Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Volume 11, Number 2
Spring, 1982

M,

newsletter

MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

James J. McCarthy to Succeed A.W. Crompton
as MCZ Director

After 12 years of dedicated service,
Director A.W. Crompton will resign
the directorship of the MCZ as of
June 30 to pursue full-time teaching
and research as Alexander Agassiz
Professor of Zoology. The new
director, James J. McCarthy, Alex-
ander Agassiz Professor of Ocean-
ography and an authority on marine
productivity, has been at Harvard
since 1974.

A.W. Crompton

Under Crompton’s leadership,
several significant developments
have enhanced the MCZ’s teaching
and research programs.

A policy was adopted that would
ensure that in future years all cura-
tors would hold a joint professorial
appointment. This had been estab-
lished for curators of invertebrate
paleontology, who held joint pro-
fessorial appointments in the Geol-
ogy Department but had never
been fully implemented for curators
closely aligned with the Biology
Department.

A five-story laboratory building
and experimental laboratories at the

field station facility in Bedford, Mas-
sachusetts were constructed. The
new wing, originally planned, and
the field station acquired, by pre-
vious director Ernst Mayr, have
made possible the hiring of teaching
staff in the areas of population
genetics, behavior, marine biology,
oceanography, environmental phys-
iology, functionalanatomy, and ver-
tebrate development.

Of the ten systematic collections
of major animal groups, five have
been rehoused and reorganized with
the help of grants from the National
Science Foundation. The career
position of Curatorial Associate for
specialists to maintain the collections
was established and eight of the ten
departments now have one or more
such staff members. Additional
support staff was allocated to the
majority of the MCZ departments.
The eleventh major collection, the
MCZ Library, has undergone com-
plete renovation and the rare books
have been secured and catalogued.
There was a dramatic increase in
sponsored research and the diversity
of graduate students, postdoctoral
fellows, and visiting professorial
appointments.

In the area of Public Programs, the
Friends of the MCZ have grown from
80 in 1970 to over 600 active members
in 1982. Several of the exhibit halls
have been refurbished and public
education programs were initiated in
1925.

Crompton is looking forward to
relinquishing his directorial duties
for the first time since 1956, when he
became Director of the South African
Museum in Cape Town. Before
arriving at the MCZ, Crompton was
Director of the Peabody Museum of

Natural History at Yale University
from 1965-70. He will continue his
research on the transition of reptiles
to mammals some 200 million years
ago and the comparative biology of
feeding in mammals. He will also
continue to teach the structure and
function of vertebrates and verte-
brate paleontology. He is planning a
sabbatical year in 1983-4 which may
include a trans-Atlantic sail with his
wife, Ann.

beak.

- James ]. McCarthy

New director James J. McCarthy
foresees the next decade as ‘’a period
of stability in which we can
strengthen the interchange among
scientists in related fields and better
develop our representation of animal
biology.” Because of current eco-
nomic conditions, McCarthy does
not envisage the next decade to be
another period of great physical
growth.

McCarthy’s research focuses on
the availability of nitrogen nutrients
to determine the productivity of the
oceans. As reported previously in the

Continued on next page

New Appointment
in Herpetology

James L. Knight has_ been
appointed Curatorial Associate in
Herpetology as of December 1, 1981.
A specialist in snakes, Knight is
completing a master’s thesis at the
University of Kansas on the system-
atics and natural history of Tretanor-
hinus nigroluteus, a Central American
water snake.

Knight is delighted to be working
in the MCZ’s herpetology collection
and library, the most important in
scope and diversity in the New
World and possibly outranked glob-
ally only by the British Museum. He
notes that the weakest part of the
collection is in the local northeast
fauna and plans to supplement this
area of the collection. With research
travel funds drying up and geopoli-
tics complicating international col-
lecting, this would seem to be an
ideal time to concentrate on snake
hunting in New England.

