NEWS

Carolina Sandhills Salamander (Eurycea arenicola) in life, from North Carolina. Photo: Todd Pusser. Click to enlarge. “I thought it was just an oddball,” says Alvin Braswell of the unusual red salamander he first saw in 1969. At the time, he was the assistant curator for lower invertebrates at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences…. Read More >

On a warm October day in 1984, Vince Schneider waded through the Jacob Fork River in South Mountains State Park — his attention captured by a bright red hue darting across the riverbed. Intrigued, Schneider, a curator of paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, caught up with the clawed creature and plucked… Read More >

[RALEIGH, N.C.] — Forget the Tar Heels and Wolfpack. North Carolina is the salamander state! With 64 distinct species of salamander, we have more than any other state in the country, and are one of the most salamander-rich areas in the world. Join educators and scientists from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, along… Read More >

It gives me great pleasure to present the 2021–2023 Strategic Plan for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (NCMNS). Despite the challenges of being closed to the public during much of the year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have achieved many important outcomes. The Friends of NCMNS announced the acquisition of “Dueling Dinosaurs,”… Read More >

Skull of Mobaceras zambeziense in dorsal view (left) and lateral view (right). Museum paleontologist Christian Kammerer has described Mobaceras zambeziense, a new, bizarrely-horned predator from the Permian of Zambia (roughly 260 million years ago). A type of early synapsid (“protomammals” distantly related to modern mammals), Mobaceras was part of the diverse animal fauna that existed… Read More >