FestEVOLVE 2014
February 12-23, 2014
Join us in celebrating the theories, the people who introduced the world to these concepts, and the evidence of evolution through the fossil record. Museum tours, activities, and crafts will have an evolutionary focus, including creating your own fossils, DNA extraction demos, and touring our neighbour, the Pacific Museum of Earth.
FestEVOLVE Cake Contest
The Beaty Biodiversity Museum hosted the 6th annual “Bake a Cake for Darwin” contest on February 12. This year, we encouraged participants to bake a cake for Wallace as well. There were 9 wonderful entries, and over 60 hungry spectators. Click through for the winners and links to photos.
BBM researcher in the field
Wayne Maddison (professor of Zoology/Botany and former BBM director) is conducting field work in Jalisco, Mexico (west central part of the country) collecting and observing all sorts of wild and wonderful insects and spiders. Click through for the link to his daily (almost) blog online!
Weasels are way cool because…
February 2, 2014, 1:00pm
Chris Stinson
Join Chris Stinson, Curatorial Assistant of Mammals at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum, as he uncovers his favourite group of mammals; weasels and their fellow group of mustelids.
Included with museum admission or membership
Rare Event: Repatriation of Avian Type Specimen
The Cowan Tetrapod Collection Staff are thrilled to announce the repatriation of the type specimen of Spinus psaltria witti, a subspecies of Lesser Goldfinch collected on Maria Magdelena, Tres Marias Islands, Mexico. Dr. Peter Larkin, a former Dean of Graduate Studies at UBC, collected this specimen on March 1st 1961. Dr. Peter Grant, who is best known for his work on Galapagos Finches, described this subspecies when he was a PhD Candidate at the University of British Columbia.
New fossil bed found by scientists hailed as ‘motherlode’
Scientists say a recently located fossil site on the Alberta-B.C. border is already yielding major new discoveries about early animal evolution. The Marble Canyon fossil beds were located in 2012 by a team of Canadian, U.S. and Swedish researchers in Kootenay National Park, about 40 kilometres from the 505-million-year-old Burgess Shale in Yoho National Park — which is considered one of the most important fossil fields in the world.
Outer Shores Expeditions – A Vessel for Engaging with Nature
Outer Shores Expeditions I was recently asked: “Why, after completing a PhD and Postdoctoral Fellowship in marine ecosystem science in the Department of Zoology, Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), and the Biodiversity Research Centre at UBC, did you decide to buy a classic wooden schooner and start a natural history and educational travel […]