Knight's addiction started around
the age of seven, when he was a “‘boy
snaker”’, a human subspecies long
recognized by herpetologists. These
boys typically grow up in the coun-
try; Knight spent his early years in
an unusually snaky part of south-
west Oklahoma and later moved to
central Kansas where hundreds of
square miles of flat-rock hillsides
provided a fertile playground for the
boys who spent all their free time

turning them over. ‘Flipping rocks
was just like opening Christmas
presents,” recalls Knight. “You
didn’t always get what you wanted
but sometimes what you found was
pretty neat.”

Knight served in the infantry in the
Vietnam war and kept his sanity by
collecting snakes. ‘It was easy to find
snakes when you had an entire rifle
company helping you to look,” he
says, “I tried to lend a new meaning
to the term ‘search and destroy.’ ”
His extensive collection of cobras and
bamboo vipers were unfortunately
left behind when he _ returned
because the military claimed that the
alcohol preservative posed a fire

hazard on the flight home.

During his three-and-a-half years
as a graduate student at the Univer-
sity of Kansas, Knight worked for the
animal care unit and was responsible
for the poisonous snakes which were
part of a study on bloodpooling in
arboreal species.

Aside from caring for the special
collections and __herpetological
library, Knight will pursue his
research on snake systematics and
ecology. Openly marveling at his
good fortune in landing at the MCZ,
Knight says: ‘Between the library
and the snake room, I could happily
spend the rest of my life counting
scales.”

Visitor

UNE 7

Dr. Ai-yun Tai, Associate Profes-
sor at the Institute of Zoology, Aca-
demia Sinica, People’s Republic of

China, is spending a year in Profes-
sor Herbert W. Levi's laboratory in
the MCZ’s Invertebrate Department
to broaden her knowledge of Crus-
tacea, especially crabs, her area of
specialization.

The specific purpose of her visit is
to compare the fauna of crabs in dif-
ferent areas of the Indo-Pacific region
from the MCZ collection. She is also
studying the comprehensive MCZ
crustacea collections as part of her
systematic-phylogenetic studies.

Tai was a participant in the joint
meeting of six zoological societies in
Dallas in December. She found the
personal communication and contact
with many scholars and specialists
in her own field extremely stimulat-
ing. She hopes to initiate a similar
meeting in China of international
crustacea specialists. Tai will spend
some time studying the crusta-
cea collection at the Smithsonian
Institution.

New MCZ Director

Continued from first page

MCZ Newsletter, he is engaged in a
major cooperative study of the Gulf
Stream rings to determine the
mechanisms of ocean circulation.
‘“McCarthy’s approach to research is
indicative of the new direction of the
MCZ,” says Crompton. “It is impor-
tant to have a director who is taking
a broad look at the total environ-
ment—who is able to integrate dif-
ferent aspects of biology rather than
concentrate only on isolated parts of

the whole. That’s what modern
museums are all about.”

A 1966 graduate of Gonzaga Uni-
versity, McCarthy earned his Ph.D.
at Scripps Institution of Oceanogra-
phy in 1971. He held research
appointments at Scripps and Johns
Hopkins University before arriving
at Harvard as Assistant Professor in
1974. He was appointed to his pres-
ent professorial position in 1980.

McCarthy follows in the footsteps
of second MCZ director Alexander
Agassiz, son of founder Louis, who
was one of the first American
oceanographers.

MCZ Library
Reports

Rare Books Secured

The MCZ’s outstanding collection
of rare books and serials are now
securely housed and recorded in an
accurate short-title catalog designed
to prevent any future unauthorized
manipulation of records. The MCZ
Rare Book Inventory Project was
carried out by Reed A. Boland under
the supervision of Librarian Eva S.
Jonas and made possible by a gen-
erous gift to the Library by Robert
Goelet, a member of the Faculty of
the MCZ. “This was a necessary
improvement in response to the
much-publicized loss of rare books
and plates,’’ according to Jonas.

Grants Received

Two grants were received recently
from the fund created in the Harvard
College Library from the proceeds of
the first edition of How to Use Biologi-
cal Abstracts by Eva Jonas. One in the
amount of $3,000 will be used for the
improvement of public services in the
Library and the second, in the
amount of $1,500, has been used for
the development and production of
the second edition. An automatic
slide-tape projector has been pur-
chased and with the help of the
remaining funds, instructional slides
and slide tapes will be produced to
improve reference services in the
Library. Two slide tapes are already

. available, one to instruct new users
on how to finda serial, and the other
on how to find a book in the MCZ
Library.

This is a representative of an unnamed species; as yet, its taxonomic affinity within the
foraminifera is undetermined. (Enlarged 250 x )

The MCZ Newsletter ts published two
or three times a year by the Museum of
Comparative Zoology, Harvard Univer-
sity, Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massa-

chusetts 02138; A. W. Crompton,
Director.

Editor: Gabrielle Dundon
Photographer: A.H. Coleman

This species, constructed like a coiled spring of the mineral calcite, is aptly named
Spiroloculina fragilis. (Enlarged 140 x )

Robert E.
Silberglied
1946-1982

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The Air Florida crash on January
13 in Washington claimed the life of
Dr. Robert E. Silberglied, an Associ-
ate of the MCZ who was Assistant
Professor of Biology and Assistant
Curator of Entomology from 1973 to
1978 and Associate Professor of Biol-
ogy and Hessel Associate Curator of
Lepidoptera in the MCZ from 1978
to 1981. Silberglied was also Staff
Scientist (Research Entomologist) at
the Smithsonian Tropical Research
Institute and divided his time
between the MCZ and his research
site on Panama’s Barro Colorado
Island.

Silberglied’s diverse research
interests ranged from the systematics
and evolution of the Lepidoptera to
insect sensory physiology, behavior,
and ecology. Most recently, using
the common butterflies of the genus
Anartia (Nymphalidae), Silberglied
conducted research in Panama on
the function of color and pattern, on
spermatophore transfer, predator
damage, and population dynamics.
he ultraviolet patterns on butterfly
wings visible to insects was the sub-
ject of another long-term research
project. Silberglied was also inter-
ested in the diverse adaptation and
general natural history of arthropods

Second NSF Grant to Insect Collections

A new grant of $307,296 from the
National Science Foundation will
make possible the continued
improvement of the MCZ’s insect
collections, which are among the
richest and historically most signifi-
cant in North America. They contain
over 5,500,000 specimens and the
primary types of over 29,500 species.

According to Ronald J. McGinley,
Assistant Curator of Entomology
and Assistant Professor of Biology:
‘The first grant, carried out during
the five-year period 1975-79, was
primarily aimed at external renova-
tions. This one is for internal reno-
vations, a systematic reordering of

and in defensive adaptations in bee-
tles. The Galapagos Islands, where
Silberglied conducted entomological
research for six months in 1970, were
an abiding interest. He accompanied
the Friends of the MCZ on a Gala-
pagos expedition in 1977.

Under his care, the MCZ’s Lepi-
doptera collections underwent the
first phase of a major renovation
including the re-housing of the
specimens in steel cabinets and
expansion of space. The large hold-
ing of papered material were
repackaged to enable them to be
stored with the pinned specimens.
This work is being continued by Dr.
M. Deane Bowers.

Professor emeritus Frank M. Car-
penter remembers Silberglied’s far-
ranging and boundless enthusiasm
for all aspects of biology and his
encyclopedic knowledge. ‘Bob is
especially to be remembered for his
excellent teaching at Harvard, at both
undergraduate and graduate levels,
and for his patience and under-
standing in his contacts with the
students.”

“Bob was a rarity,’” according to
Professor E. O. Wilson, Curator of
Entomology. ‘He had a love of what
he was doing that went well beyond
his career and the challenges that he
saw in science. He just loved nature
and insects and knowledge and he
spent all of his time studying and
telling other people about what he
knew. He was one of the most
extraordinarily generous people I
have ever met.”

the contents of the shiny new cabi-
nets provided by the first grant, at
the rate of a collection per year.”
The new grant will provide for
additional curatorial staff to work on
renovating the collections since the
current curatorial associate and
assistants are fully employed in the
day-to-day running of this large
department and processing the rap-
idly-escalating number of loans
(almost 100% increase in the last 10
years). The MCZ will renovate a
room and provide stipends for visit-
ing specialists to work on the major
collections in the following order:
Year 1: Diptera; Year 2: Hymenop-
tera; Year 3: Lepidoptera. Funding
for Years 4 and 5 for work on the
Coleoptera collection is dependent
upon the hiring of a coleopterist to
the staff. The MCZ is committed to
making this appointment when the
current overall deficit is reduced.

