University of California Museum of Paleontology

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News & Updates

Posted by Erin Meyer

I am a graduate student with the UCMP and the Department of Integrative Biology at Berkeley, and I study the biogeography, conservation biology, and microevolution of molluscs. From July through August of 2009, I traveled to nine islands in the Eastern Caribbean looking for Cittarium pica, a large, marine gastropod, or snail. This species has many common names, including West Indian Topshell, burgao, burgos, cingua, magpie shell, wilke, and “whelk”, which is why knowing the scientific name is so … [Read more...] about A summer studying snails in the Caribbean

Posted by Jennifer Skene

Jere Lipps retired this year, but the accolades keep coming! Jere has just been awarded the 2010 Raymond C. Moore Medal for Excellence in Paleontology by the SEPM Society for Sedimentary Geology. He receives this medal in recognition of his outstanding contribution to paleontology. Congrats Jere! You can read about his career accomplishments in the most recent UCMP Newsletter. The Raymond C. Moore Medal will be presented to Jere at the SEPM Annual Meeting in New Orleans in April. … [Read more...] about Jere Lipps awarded medal for excellence in paleontology

Posted by Jennifer Skene

Climate change is not a new phenomenon - the earth's climate has been changing for millions of years, and no one knows this better than paleontologists. In his recent book, Heatstroke: Nature in an age of Global Warming, UCMP Faculty Curator Tony Barnosky tells why today's climate change is different than the climatic fluctuations of the past, and how that will impact ecosystems in new ways. Tony was recently interviewed in Terrain, Northern California's Environmental Magazine. Read Tony's … [Read more...] about Tony Barnosky talks about his book, Heatstroke, in Terrain magazine

Posted by Jennifer Skene

A few months ago, the UCMP’s Tyrannosaurus rex broke a nail. The right claw mysteriously went missing. We needed to replace it, but obviously the standard-issue drugstore press-on nail just wouldn’t do. We had to re-construct a new right claw by making a copy of the intact left claw. Danny Anduza, a UCMP volunteer, carried out the claw restoration. First, he mixed up a rubbery substance and painted it over the T. rex’s left claw, to make a mold. Once the rubber hardened, he carefully sliced it … [Read more...] about T. rex gets a manicure

Posted by Matt Perry

David Dufeau, a graduate student from Ohio University, spent a few days at the UCMP this July, studying the development and evolution of the middle-ear sinuses in archosaurs — birds and crocodilians. He explains that the sinuses in these animals were so greatly expanded that they completely surrounded the braincase. By understanding these super-sized sinuses in the archosaurs, David hopes to infer something about the nature of auditory receptivity. Maybe the sinuses expanded as adaptations … [Read more...] about Super-sized sinuses

Posted by Jennifer Skene

Not to be rude, but what in the world is a rudist? Well, rudists are invertebrates, and they lived in the world’s oceans during the late Jurassic and the Cretaceous, about 150-65 million years ago; they are now extinct. They are bivalves — the name means “two shells.” Today’s familiar bivalves, clams and mussels, have two shells that are more or less symmetrical. But rudists were a bit unusual: their two shells were very different from each other. One shell was either conical or coiled, … [Read more...] about Rudists

Posted by Jennifer Skene

How do you learn fun new information about science? a) Newspaper b)  TV c) The Internet d) The Science Zine that I found on a bench while I was waiting for the bus If answer d) seems totally strange and you have no idea what a Science Zine is, or even how to pronounce it, read on! A zine (pronounced zeen) is a little magazine. Science Zines are a cool way to convey scientific knowledge — a fusion of art and science that fits in the palm of your hand. Check out The Small Science … [Read more...] about The Year of Science Zine-a-thon Contest

Posted by Jennifer Skene

The world has changed considerably since Charles Darwin was born, 200 years ago. So Jere Lipps, curator at UCMP and professor emeritus of Integrative Biology at Berkeley, wrote a letter to Darwin, filling him in on how things have changed. Jere has been to many of the places that Darwin visited on his voyage on the Beagle, and most of the places Jere visited bear almost no resemblance to what Darwin saw in 1832. Rapid population growth has left its mark. Darwin was no stranger to population … [Read more...] about Dear Darwin

Posted by Jennifer Skene

Pterosaurs, flying reptiles that lived from the Late Triassic until the end of the Cretaceous Period, are known from their fossilized skeletons and their footprints, which show that at least some of the pterodactyloid pterosaurs walked on all four limbs. Now, one rare set of footprints tells us how these pterosaurs landed on the ground. Kevin Padian, curator at the UCMP and professor of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley, just published a paper on a pterosaur landing trackway, which his … [Read more...] about Pterosaur landing made quite an impression

Posted by Kaitlin Maguire

In 2005, Roger Castillo found the fossilized bones of a juvenile mammoth in the Guadalupe River near San Jose. Roger was walking his dog along the river, which he did frequently as a volunteer for the Guadalupe-Coyote Resource Conservation District, when he saw the tusks of the mammoth's skull poking out of the soil along the riverbank. At the time he wasn't exactly sure what he was looking at but recognized their importance and contacted the UCMP. The fossilized mammoth has been named Lupé, … [Read more...] about Lupé’s story: A mammoth’s journey from the ground to a museum

Posted by Jennifer Skene

This summer, Carolyn Rounds visited the UCMP to study our Moropus fossils. Carolyn is a grad student in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. And Moropus is an extinct horse-like creature, part of a taxonomic group called chalicotheres. Chalicotheres are pretty unique — they had claws instead of hooves. They didn’t use their claws to rip apart prey; they were herbivores, and they probably used their claws to pull vegetation down from trees. … [Read more...] about One more Moropus

Posted by Jennifer Skene

Imagine you are driving down I-5, just north of Bakersfield, in California’s hot and dusty central valley. Except that it’s the Cretaceous Period, 80-65 million years ago, and the central valley is actually an inland sea. And instead of seeing cows standing by the side of the highway, you see mosasaurs swimming through the salty water. Mosasaurs were marine reptiles that lived during the late Cretaceous, in oceans all over the world. They had fins on their long bodies, and sharp teeth in their … [Read more...] about Meet a mosasaur

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The UCMP is primarily a research museum and our collections are only open to the public during our annual open house on Cal Day. However, we have a limited number of fossil exhibits on display, including a magnificent Tyrannosaurus rex . These can be viewed, free of charge, any time the Valley Life Sciences Building is open. Learn more here.

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