Erin Meyer, a UCMP and Integrative Biology graduate student, is helping to curate the museum’s Invertebrate Collection. Over 31,000 catalogued specimens of corals, crabs, bivalves, snails, ammonites… both fossil and recent — if it doesn’t have a backbone, it’s in this collection!

Evolution is everywhere — including in the news! That’s why each month we publish a new Evo in the News feature on our Understanding Evolution website.

UCMP Curator Mark Goodwin and colleague Jack Horner argue that there were fewer species of pachycephalosaurs — dome-headed dinosaurs — than we thought. Watch this video to see why!

Sometimes, the study of basic biology can lead to technological advances, and a recent discovery about the vision of mantis shrimp is a perfect example, providing insight that could help us to improve the technology inside DVD players. What is the connection? Circularly polarized light!

Daniel Fortier visited the UCMP for two weeks this summer, investigating the taxonomy of South American crocodilians — crocodiles, caymans, and gharials.

The UCMP has hosted several Flat Stanleys this year, as part of the Year of Science 2009. Flat Stanley is a fictional character from a children’s book, written by Jeff Brown in 1964. In the original story, Stanley is a little boy who is flattened when a bulletin board above his bed falls on top of him. He finds that, in his new flattened state, he is able to have many great adventures by being mailed from place to place in an envelope. Find out about the latest visit!

UCMP Assistant Director Mark Goodwin’s research on Triceratops is featured on National Geographic Channel’s video of the week.

UCMP and the other Berkeley Natural History Museums are well represented on a new exhibit in the Bancroft Library — Darwin and the Evolution of a Theory.