News Category: biodiversity-center

Campus is buzzing about UT Austin’s recent Bee Campus USA Certification

Sept. 3, 2020

Thanks to a dedicated group of students, the University of Texas at Austin is now certified as an affiliate of the Bee Campus USA program, designed to marshal the strengths of educational campuses for the benefit of pollinators. UT Austin joins many other cities and campuses across the country united in improving their landscapes for pollinators.

Fireflies: Backyard Biodiversity

April 29, 2020

Austin sits at the far southwestern corner of the range of the Eastern Firefly (Photinus pyralis), a beetle that gives eastern landscapes the characteristic dusk light show in early summer. 

Backyard Biodiversity: Green Anoles

April 15, 2020

From the Biodiversity Center: a piece on a common resident of many yards, the green anole.

Austin’s Other Orange Butterfly

April 10, 2020

About 150 kinds are known to occur in Austin, a mix of temperate and tropical, desert and deciduous forest species that includes the gulf fritillary Agraulis vanillae.

Northern Mockingbirds

April 1, 2020

The Northern Mockingbird is probably one of the easiest birds to identify, if not by their bold maneuvers to protect their territory, then certainly by their characteristic song. Learn more in this blog from The Biodiversity Center.

In the News: Countering an Invasive Moth

March 30, 2020

An invasive South American moth (Cactoblastis cactorum) could decimate prickly pear cacti across Texas according to Dr. Larry Gilbert, a professor of integrative biology, who plans to introduce a natural predator of the cactus moth to control the spread. 

The Crane Flies of Spring

March 24, 2020

The blog from UT's Biodiversity Center focused a lens on the crane fly, a leggy insect that is common during springtime in Austin.

Pecans of the Brackenridge Field Laboratory

Feb. 18, 2020

At the Brackenridge Field Laboratory, the pecans that survived the breaking of the Austin Dam in 1900 are likely nearing 250 years of age. 

The Hunt for Invasive Gobies in the Colorado River Basin

Jan. 29, 2020

The Naked Goby (Gobiosoma bosc) is a small estuarine and marine fish that is native to the Texas coast but is spreading upstream into the Colorado River Basin. 

Invasives Make a Splash at the Creek Show

Nov. 11, 2019

UT Austin's Biodiversity Center supported the development of the Creek Monster Habitat by Texas Appl;ied Arts students and faculty by allowing Texas Applied Arts students to collect materials for nest construction, or invasive plants, from the Brackenridge Field Laboratory.