In the spring of 2017 HMNS’ resident photographer Mike Rathke went on a photographic expedition of Yellowstone National Park with his father, Ron. Together this father-son professional photographer team captured some of the most splendid sights to be seen not only in North America, but all over the world. Today on Beyond Bones […]
Behind The Scenes Tour Of Our Smith Gem Vault The dazzling facts about the gemstones and the jewelry will be shared by Museum geologists and lapidary artists, including Jill Moffit who worked on one of the stones. This tour will include a demonstration of gemstone cutting. Tuesday, June 19, 2018 – 6:00 PM Public […]
By Tim McSweeny and Dan Brooks, Ph.D. Last year Houston was devastated by Hurricane Harvey, with flooding covering streets, bayous and communities throughout Houston after the storm deposited about three feet of rain. One of the many parts of the city affected by the storm was the colony of Free-tailed bats living under the […]
Echolocation is a process in which sound waves and echoes are used to determine where various objects are in a given space. Bats use echolocation to navigate and find food when it is dark outside. Bats produce soundwaves out of their mouths or noses. These sound waves hit nearby objects and bounce back to […]
In the wake of hurricane Harvey, you may have heard rumors of floating fire ant rafts in the flood waters. Well, it’s not a rumor at all. The ability to bind together and form rafts to combat flooding is one of the adaptations that make the red imported fire ant such a resilient invasive pest. […]
A Fressssssh Start To The New Year! This year many people will be rummaging through their closets, discarding old clothing in exchange for a fresh, new look. Our snakes have done sort of the same thing, as many of them have recently shed! This delicate, dermatological discard still retains the pattern of the animal it […]
Dan Brooks, Ph.D. HMNS Curator of Vertebrate Zoology The Frensley/Graham Hall of African Wildlife, built 2002-04 was a new variation of a common traditional theme at HMNS, in that we wanted to portray more than just the Serengeti ecosystem. Prior versions of the hall focused on the Serengeti, which while a very important […]
The other day I was on one of my three-mile walks, fighting off those extra pounds that come with my new, sedentary office job. The sun was coming down earlier than I expected, an unwelcome consequence of changing seasons, and I found that the pretty tree-lined lane I live on had become a particularly dark […]
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster may no longer be a buzzword in the media, but the effects of history’s largest oil spill on the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico are still on the minds of marine scientists around the world. Gulf seafood seems to be recovering, but biologists are keeping a close eye to […]
Don’t stick your hand in that shell! You don’t know who might be home. It could be a carnivorous snail or a “clawsome” crab. Take a look at our Texas state shell, the lightning whelk or left-handed whelk, which feeds on bivalves like oysters and clams. Perhaps the snail that makes the shell is still […]
