Though well known for his later work as the Florida Museum’s curator of Herpetology, Walter Auffenberg originally established himself with the museum as the first curator of Vertebrate Paleontology. He completed his PhD on fossil snakes of Florida in 1956, then worked until 1959 as the curator for the expanding department. Auffenberg is shown here at center holding a large carnivore skull.

Group photo of four people at work in the collections, located in the basement of the Seagle Building, including Robert Allen (left), Walter Auffenberg (center), and Dave Webb (right), April 1965
Group photo of four people at work in the collections, located in the basement of the Seagle Building, including Robert Allen (left), Walter Auffenberg (center), and Dave Webb (right), April 1965

An early location of the Florida Museum—then known as the Florida State Museum—in Gainesville’s historic John F. Seagle Building is also featured here. The collections and public exhibits of the Florida Museum were hosted in the Seagle Building from 1939-1971, before settling into their present homes at Dickinson and Powell Halls.

More

  • History of the Florida Museum
  • For more museum history, see: MacFadden, B. J. 2017. Vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida: the past 60 years of research and education. Bulletin of the Florida Museum of Natural History 55(3):51–87. doi: https://doi.org/10.58782/flmnh.xign8236
  • About the Vertebrate Paleontology archives

Photograph: Vertebrate Paleontology Archives, item S7.2.3.8