Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Volume 19, Number 1

Fall, 1988

7

Dr. Hu Shiu Ying to Lead China ayleip

Botanist Hu Shiu Ying of Har-
vard’s Arnold Arboretum will
introduce travelers to the natural
wonders of her native China on the
MCZ’s first foray into China next
April 28 to May 21.

Dr. Hu arrived in the United States
in 1946 with a fellowship grant from
Radcliffe College for graduate work
in botany. She received her Ph.D. in
1949 and has been working at the
Arnold Arboretum ever since, cur-
ating the half-million specimens that
constitutes the Chinese collections in
the Herbarium. She was Chief Bot-
anist on the Flora of China Project
between 1953 and 1957; together
with three other botanists and assis-
tants, she prepared a complete index
to the flowering plants of China. In
1968 she started a project on the Flora
of Hong Kong, staying in Hong Kong
for four years and collecting 12,000
sets of specimens. She has also
taught at the Chinese University in
Hong Kong.

From 1979 to 1984 Dr. Hu was
invited by the Chinese government
and academic institutions to give

sage teh a
re Lee

lectures and short courses in botany
throughout the country. She is the
author of over 150 scientific publi-
cations and several books including
Wildflowers of South China and Wild-
flowers of Hong Kong with artist Beryl
M. Walden.

Dr. Hu is thoroughly familiar with
all the areas to be visited on the
expedition and her extensive aca-
demic associations will provide
opportunities for informal meetings
with local researchers.

New Itinerary: Australia in Depth

There is still time to join Aus-
tralian veterans Randy and Molly
Olson on a specially-designed trip

Molly and Randy Olson

to their favorite natural history
haunts. For complete information,
contact the Public Programs Office
at 617-495-2463.

MUSEUM

D ee
see

| i ym . me. no
OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

China —
A New View

The MCZ’s joint expedition
with the Massachusetts Audubon
Society will emphasize plants and
birds and will focus in depth on
three quite different habitats: the
tropical forest of the southwest,
where there is also a chance to see
elephants and monkeys; the
mountainous Wolong reserve at
the edge of the great Tibetan
plateau, home to the elusive
giant panda; and the marshes of
Zhalong in the northeast, where
there is a chance of seeing the
endangered Siberian crane.

The cultural aspects of the
remote areas to be visited are also
fascinating. ““People might think
they have seen all there is to see
in China after visiting the cities.
However, there is a China you
would never believe still exists
and this trip takes us there.’”’ Ray
Ashton of Massachusetts Audu-
bon Society, who has just
returned from a whirlwind trip to
China viewing the areas to be
visited on our joint expedition also
remarked on the hill people in the
southwest. ‘They still wear their
traditional clothing and live in
villages that haven’t changed in
centuries. They have had little or
no contact with westerners and
were full of wonder at their visi-
tors from the United States.”

An optional one-week exten-
sion to see the cultural sights
of Beijing and Xian is offered.
Call the Public Programs Office
at 617-495-2463 for complete
information.

Patterns of Lives in Science: E. O. Wilson

by Hilary Hopkins

Edward O. Wilson loves many
things. I heard delight reflected in
his spirited voice as he showed me
round the ant habitats, arrayed along
the walls of his office, during a recent
visit. After this too-brief token visit
to the Queendom of the Ants, we
spoke of other things he loves.

He's a lover of words and of image
and metaphor. A very large diction-
ary rests ona stand in his office, in
a place of honor by the ants. “If by
some horrible chance, you were not
able to do science, what work would
you want to do?” asked.

“I'd be a writer!’” The response
came instantly and decisively. ‘I’m
a Southern writer who got detoured
into science. I have the instincts of a
writer. But given a choice, I would
always have taken science, so I’m
happy where I am.”

As we talked about good teachers
he’d had in his early years, it became
apparent that his love of words and
writing appeared, and was recog-
nized, early on. “I had several
teachers of English who encouraged
my writing. The Southern schools
have probably been undervalued in
what they’ve done for students—I’m
speaking now about my generation.
Far from being uncultured, many of
these small-town schools often had
superb teachers, who worshipped
literature, and encouraged any
writing ability they saw in young-
sters. Yes, my English teachers,”’ he
ended with admiring fondness.

