Week Seven: Wolverines, Hippos, and Nautilus...Oh My!

Welcome back to week seven of the Mapes Intern Blog. When we last left off, we had just finished seeing the amazing collections in Anthropology and were continuing with the progress working with the specimens!  This week we had the privilege to explore Mammalogy Collections which was brief overview of large and diverse collections can be!

One of our larger Feline friends!Note some teeth are labeled

as they are loose and could fall out of the skull.

Our tour of Mammalogy was quite diverse. We saw things from primates, to bats, to marsupials, to wolverines (or as Keara calls them "over-sized ferrets"), to even hippos.We even got to see some specimens that Teddy Roosevelt collected in his youth!

A carnivore that Roosevelt collected and prepared himself.

Our tour guide, Neil Duncan, was more than excited to discuss the differences between the types of drawers and boxes used within the collections, and about how the collection's storage style has changed over time. He was happy to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different preservation styles and storage types, and about the importance of trying to prevent problems before they occur. For example, they use to have skins of big cats, like lions and panthers, hanging in some of the cabinets as if it was a closet full of coats! These skins started to take some damage from the pull of gravity and were moved to a cabinet where they could lay flat and not tear! 

Through our conversations with Neil I thought it would be appropriate to share all the different types of invertebrates we've been working with these past few weeks and how we are assessing and preventing problems in the future! To start with let's talk about the different types of animals and fossils we've been encountering. I've have attached hyperlinks to Wikipedia articles that discuss what these creatures are a little more in depth than I can here! So generally we encounter:

Nautilus (top images) and Ammonites (bottom image) are two of the most common

things we come across when working on our cabinets. We have dealt with

both recent and prehistoric nautilus and their ancestors.

Sponges (above), Corals, and Bryozoans are also common to see.

Unfortunately the color of these is not preserved in the 

fossils we encounter.

Crustaceans like crabs (top), and Trilobites are a little more rare to come

across in the cabinets we work with, but always a pleasant surprise.

We can also come across trace fossils(Ichnofossils) which are anything from

fossilized poop, burrows (pictured above), and track-ways. I personally think

the burrows pictured above look like ancient Cheetos.

We can also encounter Foraminifera, Bivalves, Brachiopoda, and plenty of unknown objects!

So when we work with all these different types of specimens, it can also be common to encounter problems with the storage or labels that then have to be corrected. Problems discovered can include: multiple tags with conflicting information, improper size of box for storage, poorly written labels, labels with missing information, specimens that get mixed together, etc. These are just problems in the now, but we also have to plan for anything that could happen in the future. Our specimens are susceptible to pyrite disease, which is when the specimens start to deteriorate and turn to dust. Currently we are in the process of trying to find ways to slow or prevent this from happening to our specimens because they can end up looking like this:

This, according to the tag, used to be a sponge.

We also have to plan for the specimens being used by researchers someday in the future. That is why labeling a lot of the specimens is so important. We've also begun labeling groups of boxes multiple specimens are being used.

 These all looked really similar. So along with our orange numbers, I applied

a text label saying which box number it was to try to help prevent any future

mix ups.

So that gives y'all a little glimpse into what we've been up to during our work process so far. On a more personal note here is an update on the individual interns: 

• Sarah went to her first concert to see Imagine Dragons perform for Good Morning America
• Minda met extended family she hadn't met before
• Ernesto tried vegan food with Alex
• Alex is excitedly going to a free Andrew Bird concert
• Keara got to inhale sushi with us on Thursday
• Ryan enjoyed some fresh tamales from a local restaurant

We are all excited for our final week of this internship next week. Until the next blog post enjoy this photo of our Mascot with Hippo skulls.

--Ryan and the rest of the Interns