Has your neighborhood changed since you were born? Or since your parents or grandparents moved here?

Most neighborhoods have changed a great deal. More houses and stores have been built, more roads have been developed.

When the first San Diegans collected plants and animals in the late 1870s, there weren't any roads or houses or stores--just natural lands. So their collections were different than what you find in your neighborhood today.

If we destroy a plant or animal specimen collected in 1881, we can never replace that specimen!

Label from bat, Myotis californicus californicus, female, collected by Frank Stephens, September 5, 1895, at Witch Creek, San Diego County, California