Professor Wilson mused on the
use of words in his own teaching.
“The student is a taskmaster, who
brings you back to basic questions
and forces you to express yourself
with precision.”

Wilson has a rich treasury of
words and images to describe his
work. He showed me some of the
elegant drawings he is making for a
new book on ants. ‘Bert Holldobler
and | are doing an encyclopedic book

Hilary Hopkins, a Friend of the MCZ
since 1981, 1s a science enthusiast and
educational consultant specializing in
gifted children. This article is the fifth
of a series she has prepared for the MCZ

Newsletter.

E. O. Wilson

on ants. Among other things, we’re
going to illustrate every one of the
300 genera. I enjoy the fine detail of
the work—it’s like gardening, like
trimming bonsai _ trees—gives
instant, restful feedback.”

Later I considered how the bonsai
tree is intended as a little world of its
own, a miniature of the larger world,
yet perfect in itself. Wilson’s words
about the ants echoed in my mind:
“To the average person, these things
are nothing but tiny tiny bits of chitin
running around, each one a mil-
lionth the size of a human being. But
when you get them under high
magnification, you see that each is
like a little world unto itself. It is an
object of endless beauty.” I see how
apt his metaphor has been. He finds
unforeseen revelations in the object
of his devotion.

A writer, or a teacher, uses words
to illuminate both an inner vision
and the outer world. E. O. Wilson is
also a lover of place, and he has
written eloquently of places sacred to
him. Il asked if he had returned to the
favorite places of his Southern boy-
hood, about which he wrote in Bio-
philia. ‘Yes, I have, repeatedly. I’ve
gone back in the last ten years several
times and visited the place where I
used to catch snakes. It’s magnetic,
I keep going back, mostly to dream
and recapture the feelings I once had.
Biophilia was partly my ‘Southern
writer's’ book. It was an attempt to
encapsulate and preserve, to my
satisfaction, the experiences that I
had in the South, which I perceived
as a gateway to the tropical environ-
ment. The sense that the tropics
themselves were Northern Florida
and Southern Alabama writ large, as
far as natural history was concerned,
is a compelling image.”

Photo by Lilian Kemp

“My families, on both sides, were
typical Alabamian, family oriented
‘tribes,’ going back to the 1830's.
Maybe I’m one of the few members
of the Harvard faculty who can go
into a Gulf Coast oyster bar and
spend the afternoon without being
noticed. I take a certain pride in
that,’”” he smiled.

Wilson spent a peripatetic child-
hood, attending sixteen schools in
eleven years. But the natural world
of the South was in a sense a per-
manent “’place’’ with which he was
familiar no matter in which part of
it he happened to find himself. As he
recollected his very earliest experi-
ence in science, I felt I was hearing
about the beginning of a Quest, the
first steps upon the trail, for Wilson
loves not only words and places, but
also, perhaps, being on the trail.

“When I was nine years old, I had
this childish dream of going on
expeditions—I don’t know, maybe I
saw a Frank Buck movie—but I
somehow got the idea of going out
and collecting creatures in the wild,
which in this case turned out to be
Rock Creek Park. I brought back
specimens and started making col-
lections when I was about nine years
old. That soon grew into a love of
butterflies, and also a love of ants,
which didn’t develop decisively until
the ripe old age of thirteen. I think
a great many children have a bug
episode when they’re about nine or
ten. I just never grew out of mine.”’

These first steps on the trail led
outward into what Wilson describes
in Biophilia as “eclectic endeavors. . .
a thick tangle of studies.” ‘’Com-
parison and synthesis are the main
themes of my scientific career,” he
told me.

I mentioned that he’s described
himself as a workaholic; to me that
suggested a person who has a pas-
sion to know as much as possible,
now.

“That's right,” he responded.
“And to get as much control of things
as possible. It’s an acquisitive drive.
I don’t mean in a dominating sense,
but in the sense of mastering your
own environments.”

