Visitors to the Florida Museum, on the University of Florida campus in Gainesville, can enjoy hundreds of exotic butterflies in a rainforest setting, witness a South Florida Calusa Indian welcoming ceremony, experience a life-size limestone cave, and see a mammoth and mastodon from the last Ice Age. Permanent exhibits include Northwest Florida: Waterways and Wildlife, South Florida People and Environments, Hall of Florida Fossils: Evolution of Life and Land, and the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, which features the screened, outdoor Butterfly Rainforest exhibit with hundreds of live butterflies.

Dickinson Hall houses the museum's other research activities and vast collections containing more than 40 million natural history specimens and artifacts.

The state's official natural history museum, dedicated to understanding, preserving and interpreting biological diversity and cultural heritage.

Formerly named the Florida State Museum, established by the legislature in 1917 as the official state museum of natural history.

The Florida Museum's Ethnographic and Archaeological collections contain more than 20 million artifacts.

Anthropology: 8.8 million. It is the world's largest collection of Spanish Colonial artifacts and prehistoric Florida artifacts. Plants: 470,000. This collection leads the state in plant identification. Mollusks: 3 million. This is the eigth-largest U.S. collection. Butterflies and Moths: 1 million. This is the world's third-largest collection. Fish: 2.3 million. This is the fourth-largest U.S. collection. Reptiles and Amphibians: 190,000. This is the eigth-largest U.S. collection. Birds: 73,000. This is the world's third-largest sound recording collection and the fifth-largest skeleton collection. Mammals: 34,000. This is the world's second-largest marine mammal collection. Plant Fossils: 250,000. This collection leads the international research of flowering plant origins. Invertebrate Fossils: 3.75 million. This is the world's largest Florida collection and the fifth-largest North American Cenozoic collection. Vertebrate Fossils: 700,000. This is the fifth-largest U.S. collection. Total specimens and artifacts combined: 40+ million.

Marvelous Explorations through Science and Stories, operated out of the museum, educates more than 850 children through science and literature-based activities in Head Start classrooms. About 4,500 students participated in docent-led tours during 2002-2003.Science and Engineering Experiences for Knowledge educated 60 students through an after-school program, and received a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation. Other educational activities include an Animal Fair, Sensational Science, Buchholtz BioTrek afternoons and Science Sunday lectures.

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