If you have ever been to a beach where a Portuguese Man-Of-War jellyfish has washed up onto shore, you might also have seen the glorious Purple Sea Snail close by. These light-as-air snails live their entire lives upside down and attached to a living Portuguese Man-Of-War. The purple and blue colors of the air sack of […]
Jupiter and Saturn are in the south at dusk this month. Look south in the early evening for the two planets which will be about 6 degrees apart. Beginning now, you’ll notice Jupiter slowly approaching Saturn. (Saturn is moving too, but even more slowly than Jupiter). By December 21, the two planets will be only six arcminutes […]
In some of the blogs I wrote several weeks ago, I tried to let you in on some BtS ideas of why certain diorama scenes were created the way they were. Here is another fun tidbit – over each label describing species and habitat in Farish Hall of Texas Wildlife, there is a bird(s) flying […]
Science tracks down the presence of elusive early humans. In the Houston Museum of Natural Science’s display on human evolution, there is a backlit mural representing our family tree. It goes back to 55 million years ago, and takes us all the way up to today, showcasing modern humans and all of our living primate […]
Jupiter and Saturn are in the south at dusk this month. Look south in the early evening for the two planets which will be about 6 degrees apart. Jupiter outshines every star up at night. Mars is higher and brighter in the morning sky each day this month. Look high in the southwest at dawn. […]
Those who are frequent visitors to the Morian Hall of Paleontology might have noticed that a familiar face has reappeared. The very last section of the exhibit hall now shows a life-sized version of a female Australopithecus afarensis. Not just any afarensis, mind you, but rather a fleshed-out model of the famous Lucy. One can […]
If you’ve gazed with wide-eyed wonder at the museum’s Frensley-Graham Hall of African Wildlife and the adjacent Farish Hall of Texas Wildlife, you can thank curator Dr. Dan Brooks for his loving attention to detail. Since 1999 he’s been an integral part of the world at HMNS, overseeing the institution’s vast vertebrate specimens collection. Bringing […]
So what is a Queen Conch? First, they are Mollusks also commonly referred to as Sea Snails. They were once commonly found around the Florida coast and in much of the Caribbean Sea in great quantities. However they have been on the Endangered Species List for many years, and it is against the law to […]
The stale sticky days of high summer are upon Houston – and also Egypt (although the Egyptian summer has stayed mild so far). What time of year could feel less fresh? For the Egyptians, however, now was the start of the year, a time of new beginnings. Egypt, as no Egyptologist can avoid telling you, […]
I’ve been doing aquatic bird surveys at McGovern Lake in Hermann Park for over a decade, but that will have to be a blog topic for the future! Every now and then my son comes with me, and he’s pretty much a reptile-magnet. We now have documented the following four species of freshwater turtles at […]
