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Monday 10am - 5pm Tuesday 10am - 5pm Wednesday 10am - 5pm Thursday 10am - 5pm Friday 10am - 5pm Saturday 10am - 5pm Sunday 1pm - 5pm

Florida Museum of Natural History

Name: Florida Museum of Natural History
Address: 3215 Hull Road, Gainesville, FL, 32611, US
Telephone: +13528462000
Price range: $
Rating: 4.8

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Florida Museum of Natural History

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The Florida Museum of Natural History, located at the University of Florida, inspires people to care about life on Earth. This site is not a public forum.
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Our exhibits building is currently CLOSED for an expansion project. Full info: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/visit/expansion/ The Florida Museum of Natural History intends to educate, inform and provide updated information on its activities and to support and promote its objectives for these activities through its page. All Florida Museum comments are made by Museum designees. Social media users may share ideas through commentary that is consistent with and furthers the objectives of the Museum and the University of Florida. The Museum reserves the right to remove any comments that do not fall within this purpose, including those that are: off-topic, containing links to third-party websites or content, or made in violation of Florida or federal law. By posting a comment on our social media pages, you agree to follow the University of Florida Community Commenting Guidelines, host social media channel Terms of Service, Florida and federal law, and UF regulations and policies – including but not limited to the university’s Acceptable Use of Computing Resources Policy. Your comments may be removed if they are in violation of these guidelines.

10/15/2026

Can insects create art? 🪲 Online Exhibit

Jiri Hulcr is a forest entomologist that looks at these little beetles, their society and behaviors, with scientific scrutiny but also a touch of poetry.

"Is it art?" Jiri asks. "It doesn’t matter. It is beautiful, and it lets you peek into a different universe where life pulsates fast and at a tiny scale."

Scroll through his online exhibit to get a closer look at some of these beetles and the art they leave behind.

Featured: Tomicus minor
Origin: Europe
Medium: Pine
From the artist’s life: The design looks like dizzy birds with ruffled feathers, but these tunnels have a purpose. Each female seeds the tree with a yummy fungus for her babies to eat. The young, living in pits around the main tunnel, spread the fungus even farther until the whole log is colonized. And then a strange thing happens–the fungus turns the wood blue!

🪲 Online Exhibit
Bark Beetle Calligraphy
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/exhibits/online/bark-beetle-calligraphy/

Photo by J. Hulcr

10/14/2026

Museum Resource 🐍 Florida Snake ID Guide

You never know when you're going to encounter a rare snake! Our popular guide to Florida's snakes helps you with a quick search on the go with pictures, or you can get to know our state's species before you head outdoors.

Each snake profile has great info on where they are known to live, their preferred habitats, what they eat and when they are most active.
🐍 Browse and search: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/florida-snake-id/

Featured: Short-tailed Kingsnake (Lampropeltis extenuata)
NON-VENOMOUS

Most adult Short-tailed Kingsnakes are about 14-20 inches in total length. These are extremely slender gray snakes with a pattern of black blotches or spots. The light-colored spaces between the black spots on the back often have an orange center giving the impression of an indistinct orange stripe running down the back. The blunt head is very small and roughly the same diameter as the body. The top of the head is dark brown or black.

Short-tailed Kingsnakes occur throughout much of upland northern central Florida, west of the St. Johns River. It is not found outside of Florida.

🔎 Check out each profile to compare snakes to lookalike species.

Short-tailed Kingsnakes are currently listed as state Threatened on Florida’s Endangered and Threatened Species List due to its restriction to limited upland habitats and because of urban development.

🐍 Full info and browse more:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/florida-snake-id/snake/short-tailed-kingsnake/

Photo courtesy of Noah Mueller.

10/13/2026

Winter worm summer grass 😨 Spooky Season Science

Florida’s biodiverse ecosystems harbor some gruesome discoveries.