Lepidoptera
Collection Donated
to the MCZ

The MCZ’s Entomology Depart-
ment recently received the Lepidop-
ter collection of Charles Kimball
(Harvard class of 1919) who died on
March 4, 1982. The Kimball collection
is composed primarily of moths
although it includes some butterflies
and numbers over 27,000 specimens.
“This is an extremely valuable addi-
tion to the MCZ,” according to
Assistant Professor M. Deane Bow-
ers, Hessel Assistant Curator of
Lepidoptera, ‘as the collection is in
excellent condition with most speci-
mens identified. It is particularly
strong in some moth groups not
well-represented in the MCZ
collection.”

Kimball was well known for his
work on the Lepidoptera of Florida
and also collected extensively on
Cape Cod where he and his wife
were living at the time of his death.
He was the recent recipient of the
John Abbott award for his contribu-
tions to entomology in the southern
United States.

Galapagos Rift Finds Subject of
Student Research Projects

The unexpected discoveries of the
two Galapagos Hydrothermal
Expeditions conducted by Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution in
1977 and 1979 are providing fertile
new areas for MCZ graduate student
research. Colleen Cavanaugh is
investigating the biological processes
of the giant tube worm Riftia pachyp-
tila while Anthony Arnold, with
assistance from Felicita d’Escrivan,
is concentrating on the foraminifera
fauna.

The Woods Hole research team,
including MCZ Professor Ruth D.
Turner, were able to enter a region
which had hitherto eluded human
exploration two-and-a-half kilome-
ters under the ocean surface. In the
rift zone between the Cocos and
Nazca plates, in hot vents with tem-
peratures of up to 20°C, they dis-
covered a mysterious underwater
oasis of teeming life. The obvious
success of the spectacular array of
clams, mussels, crabs, fish, and tube
worms that were found in the “Rose
Garden”, as it was dubbed, was
puzzling. How could these organ-
isms thrive in their totally dark
environment? This was certainly no
place for photosynthesis.

Cavanaugh was particularly
intrigued by perhaps the most
bizarre members of this strange new
fauna—the huge clusters of giant (up
to six feet long) red-tipped tube

a

~ =n + aa
The giant red-tipped tube worms found in enormous clusters in the hydrothermal vent
area of the Galapagos rift.

worms. How could these organisms
flourish without what would seem
to be the most basic essentials—
mouths and guts? During a Harvard
lecture by the Smithsonian’s Dr.
Meredith L. Jones in March 1980,
she jumped from her seat and to the
hypothesis that the worms depend
on symbiotic chemoautotrophic sul-
fur bacteria for their nourishment.

Colleen Cavanaugh

Jones had dissected the tropho-
some, the tissue that fills the worm’s
trunk region, and found crystals
which turned out to be sulfur.
Cavanaugh, who has a combined
background in zoology and microbial
ecology, had been working ona term
paper on the importance of che-
moautotrophy in the marine envi-
ronment, i.e., the function of sulfur-
oxidizing bacteria which oxidize

fe
, nl

Research submersible DSV Sea Cliff, a
sister sub to Alvin, being lowered for
deep-sea exploration.

reduced inorganic sulfur compound
to produce energy and to fix carbon
dioxide into organic compounds.
The question posed by Jones’ tube
worm studies prompted her to
hypothesize that there exists a sym-
biotic relationship between the sul-
fur-oxidizing bacteria and_ the
mouthless, gutless tube worm: the
bacteria produce organic com-
pounds which are an internal food
source for the worm and the bacteria
gets its required nutrients through
the worm’s blood without having to
move from its fixed place.

