Natural History Archives - Ohio History Connection

August 11, 2025

Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) Benefit Natural History Collections?

Or: How a Comment About iNaturalist Led Me Down an AI Rabbithole Rather than an exhaustive report, this blog is intended to give a brief overview of the topic and jumping off points for further investigation. This blog was written without the assistance of AI writing tools. While identifying a butterfly on a social media […]

July 21, 2025

A Brief History of the Golden-winged Warbler: Part II

Author’s Note: Be sure to catch up with A Brief History of the Golden-winged Warbler Part I, here. The Golden-winged Warbler was seemingly never common in Ohio. It had been variously described as a "transitory visitor" by Jared Kirtland in 1838; a "rare summer resident" by John Wheaton in 1879; and "irregular in distribution" by […]

July 11, 2025

Welcome to Our Summer Interns!

Meet Grayson and Grace—two of our outstanding summer interns at the Ohio History Connection!

May 20, 2025

Big Darby Creek Stream Exploration & Lecture

Session 1 (Completed): August 9 Introductory lecture at the Ohio History Center Session 2: August 23, 10 a.m.–Noon Hands-on session at Battelle Darby Creek Metropark If you are still interested in taking part in the hands-on field portion of the stream exploration at Big Darby Creek but missed the first lecture at the Ohio History […]

May 12, 2025

A Brief History of the Golden-winged Warbler: Part I

By Erin Cashion, Curator of Natural History At first glance, it appears to be only a brownish wad of grapevine bark strips and old beech leaves. Its age alone (and the person who collected it) make it a specimen of high historic and scientific significance. But this plain-seeming clump of old leaves has an even […]

April 14, 2025

Did We Really “De-extinct” the Dire Wolf?

By Erin Cashion and David Dyer On April 7, the story in Time magazine was posted everywhere: we had brought the extinct Ice Age Dire Wolf, Aenocyon dirus, back from the dead. Alongside this unbelievable headline came the video of two adorable white, fluffy canines in the hands of a human caregiver. These two pups […]

March 5, 2025

Itacolumite, the “Gumby Stone”!

By Dave Dyer, Curator Natural History

June 27, 2024

An Ode To Caterpillars

July 28, 2023

Birds of a Feather: The Smithsonian and OHC Natural History Collections

Join Dave Dyer, Natural History Curator, and Marie Swartz, Archaeology Curator, on a journey that intertwines ornithology, archaeology, and natural history, revealing the significance of collaborative research in unraveling the secrets of the past. One of the basic tenets of a scientific collection is that the data associated with the specimens is as important […]

March 15, 2023

Natural History’s “Green” collections

In honor of the St. Patrick’s Day holiday we delved into our Natural History collections to showcase five of our green specimens and tell their stories!