Skip to Main content

ASU Natural History Collections Open House

February 21, 2012

Thousands of plant and animal specimens will be on public display when the Angelo State Natural History Collections (ASNHC) hosts an open house Tuesday, Feb. 28, in the Cavness Science Building, 2460 Dena Drive, on the ASU campus.

The open house will begin at 7 p.m. in the Boulware Lecture Hall (Room 100 of the Cavness Building) and is open free to the public.  Dr. Loren Ammerman, ASU associate professor of biology, will start the evening with a presentation titled “The Mystery and Beauty of Bat Diversity.”  Following the presentation, all of the Natural History Collections will be open for tours.  Light refreshments will be served and families are encouraged to attend. 

The ASNHC contain more than 100,000 specimens of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and plants from Texas, many other states, Mexico, Africa, Asia, Australia and even the Galápagos Islands.  The collections aid student and faculty research projects, are used as teaching tools, and are viewed by thousands of K-12 students every year through special programs like ASU Science Days. 

Ammerman is one of the foremost researchers of bats in Texas.  Since 2007, she has been awarded more than $100,000 in grants to support bat research.  She has also collaborated with researchers across the U.S., and has conducted field studies in Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Malaysian Borneo.  In Ecuador, she helped discover a new species of bat, and she is the co-author of a book, “The Bats of Texas,” to be published by Texas A&M Press. 

For more information, call the ASU Biology Department at 325-942-2189.