars native to Alabama that can really pack a punch. We went straight to the expert, and caught up with Dr. John Abbott at The University of Alabama to get the scoop on these guys.
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The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) awarded a $39,944 grant to the paleontology collections of the Alabama Museum of Natural History. The goal of this project is the rehousing, digitizing, and imaging of the cataloged part of the historic invertebrate paleontology and type collections over the next two years starting in September.
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This summer, an article using a well-preserved mosasaur jaw from the Alabama Museum of Natural History paleontology collection, was published in the July issue of Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.
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This year’s Bama Bug Fest will be crawling your way April 22-24! Bug Enthusiasts will be able to participate in video live chats with experts, make crafts, and visit in-person exhibits at Alabama Museum of Natural History, Mildred Westervelt Warner Transportation Museum, and Tuscaloosa Public Library! For more details, visit: https://bamabugfest.org/
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