Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History

October 21

10:24 AM /

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Tidying Up Our Tides

By Fiona Diskin

Anyone who has had the chance to visit Santa Barbara can recognize it is one of a kind. From the mountains to the ocean, beauty is around every corner, but the community of people is where the real beauty lies. The Santa Barbara community is not ordinary in its devotion to generosity, environmentalism, and enriching the well being of its members. In fact, Santa Barbara has the second highest number of nonprofits per capita in California. Addressing various needs, these organizations keep the town we love alive and thriving; one of these organizations is very close to the heart of the Sea Center: Tidy Seas.

It started with Sea Center Volunteer Ryan Wong...

October 14

10:14 AM /

0

Building Bridges Across Time & Cultures: Anima Mundi & SBMNH

By Anima Mundi and SBMNH staff

The history of collaboration between the Vatican Ethnological Museum (today Anima Mundi) and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (SBMNH) can be traced back to 1984, when SBMNH Curator of Anthropology Travis Hudson, Ph.D., visited Rome to meet with Vatican Missionary Ethnological Museum Head Curator Fr. Joseph Penkowski SVD. Together, Hudson and Penkowski examined objects from California Indigenous communities firsthand, documenting material culture. Although no Chumash baskets were identified, Hudson recognized several baskets from other communities, including Pomo, Paiute and Miwok, contributing to the process of recontextualizing and understanding the collections at the Vatican.

Read more

October 10

1:28 PM /

0

The Rubin Observatory: A New Engine for Discovery

By Jonah Gabriel Haas

Recently, our neighbors at Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) joined us at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History for an exciting evening dedicated to one of the most ambitious scientific projects of our time: the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. The event, hosted by LCO scientist Rachel Street, promised to take us “beyond the pretty pictures” and it delivered.

Explore the cosmos

October 04

10:36 AM /

1

She's Here for the Sea Bugs

By Owen Duncan

An interview with visiting Ph.D. candidate Siena McKim, who came to borrow some amphipods from the Department of Invertebrate Zoology (IZ)

Owen Duncan: What are amphipods? I feel like they’re a kind of marine crustacean, right?

Siena McKim: Yes. You already know amphipods. If you go to the beach, you have these beach hopper guys hopping around—those are big amphipods. You think they're eating you, but they're not. They're just like, “Are you dead? If you are, I'm going to eat you.” Most amphipods are in the sea.

Discover sneaky silk-spinners

August 28

3:00 PM /

2

The White Abalone Midwife

By Fiona Diskin

Everyone should love the White Abalone; as a keystone species, they maintain our kelp forests, allowing for high biodiversity and healthy ecosystems. They are understory algae grazers known by Nora Frank as the “lawnmowers and Roombas of the sea.” Few people love the White Abalone quite as much as Nora, the current husbandry and data manager of the White Abalone Culture Lab at UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory.

Dive into Nora's history with White Abalone

July 25

1:18 PM /

0

Mars Ingenuity Pilot Touches Down at Museum

By Owen Duncan

Fleischmann Auditorium vibrated with excitement like a mission control room before a downlink. The data from another planet came via Santa Barbara local Martin Cacan, Ph.D., who shared true stories from his adventures piloting a plucky little helicopter on Mars: the aptly-named Ingenuity.

Explore Mars with Ingenuity's chief pilot

July 15

1:00 PM /

1

New Curator Wants Your Help Finding Insects

By Owen Duncan

An interview with new Schlinger Chair of Entomology Alex Harman, Ph.D.

Owen: You are an all-around naturalist.

Alex: I try to be. When you're outside catching insects, you run into weird-looking snakes, and you hear birds you've never heard before. It was only a matter of time before I got sucked into those other groups. Still working on plants. Plants are tough. There's a lot of plants out there.

Owen: How did entomology become your focus?

Get to know Dr. Harman

July 12

1:32 PM /

0

Las Cumbres Observatory Aids Discovery of Interstellar Comet

By Sandy Seale

A newly discovered speedy visitor from another solar system far, far, away in our galaxy has been confirmed, thanks to the rapid response telescopes of Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO). LCO is a nonprofit corporation based in Goleta, California, dedicated to advancing worldwide understanding of the universe through science with its global network of full robotic optical telescopes. The newfound object is named Comet 3I/ATLAS: “ATLAS” after the astronomical survey that discovered it and “3I” because it is the third such interstellar object to be found.

Learn more about this visitor from beyond

March 26

2:59 PM /

2

Not All Novae Are Super: T Coronae Borealis

By Ila Jade Komasa

In the coming months, a very small constellation in the night sky holds the potential for a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event that you can witness yourself. If you’re out stargazing this spring and summer, look for the constellation Corona Borealis, or the Northern Crown. (You’ll find it near Draco and Boötes.) Astronomers predict that sometime soon, an obscure star in this constellation will suddenly go from being invisible to the naked eye to shining as brightly as Polaris!