Following up on this first insight,
Cavanaugh and others (as reported
in Science*) have examined the tro-
phosome through the scanning and
transmission electron microscopes
and confirmed the presence of bac-
teria. Other researchers, including
Horst Feldeck at Scripps Institute of
Oceanography, have _ identified
enzymes characteristic of carbon
dioxide fixation in the trophosome.

The process does not appear to be
limited to tube worms; Cavanaugh’s
studies reveal that this symbiosis
may also occur in bivalves living in
sulfide-rich mud. Five species,
including the giant clam Clyptogenia
magnifica from the hot vent region,
have now been shown to contain
bacteria.

Cavanaugh is currently studying
the enzymes of carbon dioxide fixa-
tion and sulfur metabolism and iso-
lating the bacteria in Solemya velum,
an Atlantic coast bivalve known to
have a small gut.

*July 17, 1981, Vol. 213 pp. 340-2

Galapagos Rift
Studies

Along the Galapagos rift axis,
the Alvin Team discovered nu-
merous hydrothermically-deposited
mounds ranging in height from less
than a meter to over 20 meters. These
mounds range from 4 to 10°C and
are composed of sediment covered
by a thin ferromanganese crust.

This environment is host to a
strange and diverse community of
foraminifera, tiny chambered or-
ganisms which are related to amoe-
bas but have shells. They are ubiq-
uitous world-wide and, in terms of
their contribution to the global bio-
mass, are exceeded only by nema-
todes and bacteria. While there are
about 350 living and fossil species,
there are less than 40 species of living
planktonic foraminifera; the benthic
or deep-sea forms number more
than 10,000 named species. With the
aid of the scanning electron micro-
scope, Anthony Arnold, graduate
student in invertebrate paleontol-
ogy, and Felicita d’Escrivan, research
assistant, are studying the several
new endemic forms collected from
the vent region.

Felicita d’Escrivan and Anthony Arnold of the Invertebrate Paleontology Department

confer on their joint foraminifera project. Behind them Isa display of greatly-enlarged
scanning electron microscope photographs of their research subjects.

Close-up of one of the snail-made holes (Enlarged 1200 x )

—
This chambered foram has been predated upon by a snail in corn-on-the-cob fashion.

(Enlarged 120 x) Scanning electron micrographs by Ed Seling

Joseph Charles Bequaert

1886-1982

Dr. Joseph Charles Bequaert, for-
mer MCZ Curator of Recent Insects
and Alexander Agassiz Professor,
died on January 12, 1982 in Amherst,
Massachusetts.

Born in Belgium and a gradu-
ate of the University of Ghent, Dr.
Bequaert spent four years conduct-
ing botanical explorations in Zaire
(then the Belgian Congo) before
being appointed Research Associate
in Congo Zoology at the American
Museum of Natural History in 1917.
He became a United States citizen in
1921, and was appointed Assistant
Professor of Tropical Medicine at
Harvard Medical School from 1925-
1945. He became Curator of Recent
Insects at the MCZ in 1945 and
in 1951 was appointed Alexander
Agassiz Professor for a five-year
term. Upon his Harvard retirement,
he continued his teaching and
research activities at the University
of Houston and subsequently moved
to Tucson, Arizona, where he was
associated with the departments of
zoology and entomology of the Uni-
versity of Arizona.

Bequaert’s research interests were
exceptionally far-ranging. As a
botanist he conducted extensive
research and field exploration on the
taxonomy and ecology of the mosses
and flowering plants at the Belgian
Congo. He was an authority on
medical entomology, on the taxon-
omy of ticks, on the taxonomy and
ethology of the Hymenoptera, espe-
cially the social wasps, and on the
systematics of the horseflies and
related families. His prodigious con-
tributions to the MCZ’s insect col-
lections include substantial additions
to the Diptera and Hymenoptera
collections.

Bequaert was also a serious stu-
dent and collector of mollusks and
animportant though unofficial mem-
ber of that department. Besides giv-
ing the MCZ over 10,000 lots of mol-
lusks with specimens totaling over
100,000, he took over the task of cur-
ating the collections of African land
and freshwater mollusks, one of the

world’s largest African collections.
Many of his papers on these African
mollusks were written with the
curator, William J. Clench.

