All News

When the Ambulance Can't Reach You: Dr. Alison Davis Rabosky Takes Wilderness First Responder Training

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 13:17:00 +0000

UMMZ Director Dr. Alison Davis Rabosky recently completed an intensive Wilderness First Responder certification, gaining the skills needed to respond to medical emergencies in remote locations where help may be hours, or even days, away.

The 2025 Donald W. Tinkle Award Winners

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 17:10:00 +0000

The U-M Museum of Zoology has named Natasha Stepanova (PhD ’26) and Matheus Januario (PhD ’26) as the recipients of the 2025 Donald W. Tinkle Scholarship Award

UMMZ Spotlight: Hernán López-Fernández and Patricia Torres-Pineda Publish a Paper in Neotropical Ichthyology

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 16:04:00 +0000

A rare electric fish long misclassified has been reassigned to a newly described genus, based on fresh specimens from Suriname’s upper Tapanahony River and new genetic and anatomical evidence.

Watch This: Biodiversity Buzz Video Clips

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 17:59:00 +0000

Check out these clips highlighting researchers from the EEB Museums in the field

A Trip of Extremes: Ph.D. Candidates Juan Gabriel Albornoz-Garzón and Benjamin Nicholas Share Their Adventures to Peru

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 15:52:00 +0000

Last summer, EEB Ph.D. Candidates Juan Albornoz-Garzón and Benjamin Nicholas spent two weeks in Peru conducting field work and collecting specimens.

UMMZ Egg Imaging Project

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 15:24:00 +0000

As a Graduate Student Curatorial Assistant (GSCA) in Fall 2023, under the guidance of Collections Manager Brett Benz, Wacker began imaging the Bird Division’s 4,000 sets of eggs, totaling over 14,000 individual eggs from nearly 600 different species.

Non-native Fish caught at Annual Fish Slam

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 15:20:00 +0000

The roster for the 14th Annual Fish Slam held in Southern Florida was packed to the gills

Welcome Taro Eldredge!

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 17:50:00 +0000

Lured to U-M for its vibrant research collections, Eldredge is keenly interested in rove beetles or, in his words, ‘the biggest family you’ve never heard of.’ Containing over 63,000 species, Rove beetles are more diverse than all vertebrates combined.

UMMZ Featured in LSA Magazine, Summer 2022

Tue, 07 Jun 2022 19:55:00 +0000

New publication explores how biodiversity can help scientists predict future pandemics

Thu, 09 Jul 2020 19:49:00 +0000

A collaborative article featuring Cody Thompson, UMMZ Mammal Collection Manager and Assistant Research Scientist, explores how scientists can use biodiversity to better predict future pandemics.

Out of museum drawers and on to the internet: NSF digitization grant awarded for 3D renderings of mammal collections

Mon, 27 Apr 2020 14:22:00 +0000

A new National Science Foundation grant will fund digitization of museum mammal collections, which is integral to research in the fields of medicine, physiology, ecology, evolution and biomechanics, among others.

Ricardo Marino-Perez selected as the recipient of the 2019 Snodgrass Memorial Research Award

Mon, 12 Aug 2019 18:00:00 +0000

This year, the section Awards Committee has recommended the awarding of two Snodgrass awards to Ricardo Marino-Perez.

Stunning Insect Collection Donated to the UMMZ!

Thu, 25 Apr 2019 21:00:00 +0000

The UMMZ Insect Division just acquired Paul and Virginia Howcroft’s beautifully preserved insect collection.

Nocturnal flight-calling behaviour predicts vulnerability to artificial light in migratory birds

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 04:00:00 +0000

How migratory birds are drawn to artificial light in large cities, causing many birds to die hitting buildings.

UMMZ rabbit specimens collected in the 1940's and 1950's help researchers understand the evolution of resistance to myxoma virus

Fri, 15 Feb 2019 20:00:00 +0000

In the 1950s the myxoma virus was released into European rabbit populations in Australia and Europe, decimating populations and resulting in the rapid evolution of resistance.

Prairie Pre-Restoration Sampling & Education

Fri, 31 Aug 2018 15:00:00 +0000

Prairie Pre-Restoration Sampling & Education Event. Calling all citizen scientists, nature enthusiasts, and inquiring minds for a day of learning and collecting fun!

UMMZ and MSU bee collaboration!

Fri, 20 Jul 2018 20:00:00 +0000

The UMMZ Insect Division is teaming up with the Isaacs lab at MSU to database and digitize wild bee specimens in the UMMZ insect collection

Symposium: Diversification process in dynamic landscapes

Tue, 10 Jul 2018 19:24:00 +0000

This symposium features talks about landscape history (tectonic and climate), evolutionary processes, and analytical methods. Speakers represent a variety of disciplines, including earth sciences, biogeography, macroevolution, and modeling.

Bee Collection Donation to the Insect Museum

Mon, 09 Jul 2018 14:00:00 +0000

The UMMZ Insect Division recently acquired a collection of wild bees to add to our Apoidea holdings.