Uncover the science behind the stars

November 14

1:00 PM /

2

Largo’s Long Career: For the Good of Gopher Snakes

By Tessa Cafritz

Some people look at animals in zoos and aquariums and wonder if they need to be there instead of in their natural environments. I can understand that, and as a science educator at the Sea Center, I talk to people with these inquiries every day. It motivates me to illuminate the important roles that animals in human care at educational and research institutions can play.

Read about Largo the snake and his enrichment

November 06

1:22 PM /

0

Tiny Clams Have Big Personalities

By Owen Duncan

An interview with Curator Emeritus of Malacology Paul Valentich-Scott

OD: Your recently published study introduced the world to a new species of clam from South Africa. How did this collaboration come about in the first place?

PVS: I’m mostly a Pacific guy, but in 2013 I named a new species off of California and British Columbia, Waldo arthuri, which really caught on in the press. Charles Griffiths, a marine biologist in South Africa and emeritus professor at University of Cape Town, saw this. He emailed me a picture of a sea urchin with tiny little clams all over it, saying, “What is this?” I said, “If you send me some, I can tell you.” He sent them to me, and I didn’t even know the genus. But I could tell it was part of this understudied group, the galeommatids (gal-ee-oh-MAT-ids).

Get to know the galeommatids

October 16

5:24 PM /

0

Comet A3 Visible in October

By Ila Jade Komasa

Visible for the next couple weeks is Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. What a mouthful! C/ indicates it is a non-periodic comet, 2023 is the year of discovery, A3 stands for the time of year it was discovered—with A denoting the first half of January and 3 meaning it was the third object discovered during that period—and finally, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS credits the two observatories that discovered the object. 

When and where to look

June 06

11:27 AM /

2

Curating Thousands of “Moss Animals”: Staff Celebrate a Digital Milestone

By Owen Duncan

An interview with Department of Invertebrate Zoology staff

Owen: Congratulations on digitizing thousands of bryozoans. What are they?

Meet the "moss animals"

November 21

4:24 PM /

0

Remembering Sojourner Kinkaid Rolle

By Owen Duncan

Like so many local people, we are mourning the loss of Sojourner Kinkaid Rolle. Here at the Museum, she was a powerful friend of books, poetry, and nature, our memories together stretching back through her many decades in Santa Barbara.

Reflect and read Sojourner's poetry

November 16

5:21 PM /

3

Remembering Adelina Alva-Padilla

By Owen Duncan

As we remember our departed friend and advisor Adelina Alva-Padilla (1936–2023), longtime staff members from the Department of Anthropology shared some of their memories of how her life was interwoven with ours.

Meet our dear friend Adelina

October 06

3:00 PM /

0

A Chumash Cultural Burn Reignites Ancient Practice for Wildland Conservation

By Harrison Tasoff

This is a cross-posting from the UCSB Current.

Members of the Chumash community gathered at UC Santa Barbara’s North Campus Open Space for an event that none of them had ever witnessed, a practice that had been lost for generations, that most thought would never happen again. More than two centuries since the last cultural burn in the region, they were returning fire to the land in a manner their ancestors may have recognized.

Learn more about the cultural burn

August 25

9:17 AM /

1

Digitizing the Uncataloged: Making Marine Invertebrates Accessible

By Alexandria Gour

My name is Alexandria Gour, and I’m a curatorial assistant in the Department of Invertebrate Zoology at the Museum. Since I began working at SBMNH last year, my average day as a curatorial assistant revolves entirely around cataloging and rehousing collection material that falls under the Digitizing Invertebrates (DigIn) grant.

Learn more about digitizing invertebrate records

May 24

1:43 PM /

0

Ensuring the Future of Science

By Luke Swetland

May is an exciting month at the Museum and Sea Center. The butterflies have arrived, camp instructors are being trained, and baby birds are making their way from their nests. Inevitability, this time of year is also a bit bittersweet as we bid farewell to our Quasars to Sea Stars teen graduates.

Read about our dedicated teen interns

February 18

4:28 PM /

8

Know Your Gorgonians—Or Else!

By Owen Duncan

“I require my students to learn the names of things,” says Westmont Associate Prof. of Biology Beth Horvath, M.S. “Knowing who you share the planet with is part of your education. The name opens doors. It gives you access to information. That’s why I’m here at the Museum, and why my students get dragged here many times over the course of the year.”

Find out why we're fans of sea fans

December 22

1:27 PM /

0

Yuletide Flora: Celebrate the Season with Some Festive Native Plants

By Harrison Tasoff

This is a cross-posting from the UCSB Current.

While it may not be a classic winter wonderland, the South Coast does boast several festive flora for the winter season. Among them are California holly and the region’s two genera of mistletoe—and a bonus mentioned later on.

Learn more about native plants