News

Naturkundemuseum Bamberg, 27. March 2026A German-Bulgarian research team led by SNSB paleontologist Christian Bartel has discovered a new species of harvestman in 35-million-year-old Ukrainian and Baltic amber. The animal is related to harvestmen that are now extinct in Europe. The researchers published their findings in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. The arachnid was perfectly preserved […]

Urwelt-Museum Oberfranken, 25.03.2026 The asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous period caused one of the largest mass extinctions in Earth’s history. But some organisms defied the catastrophe. For turtles, the chance of survival was apparently linked to their diet: species with a preference for hard-shelled organisms survived the catastrophic event. SNSB paleontologist Serjoscha […]

RiesCraterMuseum Nördlingen, 03.03.2026 Christian Bergemann joined the Bavarian State Collections of Natural History (SNSB) on March 1st. The geoscientist will take over as scientific director of the RiesCraterMuseum Nördlingen, one of the SNSB’s ten natural history museums. He succeeds his long-standing predecessor, Prof. Dr. Stefan Hölzl. Dr. Christian Bergemann most recently headed a research project […]

Botanical Garden Munich-Nymphenburg, 23.02.2026 How do plants adapt to drought and heat? New studies on plants of the Canary Islands show that adaptation is not determined by a single character but by the interaction of entire sets of characters. Even closely related plants can follow very different paths. Apparently, the survival strategies of succulent plants […]

Bavarian State Collection of Zoology, 2026-01-28 A genetic study is rewriting the evolutionary history of the saltwater crocodile and, at the same time, clarifying the species identity of the crocodiles that were exterminated on the Seychelles. The study was published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. Accounts from early expeditions to the Seychelles more […]

Bavarian State Collection of Zoology, 2026-01-26 A research team from Munich has identified a previously unknown communication mechanism in harvestmen. Five closely related species show species-specific, strongly fluorescent structures on their backs that become especially visible under ultraviolet light. The results suggest that these patterns serve for species recognition—particularly at dusk and in moonlight. The […]

Zoological Collection, 2026-01-22 The diversity of water strider species apparently developed as early as the Cretaceous period, much earlier than previously thought. SNSB researchers have succeeded in clarifying the phylogenetic history of this insect family, with molecular analyses providing comprehensive insights into their relationships and evolution. The study has now been published in the journal […]

Bavarian State Collection of Botany Munich, 16.12.2025 – A new carnivorous plant from Bavaria has now been officially named Drosera ×bavarica, the Bavarian sundew. SNSB botanist Andreas Fleischmann discovered specimens of the new plant—a natural hybrid—collected in a southern Bavarian bog in the heritage of a Munich plant collector. It is a fortunate coincidence: New […]

Bavarian State Collection of Zoology Munich, 2025-12-1 – The dental development of modern bears does not follow the typical pattern seen in most mammals. The reason lies millions of years ago in the history of bear evolution. SNSB zoologists have identified two phases in bear evolution that are responsible for the differences in bear dentition. […]

Bavarian State Collection of PalaeoanatomyMunich, 2025-27-11 – Genomic analyses of cat remains retrieved from almost 100 archaeological sites across Europe and Anatolia show that domestic cats apparently only arrived in Europe from North Africa around 2000 years ago, and not, as previously assumed, with Neolithic farmers and livestock breeders from the Near East in the […]