Virtual Museum Exploration

UC Berkeley is home to some of the best and largest natural history museums in the world. We will be visiting some of the museums on the UC Berkeley campus this week as part of your final exam. Today, your assignment is to explore them online and answer the questions below.

  1. UC Museum of Paleontology
  2. In the Paleontology Portal there is an area that looks at famous faunas and floras of the world. Find the one listed for California. What is the name of the fauna? How old is it? What types of mammals were there?
  1. Go to the Understanding Evolution web page ( for UCMP. In what animal do scientists believe SARS originated? How did they figure this out?
  1. What type of fossil organisms does UCMP hold in its collections? Which group has the most representatives in the collections? How many?
  1. Go to the History of Life section. Within the Phylogeny section, find out which Epoch the oldest Rodent is from. Name it as well as how many million of years ago this would be.
  1. Find Brian Kraatz's profile and briefly describe his research (hint: you can find this in the people gallery).

B. UC Museum of Vertebrate Zoology mvz.berkeley.edu

  1. Read the message from the director. What is the director’s name? What is the central mission and purpose of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology?
  1. Explain what biodiversity informaticsis and how this can be used in research.
  1. Name the main collections found at the MVZ. Visit and describe each.
  1. Who was Joseph Grinnell and what is the “Grinnell” Method?

C. Essig Museum of Entomology essig.berkeley.edu

  1. Approximately how many pinned specimens are there in the Essig Museum? From what part of the world are most of the specimens in the collection?
  1. Search the Essig Museum database to see how many specimens in the family Baetidae were collected in Berkeley, California. State the scientific name (Genus species) of the organisms, the name of the collector and the year that each was collected.
  1. Name 4 major taxa that are contained in the Essig Museum. Explain why there are so many specimens in these 4 groups.
  1. What is the primary cause of declining biodiversity in California that is resulting in endangered insects? How many insect species do the United States Fish and Wildlife Service currently list as threatened or endangered? Enter the California’s Endangered Insects Online exhibit. What insect order are most of the endangered species in? Name one of the endangered species mentioned on this site, where it is geographically located and why it is endangered.