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We hope you’re having a marvelous time celebrating the Holidays today! We wanted to do something fun and different for our Christmas post. So, we decided to present (pun intended!) you with your own truly biodiverse BHL Christmas tree – with a twist!Our tree has been decorated with 15 species ornaments. Each species on the tree is identified by its common name. Below the tree is a list of 20 scientific names. All 15 of the species on the tree are listed among the binomials, as well as 5 that are not on the tree.Can you associate our ornaments with their scientific names? Simply click on the 15 binomials you believe are represented on the tree and hit “submit.” The subsequent results screen will tell you whether you’re a taxonomy master or beginner.

If you are reading this post then the world hasn’t ended…but, you probably already knew it wasn’t going to end.

Don’t look so disappointed. Yes, the human race regrettably has always had a collective death wish, eagerly awaiting the promise of the end of times since the beginning of times. Or have we?

As a project, we work to raise awareness about the plight facing the Earth’s biodiversity today and provide ways to help preserve scientific knowledge, support research, and conserve species. As a consortium, our BHL member institutions spread some fantastic holiday cheer by featuring some exciting seasonal exhibits.

We decided to celebrate the holidays this year by taking you through a virtual tour of the seasonal exhibitions at some of our member institutions and, as an added bonus, showcase this year’s BHL “superstars” for each member. What’s a BHL “superstar,” you ask? Well, today, it’s each member’s most popular book in BHL this year. Some of them just might surprise you!

Although Vladimir Nabokov is remembered as one of America’s most venerated novelists, his first and most beloved pastime was not the writing of books, but the chasing of butterflies. Nabokov loved butterflies long before Humbert Humbert fell so tragically in love with his adolescent nymphet and long after American parents had stopped naming their children “Lolita.”