Dr. Almir Pepato visits the Insect Division

Fri, 06 Jul 2018 17:00:00 +0000

Dr. Almir Pepato is in a long-term collaboration with Dr. Pavel Klimov. Their research aims to infer the evolutionary past of marine mites by using molecular biology to target and infer biographical patterns of coastal regions around the globe.

Visitor to the Insect Division

Tue, 19 Jun 2018 18:05:00 +0000

Dr. Sergey Mironov, from the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is examining feather mites in the UMMZ Insect Collection.

Scan All Snakes (yes, all of them)

Fri, 08 Sep 2017 15:49:00 +0000

The Rabosky and Davis Rabosky labs at the University of Michigan are generating high-resolution computed tomography (CT) scans for all of the world’s snakes

Hop, skip, run, leap: Unpredictability boosts survival for bipedal desert rodents

Tue, 05 Sep 2017 15:00:00 +0000

Sometimes it pays to be unpredictable. A new study shows that when bipedal desert rodents called jerboas are being chased, sudden changes in direction, gait and speed help them elude hungry predators...

U-M partners in project to create digital encyclopedia of thousands of 3-D vertebrate specimens

Thu, 31 Aug 2017 20:53:47 +0000

A $2.5 million National Science Foundation grant will launch oVert, a new initiative to "teleport" museum specimens from their shelves to the Internet by CT scanning 20,000 vertebrates.

On U-M Gateway: three species of tiny frogs discovered in Peruvian Andes

Mon, 31 Jul 2017 14:59:00 +0000

Given that the newly discovered frog species live in the Pui Pui Protected Forest, much of their habitat is formally protected. However, amphibians worldwide face multiple threats—and Andean amphibians are no exception.

New speciation research in Andean cloud forest birds shines light on age-old questions

Wed, 26 Jul 2017 20:22:00 +0000

“A longstanding question in speciation research is the extent to which populations that are diverging into new species can exchange genes while maintaining their trajectories of divergence.”

Inaugural Digital Data in Biodiversity Research Conference hosted by U-M museums

Thu, 15 Jun 2017 13:50:00 +0000

Participants demonstrated how biodiversity resources, such as museum specimens, archived tissues and related digitized data, are accessed and incorporated in research programs encompassing the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology.

And the EEB Outstanding Paper Award goes to…Pascal Title!

Tue, 30 May 2017 18:41:00 +0000

“Macrophylogenies offer an unprecedented opportunity to address evolutionary and ecological questions at broad phylogenetic scales, but accurately representing the uncertainty that is inherent to such analyses remains a critical challenge to our field.”

Thomaz wins notable Museum of Zoology Tinkle Award

Thu, 23 Mar 2017 13:53:00 +0000

EEB graduate student Andréa Thomaz is the 2016 recipient of the Donald W. Tinkle Scholarship from the U-M Museum of Zoology.

OConnor and Klimov: USDA Bee Mite ID released

Wed, 08 Mar 2017 20:49:00 +0000

A first-of-its-kind resource is helping in the fight against the dramatic decline in bee pollinator populations.

A new species of terrestrial-breeding frog (Amphibia, Craugastoridae, Pristimantis) from high elevations of the Pui Pui Protected Forest in central Peru

Tue, 07 Mar 2017 17:00:00 +0000

New frog from the Peruvian Andes is the first amphibian named after Sir David Attenborough

Thompson receives service award from American Society of Mammalogists

Fri, 11 Nov 2016 13:56:00 +0000

Cody Thompson received the President's Special Award from the American Society of Mammalogists at their 2016 annual meeting in recognition of his outstanding service to the society.

New digital collection: Museum of Zoology Herpetology Radiographs

Fri, 30 Sep 2016 20:00:00 +0000

The UM Museum of Zoology (UMMZ) and Digital Library Platform & Services (DLPS) are happy to announce the Museum of Zoology Herpetology Radiographs collection.

Otero Jimenez named HHMI Gilliam Fellow

Thu, 08 Sep 2016 04:00:00 +0000

Beatriz Otero Jimenez is interested in using genetic tools to understand the impact of agricultural systems on tropical biodiversity.

Namesake snakes for U-M Museum of Zoology researchers

Wed, 07 Sep 2016 15:36:00 +0000

What are the odds? Within a matter of months, in Boston and Bonn, two newly described snake species in genus Epictia were independently named for colleagues at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.

Namesake snakes for U-M Museum of Zoology researchers

Wed, 07 Sep 2016 12:41:00 +0000

What are the odds? Within a matter of months, in Boston and Bonn, two newly described snake species in genus Epictia were independently named for colleagues at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.

Notes from the Director/Associate Chair of Collections

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 16:23:00 +0000

It’s an exciting time for the Museum of Zoology (UMMZ) as we relocate our collections, move to a shared database platform, welcome two new curators and create the position of registrar.