This is Moqui the Gila monster, a species of venomous lizard native to the Southwestern U.S. He has been a star in The Power of Poison at NHMU, which explains how venom from Gila monsters is being used in medical treatments. Come and see him for yourself before the exhibit closes on April 16! https://nhmu.utah.edu/poison | Natural History Museum of Utah

Scattered across the American Southwest are thousands of moqui marbles, strange stone spheres that have puzzled observers for years. 🪨 These curious formations, varying from pea-sized to frisbee-sized, are made of sandstone encased in hard iron oxide shells. The mystery of their origins was finally cracked when NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity found similar spheres on Mars in 2004, named “Martian blueberries.” This interplanetary connection shed light on their formation process: minera