The ivory-billed woodpecker is a woodpecker that is native to the bottomland hardwood forests and temperate coniferous forests of the Southern United States and Cuba. Habitat destruction and hunting have reduced populations so thoroughly that the species is listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on its Red List as critically endangered, and by the American Birding Association as "definitely or probably extinct". The last universally accepted sighting of an American ivory-billed woodpecker occurred in Louisiana in 1944, and the last universally accepted sighting of a Cuban ivory-billed woodpecker occurred in 1987, after the bird's rediscovery there the prior year. Sporadic reports of sightings and other evidence of the persistence of the species have continued since then.

The Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) is Florida's official state-sponsored and chartered natural history museum. Its main facilities are located at 3215 Hull Road on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville.