NEWS

The Virginia Opossum (Didelphis virginiana) is very common in North Carolina and widely distributed in North America, but most people don’t give the opossum much thought. Most know that it is a marsupial, making it a distant cousin to kangaroos. The Virginia Opossum was even designated as North Carolina’s official state marsupial in 2013. Of… Read More >

Epicenter map courtesy United States Geological Survey. Anyone out of bed on this Sunday morning at 8:00 a.m. probably felt an earthquake. It was located in the mountains, near Sparta, NC. It was fairly shallow, about 2.3 miles down. You can help out the United States Geological Survey with their Did You Feel It? program…. Read More >

As I was scanning the forest trail to avoid tripping over roots and rocks while walking the dogs, I spotted something that looked like a reddish-pink cotton ball. I quickly snapped a picture of it and noticed that the ball of fluff was attached to an oak sapling. It was late March, and there were… Read More >

This month, Museum staff from Facilities, Digital Media and Education converted the Gold Classroom on the third floor of the Nature Exploration Center into a virtual learning studio. The classroom got a new coat of paint, a TV studio’s-worth of AV equipment and a lineup of staff and live animals eager to connect with audiences… Read More >

Here’s to the land of the longleaf pine, The summer land where the sun doth shine, Where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great, Here’s to “Down Home,” the Old North State. —North Carolina State Toast Longleaf forests once covered up to 60 million acres in the southeastern US, stretching from southern Virginia… Read More >