Species spotlight: Winter worm summer grass (Ophiocordyceps sobolifera)

An ancient Chinese text from the Tang Dynasty (AD 618- AD 907) and Tibetan manuscripts written in the 15-16th centuries reference a shape-shifting organism that lives out the winter as a worm and transforms into a plant during the summer.

This fanciful creature may seem like the stuff of myth, but it’s actually a fairly good description of a fungus that infects certain insects, including moths and cicadas.

If you live someplace warm, you’re probably most familiar with large adult cicadas, which ascend to the forest canopy in droves and emit a shrill, deafening chorus. But this is just the tail end of their lifecycle. Cicadas spend most of their lives as larva (worm-like, juvenile insects) and more developed nymphs, which live underground and chew on roots.

In many areas, including Florida, these juvenile cicadas are susceptible to a fungal infection that eats away at their insides and engulfs the cicada in a hardened sphere of wispy filaments called hyphae. At the onset of warmer weather, the fungus produces fruiting bodies that grow out of the cicada’s head and emerge above ground, where its spores are distributed by wind.

The Chinese and Tibetan text likely refer to a closely related fungal species, Ophiocordyceps sinensis, which similarly parasitizes ghost moths in the family Hepialidae.

Explore more spooky natural history: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/discover/spooky-season-science/

LINK in bio 😨 Spooky Season Science: Spooky natural history

Florida Museum photo by Kristen Grace

10/12/2026

Online Exhibit 🦏 Wondrous Creatures

"I make sculptures of prehistoric animals that represent the wonder to be found in natural history," said artist Ariel Bowman. "I am intrigued by animals that evolved with distinct features, such as unfamiliar tusks, strange elongated limbs and unusual proportions. I use clay to bring these extinct creatures back to life, sculpting folds of flesh and filling their bellies with air."

Wondrous Creatures explores wonder as an inspiration and a bridge between art and science.
https://brnw.ch/21x6l3U

Featured:
La Belle au Bois Dormant (Sleeping Beauty)

About the Art:
Dreams and knowledge of the subconscious mind are another way that humans separate themselves from animals. The bed was popular in the Rococo court as a means of displaying wealth and power. The wolf’s enormous size has broken the bed, collapsing the idea of human superiority.

About the Science:
All that was discovered of Andrewsarchus was the top of its 33 inch skull. It lived 48-37 million years ago in Mongolia. Believed to be a large scavenger, it was 6 feet high at the shoulder with teeth possibly able to bite through bone. This is a particularly strange creature because it is actually related to modern whales, hippos and other artiodactyls.

Photo courtesy of Joshua Hobson

10/11/2026

New Fall 2026 Tot Trot dates are here! 🍂🐿️🐛 We walk, we point, we collect, we art! We learn about nature all around us! Our popular toddler program promotes child-focused sensory experiences and investigation with an emphasis on families exploring science together.

🐾 Each Tuesday has a different theme and one program per month is FREE! Check our website for the meet-up location with map.

🌳 October:
Oct. 20- Trees
Oct. 27- Bones, FREE Day

🍂 November:
Nov. 3- Wind
Nov. 10- Camping

Program info, prices and more dates:
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/kids/tot-trots/

Length: About 1.5 hours

Age: Recommended for children ages 2-5 years old

When: Most Tuesday mornings at 9am

Where: We will meet at the picnic tables at the UF NATL Natural Park Entrance located on the corner of Natural Area drive. *Full info on our website*

📌 When we reopen our exhibits building on Nov. 23, we will change the meetup location and explore the Discovery Zone on our Tot Tuesdays once again!

10/10/2026

We're excited! Our exhibits building is reopening Nov. 23, 2026 🎉🎉🎉

We are so happy to welcome everyone back just in time for the holidays. Include us in your family plans and take a stroll through our exhibits to rediscover all of your favorites and get inspired by our newest additions: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu

10/09/2026

Museum Collections ✨

What's this beautiful specimen? 💜 Florida’s state stone is agatized coral, which is the fossilized remains of colonial corals that became colorful geodes.

