Week Two: Stuffed turtles and a NEW ammonoid species named Chester

Greetings!

Boot camp Week One is officially in the books. Through the tribulations of learning NY's public transit, and understanding the standards of curating the Mapes Collection, we can say Week One was a success.

Learning the ropes was no easy fare though. Much of our appreciation goes to our wonderful guide Bushra (Senior Scientific Assistant) for being so cordial with the infinite number of questions we have. With the acquired curatorial foundation in place, we clicked into 'the zone'.

The always reliable source, Wikipedia, describes the zone as this:

...the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does. (Wikipedia contributors)

Here we see Keara (green) and an extremely rare sighting of Sarah (red) displaying proper zone technique.

Ryan in his preferred zone posture.

As we got the hang of things, it didn't take long until we started to fly through trays of specimens. The distribution of specimens do vary from tray to tray, cabinet to cabinet. However, not all trays are created equal.

From time to time we do come across amazing specimens that have been waiting years to see the light. Here we have an incredible cross-section of a modern nautiloid catalogued by fellow intern Ernesto.

This naturally artistic specimen displays a beautiful golden nacre (pearly color) that varies in hue within chambers. The needle-like holes housed the siphonal tube which transposed gases for buoyancy regulation.

Yet another surprising find in the collection, this is a 300 million year old Cockroach wing impression found in good ol' Hamilton, Kansas. This fossil definitely refutes Darwin's theory of evolution.

Smooth sailing with a few rough patches. That has been the theme of finding localities for specimens this week. For the novice, most of the time there will be a piece of paper or writing that is associated with each specimen. But of course, not everything will come red carpeted. So thanks to our friends over at Montana State University for having a TRS-data program (graphical locator) for finding clues about where localities are.

Earlier this week, I was working on a trilobite specimen which had "Lodi Park, Ohio --- Meadville Mbr" scribbled on a piece of paper. I searched our database and came up empty. Next step was to go through Dr. Mapes' personal archive of hand written field notes. Yet again I came up empty handed. Now it was time to play detective.

Google Earth was my first idea of locating a Lodi Park in Ohio. Results took me to the town of Lodi with a small community park on it's northern end. That's probably the locality associated with this specimen, I just needed evidence. Next was to find a Meadville Mbr. in the vicinity of the park; I thus turned to Geolex.

Meadville Member on Geolex.

Geolex is a compilation of descriptions and names of geologic units (groups, formations, members...). Searching Meadville Mbr rendered nothing but a Meadville Formation in Ohio. I then loaded up the interactive USGS Geologic Map program to see what the rocks tell me. Before digging into the maps, I came across (Wilson,1979) and his paper on a new species of trilobite Brachymetopus in Lodi, Ohio. Lo and behold, his locality is found in a Meadville Formation with TRS data that aligned right at the park. At this point, it was safe to say this was the associated locality of my specimen.






           After a few hard working days, we were all very excited to tour the Herpetology Collections.

Here is the team taking a selfie in the elevator on our way to the Herpetology Collections. [Sarah is great at avoiding cameras]

We knew these collections were something different from the dirt and rock we are used to. There was an odd scent of 'organics' as we approached the department. We were greeted by Collections Manager David Kizirian who took us deep into his lair.

Turning the corner we stopped for a viewing of taxidermy and skeletal turtles and tortoises. Quite an amazing sight to see rows of these animals piled up on racks. I work primarily with rock specimens so seeing something not lithified is quite the eye opener.

David discussed the importance of having good locality and temporal information when collecting specimens. Everything needs to be pieced together for researchers as they study the natural history of a given species.









The tour continued from crocs to frogs with appreciation of fine illustrations of frogs hanging in the hallways. David was a great interpreter of information. Explaining the whys and hows of curation in the Herpetology department and giving us detailed information about the material and dimensions of jars they use to house specimens.

From our daily duties, to toads in alcohol, we always tend to find time to be creative. Fellow intern Minda (who is known in her hometown as the girl who knits like she has fifteen fingers) continues her appreciation of extinct animals by knitting a life-size nautiloid named Chester.

Chester didn't originate from a warm tropical ocean but from a yarn store in Arizona. Minda is going to continue her tour of knitting extinct animals, I hear she's working on knitting all fifteen suborders of Foraminifera in the Paleozoic.

                         Goodbye for now. Stay tuned next week when the team visits Ichthyology.