Since October 2014, iDigBio has promoted biodiversity education by highlighting a different organism each month in our Newsletter in the Biodiversity Spotlight section. Each spotlight includes natural history information, current research, and links to relevant specimens in the iDigBio Portal. Each spotlight is created via collaboration among the iDigBio team, TCN members, other researchers, and nature photographers. View iDigBio's "Biodiversity Spotlight" archive below.
Draba verna flowering. Image taken from: https://awkwardbotany.com/2018/05/23/tiny-plants-draba-verna/
Every year around this time I think about Aldo Leopold’s ode to Draba, a tiny, inconspicuous plant that can serve as an early sign of spring in some areas for the extra observant.
Contributed by: Shelly Gaynor
Figure 1: With the help of Rhett Rautsaw, I was able to collect from 22 populations of Galax urceolata.
Contributed by Molly Phillips
The end of 2021 is now on the horizon but, if you are like me, your schedule is as busy as ever! I have been thinking about how nice it would be to roll into a ball and block out the world for a little while, which made me think of the marvelous pillbug.
Contributed by Lauren Bradley (University of Florida Student and 2021 iDigBio Summer Intern)
Contributed by: Lauren Bradley
Autumn is right around the corner, and what a beautiful season it is! Here in Florida, we see the occasional red or yellow leaf during the autumn months, but really, all we can hope for is some cooler weather, and even that isn’t guaranteed. The Kallima inachus seems to agree with us humans in admiring the beauty of autumn, as they have evolved to imitate dead leaves! (Thus giving them their common name, the dead leaf butterfly).
Contributed by: Molly Phillips
Written by Erica Krimmel.
"If their lives are short, they are merry," and "they still continue on singing till they die." - Benjamin Banneker
Photo by lalo_pangue on Flickr.
Contributed by: Molly Phillips
Phlox drummondii found on the roadside in Florida this spring. Photo contributed by Shari Ellis.
Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Weinell, University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum
Contributed by Cat Chapman
Have you ever been out on a walk through nature, or even in your neighborhood, and saw what appeared to be a clump of tiny leaves, debris, or lichen… only to see it move?
Upon closer inspection of this mysteriously motile clump of detritus, you may see that it has tiny little legs underneath it. It’s alive!
Meet the trash bug!
Written by Erica Krimmel.
Article by: Zoliswa Nhleko, PhD candidate at the UF School of Natural Resources and Environment
Article by: Nattapol Kraisitudomsook, PhD student from the Smith Lab at the University of Florida
Margay
Article by: Nicholas Gengler, PhD student from UF School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Photo courtesy of the National Park Service.
Article contributed by Bruce Lieberman from the Cretaceous World TCN
Article and photos contributed by Natasza Fontaine
Article contributed by David Blackburn, Catherine Early, and Ed Stanley from the oVert TCN.
Photo courtesy of: David Keil
Article contributed by: Katelin Pearson
Written by Selena Smith, Robyn Burnham, and Garth Holman from the Pteridological Collections Consortium (PCC) TCN.
