2010 Annual Meeting Friends of the Georgia Museum of Natural History

May 22, 2010, 3-5:30 p.m. Drinks and casual dinner. Flinchum's Phoenix, Whitehall Forest

Please join us on May 22 for some fun and fellowship (free admission). We'll vote on 6 nominees for the Board (nominees from the floor welcome), meet our new officers (President Robert Wyatt, VP Dave Coleman, Secretary Amy Edwards and Treasurer Dac Crossley) and share financial news and plans for the future.

Please RSVP to emcghee[at]uga.edu or 706-542-1663 if you plan to attend.

We hope to see you there!

Directions: From Athens, drive south on Milledge Avenue. Milledge forks when it reaches Whitehall Road. Take the right fork, cross over Whitehall Road and enter Whitehall Forest (there will be a sign to the left of the entrance). Stay on the main road for 1.5 miles until it dead-ends at Flinchum's Phoenix.

23 February - 8 March 2010 Student Scientific and Medical Illustration Judged Exhiition

Work from the University of Georgia's Scientific Illustration Program and The Medical College of Georgia's Graduate Program in Medical Illustration is being displayed in the 3rd Floor Gallery 307 of the Lamar Dodd School of Art.

Reception and Award Ceremony will be held on Wednesday, March 3rd, 6-7:30pm. Presenting "The Logan Award of Excellence in Scientific Illustration" and "The Stenstrom Award of Excellence in Medical Illustration."

Lecture on Wednesday, March 3rd, 6-6:30 Auditorium S150 Lamar Dodd School of Art.

Join Ray Troll, a celebrated artist who loves paleontology, evolution, and fish biology! He's painted for NOAA, the Smithsonian Institution, and works with paleontologists and marine scientists on fish evolution. Here is his schedule of events. Please contact Sally Walker (swalker@gly.uga.edu or 706-542-2396 if you'd like to participate in these activities).

Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010:
9:00-10:30 AM Art Department, Gene Wright's class/scientific illustration.
11:00-12:15 AM Ichthyology class, Viscous Fishes of the Amazon.
2:00-3:00 PM Individual faculty and student meetings, department wide, Ecology Library (by-appointment).
3:30-4:00 PM Ecology Reception
4:00-5:00 PM Ecology Seminar, "Fish Worship is Not Wrong, or how I became a Scientific Surrealist"



Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2010
9:00 AM-12:00 Mural painting event Art/Natural History/Ecology/Geology/Lyndon House/Mural at the Georgia Museum of Natural History.
1:30-3:30 PM Art/Science interdisciplinary workshop for students, Geology Dept. Ray Troll's Shark Evolution and Forensics.
3:30-5:00 PM Individual faculty and student meetings, Geology Department.
7:30-8:30 PM Public lecture: "Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway: An Artists View of the History of Life" in honor of Darwin Week Celebration. Ecology auditorium.
8:30-9:30 PM, Book Signing, Ecology Reception area.

June 2009 Ecuador Classroom.

In late June, twenty outstanding Georgia teachers will accompany Dr. Carol Hoffman, the museum's Curator of Education and Outreach, and Anne Shenk, Director of Education at the State Botanical Garden, to Ecuador to explore tropical ecology and learn about the global connections between Georgia and South America. Ecuador (a country the size of Georgia and Alabama) has an amazing diversity of habitats (snow-capped Andean mountains to hot, humid forests). Teachers will start by discovering the Maquipucuna Reserve, a cool cloud forest which known as one of the world's biodiversity "hotspots". Teachers will encounter leaf cutter ants, morpho butterflies, toucans, parrots, and countless flowering plants. Next they visit the paramo, a high elevation tropical treeless environment in the shadow of Cotopaxi volcano, one of the highest mountains in the Andes. They will visit traditional markets and explore ecology in a human context, including how alternative economic activities can protect natural areas and what Georgians can do to preserve natural environments in the tropics as well as in Georgia. Dr. Hoffman and Ms. Shenk were awarded a grant from the US Department of Education's Improving Teacher Quality program to enhance instruction for Georgia students.

March 2009 Fishes of Georgia website.

New to the Georgia Museum of Natural History web exhibits is the Fishes of Georgia website. There are over 325 species of fish that occur primarily in the freshwaters of Georgia. This list includes 8 federally listed species, 57 state listed species, at least 15 introduced species and 8 endemic species. Approximately one-third of the freshwater fish fauna is considered imperiled and at least 6 species may be extirpated from the state's waters. Browse the distribution maps and photos of Georgia's freshwater fish.

Visit the Fishes of Georgia website.

December 2008 Habitats of Georgia page.

Georgia is a diverse state, with many habitats from coastal beaches to mountain hardwood forests. The Georgia Museum of Natural History launched its new Habitats of Georgia Website, funded by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Watchable Wildlife Program. This website provides online slide-shows of Georgia's habitats and a downloadable Google Earth file of localities within each habitat type that can be visited.

Visit the Habitats of Georgia page.

November 2008 Georgia Museum of Natural History acquires Singer Moye Indian Mounds.

November 17 marked the official transfer of the "Singer-Moye" site, an indian mound site found in Stewart County Georgia, from the Columbus Museum to the Georgia Museum of Natural History. The site contains eight known mounds from the Mississippian period and covers approximately 43 acres.

July 2008 New whale skeleton on display in the Discovery Room.

New on display in the Discovery Room, a pygmy sperm whale (Kogia breviceps) skeleton. Pygmy sperm whales are small toothed whales. The specimen on display measures over 10 feet in length. More information about pygmy sperm whales can be found here.