Museum of Paleontology

1. March 11, 2024

   Obituary — Charles Beck

   Charles B. Beck, professor emeritus of botany, died Feb. 26 at the age of 96. In 1955, he accepted a faculty position at U-M, ultimately becoming chairman of the Department of Botany.

2. March 27, 2023

   Global museums initiative addressing 21st century challenges

   A group of natural history museums has mapped the total collections from 73 of the world’s largest natural history museums in 28 countries, including the collections from four U-M museums.

3. February 2, 2023

   Fish preserves earliest fossilized brain of backboned animal

   A 319 million-year-old ray-finned fish fossil at U-M provides new information about early evolutionary history. The fossil was pulled from a coal mine in England more than a century ago.

4. September 11, 2017

   Mastodon discovered near Grand Rapids to be donated to U-M

   The remains of a female mastodon discovered near Grand Rapids will be donated to U-M, providing researchers another data point in the history of the elephant relatives in Michigan.

5. October 18, 2016

   Team recovers ‘most complete Michigan mastodon skeleton’ in decades

   The most complete ice age mastodon skeleton found in Michigan since the 1940s was recovered this month from the state’s Thumb region by a team led by U-M researchers.

6. September 26, 2016

   Thumb-area teachers to help U-M scientists dig mastodon bones

   Ten Thumb-area teachers will help U-M paleontologists unearth the remains of an 11,000- to 13,000-year-old mastodon next month in Tuscola County, Michigan. 

7. May 17, 2016

   Tools show humans settled southeastern U.S. earlier than first thought

   The discovery of stone tools found in a Florida river show that humans settled the southeastern United States far earlier than previously believed, according to a team of scientists that includes a U-M paleontologist.

8. October 5, 2015

   Chelsea-area farmer donates mammoth remains to U-M

   The owner of the partial mammoth skeleton that was uncovered near Chelsea last week is donating the bones to U-M for public display and further study.

9. July 14, 2014

   Two CT-scanned Siberian mammoth calves yield trove of insights

   CT scans of two newborn woolly mammoths recovered from the Siberian Arctic are revealing previously inaccessible details about the early development of prehistoric pachyderms.