“ Affectionately called ‘Uncle Joe’
by the many young students then at
the MCZ, Dr. Bequaert was available
to advise and help at all times,”
recalls Curator emeritus Clench. ‘“He
was an incredible linguist (said he

grew up on the streets of Belgium
speaking four languages) and was
always willing to help translate dif-
ficult passages in many of the Euro-
pean languages.”

“He was a delightful man,”
according to Professoremeritus Frank
M. Carpenter, “with extraordinary
exuberance, enthusiasm, and a great
hearty laugh.”

Joseph C. Bequaert, collecting in Zaire, 1934

Friends of the MCZ Travel Program

Upcoming trips include: anew trip
to see right whales in the Bay of
Fundy (August 29-September 4,
1982); Baja whale-watching, the
perennial favorite (January 28-Feb-
ruary 4, 1983); a new expanded Baja
trip circumnavigating the peninsula
and including visits to the remote
islands in the Sea of Cortez (March
5-19, 1983); Tanzania camping safaris
in January/February and May/June,
1983; and a complete tour of the Gal-

apagos Islands, including Tower
(June 14-28, 1983).

A brochure for the Bay of Fundy
has already been mailed to Friends
and is filling rapidly; a brochure
describing the other trips will be sent
in early June.

Provincetown whale-watching
weekends on the Dolphin Fleet con-
tinue to be especially popular; several
Friends have made these a regular
part of their annual spring activities.

Almost-Complete Tritylodontid Found

Charles R. Schaff of the MCZ’s Ver-
tebrate Paleontology Department on

Chis completely-articulated spec-
imen ofa tritylodontid was found by

last summer's expedition into the
Kayenta formation of northeast Ari-
zona. These herbivorous mammal-
like reptiles which survived the gen-
eral extinction in the Triassic (180
million years ago) and lived into the
Jurassic (135 million years ago)
reached the size of a collie and had
large tusk-like teeth which could
have been used for defense or for
tearing up plant materials.

The Kayenta tritylodontids were a
diverse group, probably including
three different species. Numerous
skulls have been found ranging from
the size of a quarter to this one, which
measures almost a foot long.

Professor Farish A. Jenkins, Jr.
speculates that this exquisitely-pre-
served specimen was buried soon
after death, escaping the damage
usually inflicted by scavengers. The
missing pelvis and hind limbs were
probably eroded out prior to the
discovery.

A New MCZ Literary Tradition?

While considerable attention has
been paid to this year’s new books
by noted members of the MCZ sci-
entific community Ermst Mayr', E

O. Wilson’, and Stephen Jay Gould?
(who also became the first MCZ staff
member to be the subject of a
Newsweek* cover story), another

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emerging literary tradition has yet to
be discovered. Hoping to follow in
the path of Vladimir Nabokov, who
was a butterfly specialist in the Insect
Department from 1941 to 1948,
admissions attendant Philip Kim-
ball has had his novel, Shootin’
Snooker, accepted for publication by
E.P. Dutton.

A study of how the lives of short-
grass prairie community are affected
by their fragile environment, Kim-
ball’s work explores their collective
psyche, haunted by dust-bowl
memories and living in the fear of a
recurrence.

Kimball, a naive of Oklahoma who
studied at the Universities of Kansas,
Heidelberg, Berkeley and Stanford
and who formerly taught literature
at the University of Bonn and Spell-
man College in Atlanta, has found
his job at the MCZ to be almost ideal
for his literary endeavors. “My best
writing hours are in the morning
when I have to be at my MCZ post,”
he says, “but other than that it has
been perfect.” The book will appear

next year after revisions are
completed.

'The Growth of Biological Thought, Harvard University Press
2Genes, Mind, and Culture, with Charles J. Lumsden,
Harvard Univesity Press

‘The Mismeasure of Man, W.W. Norton and Co.

‘March 29, 1982