The transformation occurs over time when the coral’s original calcium carbonate skeleton is slowly dissolved by acidic groundwater and partially replaced by dissolved silica. The various colors are due to deposition of trace minerals (like iron and manganese) during this process.

Collection: Invertebrate Paleontology
Specimen: # UF 142605
Period: Late Oligocene

Learn about agatized coral and more: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/100-years/object/agatized-fossil-coral/

This specimen is part of a collection that was generously donated to the Florida Museum in 2008 by Gene Hamm and his family of High Springs, Florida. For over 40 years Mr. Hamm, his wife and children regularly explored sites along the Suwannee and Withlacoochee rivers looking for these rare 20- to 34-million-year-old specimens.

10/08/2026

Spooky Season Science 🕷️ Male jumping spiders are usually brightly colored, while females tend to be brown and gray to help with camouflage in their surroundings.

Female jumping spiders are usually drab brown and gray, which scientists believe helps them blend in with their surroundings. They must constantly hunt for food to produce eggs that they will later guard until they hatch.

Online Exhibit 🕷️ Colorful Dancing Spiders
Discover the vibrant world of spiders and the innovative research being done at the University of Florida to learn more about the arachnids’ surprisingly good vision.

Arachnologists (spider scientists) are studying how color impacts spider behavior.

Exhibit 🔗 https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/exhibits/online/colorful-dancing-spiders/

Featured:
A female Paradise Jumping Spider, Habronattus brunneus. The large forward-facing eyes of this species provide exceptional visual acuity and color vision. Photo courtesy of Colin Hutton

10/07/2026

Online Exhibit 🦍 Gorillas in the Mist
Dian Fossey's Legacy

Explore Dian Fossey’s Mountain Gorilla research through the lens of Bob Campbell’s photographs, 1968-1972, with a look at gorillas today.

Explore the online exhibit: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/exhibits/online/gorillas/

Fossey’s Gorilla Research: Sanwekwe

Sanwekwe was a local tracker and is under-recognized for his contributions to gorilla research and conservation. He guided Carl Akeley to Mt. Mikeno in the 1920s, tracking the specimens still on exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. In 1959, he tracked gorillas for George Schaller’s behavioral and census research. Through his expertise, Fossey learned gorilla behavior and tracking. She credits Sanwekwe’s involvement for the success of her first gorilla photographs at Kabara in 1963. He later worked with her at Karisoke.

Gorilla protection once focused on excluding local people like Sanwekwe from parks, but current conservation practice depends on community participation. Local involvement in wildlife conservation and tourism fosters community investment in natural resources. This approach is essential, as people are one of the greatest threats to wildlife in Africa.

Featured photo: Congolese tracker Sanwekwe, 1971. Photo courtesy of the George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, from the Bob Campbell Papers, Special & Area Studies Collections. Gift of Heather Campbell.

10/06/2026

Do you hear a lot of croaking and chirping after a good rain? What kind of frogs are nearby? You can identify frog species by the sound of their calls similar to how birders can tell their feathered friends apart even if they can't spot them.

Museum Resource 🐸🎶 Florida Frog Calls
Listen online and see if you can compare what you're hearing in the wild to our simple audio tracks. You might be surprised how quickly you can pick up the different frog calls.

Once you learn to identify the species of frogs (and toads), you can also know a lot about the habitat, the season and even the individual’s personal message. They call out for breeding purposes, to mark territory, to alert each other about predators and in response to the weather.

Our online guide has audio of many species you will typically hear in our state, as well as seasonal chorus tracks of multiple species.

🌟 Now with uninvited guests: Cuban treefrog AND cane toad calls.

Listen: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/discover-herps/florida-frog-calls/

Address

3215 Hull Road
Gainesville, FL
32611

Opening Hours

Monday	10am - 5pm
Tuesday	10am - 5pm
Wednesday	10am - 5pm
Thursday	10am - 5pm
Friday	10am - 5pm
Saturday	10am - 5pm
Sunday	1pm - 5pm

Telephone

+13528462000

Website

http://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/

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