Get up close and personal with UW-Stevens Point’s numerous museum collections, including paleontology specimens, at the annual Collection Crawl. (Contributed)

UWSP announces 10th annual ‘Collection Crawl’

March 20, 2019

For the Metro Wire

Go behind the scenes at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point this April and get up close and personal with its museum collections as part of the 10th annual Collection Crawl.

Hosted by the UW-Stevens Point Museum of Natural History, the event will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, April 6. Offered to the public free of charge, it allows participants to see some of the more than 400,000 mammal, bird, insect, fish, reptile and amphibian, parasite, geologic, archaeologic and fossil collections on display in several university buildings.

Featured this year is the museum’s ichthyology (fish) collection, curated by Associate Professor Justin Sipiorski of the Biology Department. UW-Stevens Point has the second largest collection of native Wisconsin fishes in the state. The collection features 3,000 fish species, with nearly 1 million specimens gathered over the last 100 years.

“This is our chance each year to throw open the doors and allow the public to experience the amazing diversity of regional and global natural science collections held by the museum,” said Ray Reser, museum director.

Visitors begin the Collection Crawl at Albertson Hall (library), 900 Reserve St., where they pick up passports then gather stamps at each of the collection areas around campus. At each stop, university students and faculty will provide information and answer questions for community members who attend. Visitors may park for free in Lot R, accessible from Portage or Reserve streets.

In addition to the Museum of Natural History and ichthyology, access will be available to the following collections: archaeology, entomology (insects), geology (rocks), herbarium (plants), herpetology (amphibians and reptiles), mammalogy (mammals), ornithology (birds), paleontology (prehistoric life) and parasitology (parasites).

The museum is an outreach and educational facility within the College of Letters and Science. The only public natural history museum in north central Wisconsin, the museum’s exhibits are on the first floor of Albertson Hall.

The hours are Monday-Thursday, 7:45 a.m. to midnight; Friday, 7:45 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and Sunday, 11 a.m. to midnight. The museum also includes a gift shop that is open daily. Learn more by calling 715-346-2858 or at www.uwsp.edu/cols-ap/museum.