Research Areas

Research at the Virginia Museum of Natural History

The Virginia Museum of Natural History is defined by the scientific research conducted at the museum by its staff of world-renowned curators. Currently, VMNH has active research programs in the areas of archaeology, geology, herpetology, mammalogy, paleontology and recent invertebrates. Find out more about these programs, and the curators who lead them, below.

Archaeology

Archaeology is the science that studies human cultures through the recovery, analysis, and interpretation of material remains. In North America, archaeology is one of the sub-disciplines of the field of Anthropology. Archaeologists study a wide range of materials including fossil hominids that help us examine the human evolutionary line, the places where people lived in the past, artifacts such as pottery, stone tools and food remains, and environmental data to help us understand why people live where they do and how humans impact the environment. VMNH holds a variety of Native American artifacts from the eastern United States, prehistoric material from Saltville, Virginia, and historic material from Martinsville.

The museum's archaeology program is led by Dr. Hayden Bassett, Assistant Curator of Archaeology.

Geology

Geology is the study of the solid earth and the processes that form and affect it. This includes studies of minerals, rocks, volcanoes, earthquakes, and many other earth materials and processes. VMNH houses a large collection of rock samples, most of which have been collected and studied by our Curators and Research Associates. The rocks include 70,000 feet of rock core drilled through an inactive fault in Pittsylvania County. This core provides the only detailed documentation of a major fault system that formed when the Atlantic Ocean opened 200 million years ago. Our mineral collection, largely built through donations, is relatively small, but growing. Thanks to a recent donation, VMNH has just added over 500 mineral specimens, many of them from Virginia, to our collections.

The museum's geology program was led by Dr. Jim Beard, Curator Emeritus of Earth Sciences.

Paleontology

Paleontology is the study of ancient organisms preserved as fossils. While many people immediately think of dinosaurs, paleontology includes the entire range of ancient life, including plants and animals, and traces they leave behind such as tracks and coprolites. The VMNH houses a large fossil collection in a variety of areas including Cenozoic mollusks from the eastern United States, Miocene whales and other marine vertebrates from Virginia, Triassic insects, plants, reptiles, and tracks from Virginia and North Carolina, Triassic reptiles from Britain, Carboniferous plants from Virginia and West Virginia, Ice Age bones and teeth from Saltville, Virginia, Jurassic dinosaurs from Wyoming, and Cretaceous dinosaurs and other animals from Montana.

The museum's paleontology program is led by Dr. Adam Pritchard, Assistant Curator of Paleontology.

Recent Invertebrates

Ninety percent of all living things are animals without backbones, so pervasive and abundant they have been called "The little things that make the world go ‘round." Such groups as insects, arachnids, crustaceans, worms, echinoderms, protozoans, and mollusks are all invertebrates. Even the largest museums do not attempt to collect and study them all, and VMNH has to be selective in its research priorities.

The fauna of Virginia logically takes first place, for despite its rank among the most biodiverse states in the country, the study of our invertebrates has been very deficient and current emphasis must be placed on such basic procedures as inventories simply to discover what species occur in Virginia. We emphasize freshwater insects and mollusks, as their habitats are the most jeopardized, and the faunas of forest litter (beetles, myriapods, spiders, isopods, and ants), which are important in the formation of new organic soil. The diversity and distribution of ants and wasps worldwide is another area of interest.

VMNH houses the largest collection of arthropods, and other invertebrates, from Virginia and is among the largest invertebrate collections in the eastern U.S. The collection fuels ongoing in-house research, and is consulted by investigators from the United States and many foreign countries. Dissemination of new knowledge is accomplished by publication in many international journals as well as in two museum series, "The Insects of Virginia" and "Jeffersoniana."

The museum's recent invertebrates program is led by Dr. Kaloyan Ivanov, Curator of Recent Invertebrates and Dr. Jackson Means, Assistant Curator of Recent Invertebrates.

Vertebrate Biology and General Ecology

Animals with backbones, including mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, are collectively called vertebrates. There are close to 70,000 species of vertebrates described around the world, with new species still being discovered every year.

Ecology is the field of biology that seeks to understand how organisms interact with their environment, such as what they eat, and how and where they move. Knowing more about ecology helps us make better decisions for protecting endangered species, managing important native species, like trout, or controlling invasive species. It also teaches us more about the amazing organisms with which we share our planet.

The museum's four collections of vertebrates (herpetology, ichthyology, mammalogy, and ornithology) contain specimens collected by VMNH staff and specimens donated from other institutions from around Virginia.

Find out more about each collection below. Researchers are encouraged to reach out to VMNH staff to find out more details about museum specimens and use policies.

Herpetology
Although not closely related from an evolutionary perspective, scientists have historically (and to this day) grouped both amphibians and reptiles together into the biological study of herpetology. Virginia is home to an exceptional diversity of amphibians and reptiles with the world’s highest diversity of salamanders found within the mountains of Appalachia. The herpetology collection at VMNH contains over 10,000 specimens from around the world, with a regional focus on those occurring in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Mammalogy
Mammals are vertebrate animals that have hair and feed milk to their young. VMNH houses the largest collection (about 17,000 specimens) of mammals from Virginia with another 2,000 specimens from other parts of North America. These specimens help us understand how species’ traits, like fur color or diseases that they can carry, have changed over time.

Ornithology
Ornithology is the study of birds, and the VMNH ornithology collection contains over 11,000 specimens of birds, with several specimens collected as far back as the 1800’s. The nest and egg collection offers insight to the relationship between the animal’s habitat and the resourcefulness of the parents for the development of their nest. It also opens the window for researchers to study the maternal lineage of egg coloring and patterning still being described today.

Ichthyology
The newest vertebrate biology collection at VMNH is the ichthyology (fish) collection, which currently consists of over 750 specimens of both freshwater and marine species. Over 225 species of fish are found within the diverse river systems of the Commonwealth of Virginia leading to the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

The museum's vertebrate biology and general ecology program is led by Dr. Collin VanBuren, Visiting Scholar.