He went on: “You choose, as your
personal muse, a group of organ-
isms; you become devoted to it. It can
be a single organism—a single spe-
cies of antelope or butterfly or
whatever—that you adore in every

Spring Chicken?

As many heard on the ABC News,
saw on the Today show, or read in
Science magazine, Professor Farish
A. Jenkins, Jr., in conjunction with
Drs. Kenneth Dial and G. E. (Ted)
Goslow, has discovered something
that puts a new twist on an old
snap—the wishbone.

By filming European starlings fly
in a specially constructed wind
tunnel with a high-speed x-ray
technique known as cineradiogra-
phy, Jenkins’ research team was able
to see that the wishbone is not merely
a strut or brace, as previously
thought, but acts as a spring. This is
the first time researchers have
watched directly the movements of
a bird’s shoulder girdle as it flew.
Each of the upper ends of the
U-shaped wishbone in the starling
is attached to one of the bird’s shoul-
ders while the lower end is not
directly attached to any other part of
the skeleton. During the wing’s

respect. You wish to know every-
thing there is to be known about it.
In the course of this obsession, you
realize that you are a scientist, you
have a craving to make discoveries,
so you take the organism you’re
working with and you pick the
problem that you feel your organism
is best at solving. That’s the kind of
scientist I’ve tried to be, a naturalist
steward. I’ve tried to see what the
ants can provide to science.”

The trail of discovery leads far
afield into a wondrous tangle ahead.
Mastery of the trail requires both
comparison and synthesis, each
informing the other. But Wilson is
confident about the home base from
which the quest draws its vitality. He
wrote elsewhere: “The ants gave me
everything, and to them I will always
return, like a shaman reconsecrating

Sei

WE es)
LS.

downstroke the ends of the wish-
bone are pulled apart to nearly one-
and-a-half times their resting width,
making this one of the most elastic
bones found in any vertebrate.

Since the skeletal structure of the
European starling is typical of many
birds, it can be assumed that the
spring action of the wishbone is fairly
common, but what is the function of
this action?

The researchers hypothesize that
the spring action of the bone is
related to internal respiration. The
starling has air sacs both between the
halves of its wishbone and in the
abdomen. The spreading of the
wishbone with a downstroke of the
wing may cause expansion of the sacs
between the bone; at the same time

the tribal totem. . . Every creative
person carries an innermost image
of the routes of imaginative pursuit
to which he returns for a strength
independent of praise and human
influence. . . My ultimate retreat is
in the natural world through which
we are privileged to travel. . .’”’

I looked around his office. There
lay the big dictionary, symbol and
resource of the lover of words. On
the walls were images of loved places
and heroes in science. And sur-
rounding all, the ants, living with
awesome unconcern for those who
admire them, little worlds unto
themselves. ‘“You know,” Professor
Wilson said, “‘there’s a kinesthetic
satisfaction that comes from working
with these organisms, a touch that
leads to a smell and then to an image,
so that all the senses are roused

the sternum presses up against the
air sacs behind the wishbone. On the
upstroke this double bellows action
is reversed.

The original goal of this research
was to understand exactly how the
musculoskeletal system of a bird’s
shoulder worked. Paleontologist
Jenkins hopes that by understanding
how the birds’ structures, like the
wishbone, reflect their function he
will gain insight into the evolution
of these structures. So far this study
has indicated that the wishbone-
sternum system in the European
starling seems to have evolved in
part to link the flight and respiratory
functions of the bird.

The public announcement of this
exciting discovery using new tech-
niques will sound familiar to our
Friends who attended the spring 1987
open house in Vertebrate Paleontol-
ogy. The wind-tunnel was demon-
strated, the x-ray films shown, and
the evening really took off with
Dial’s impersonation of a European
starling.

Illustration of downstroke during
starling flight.

through a circle. ‘Synesthetic’ is the
word for it.”’

“What's that word?” I asked.

““Synesthetic.’ It means imagery
based upon the blending of multiple
senses.’ He laughed. ‘“You know,”
he said, ‘I believe I could close off all
the portals. Agree with Walt Whit-
man that nature is the beginning and
end of passion. Return to the ants
and the natural world they represent
so well. But I’ve made a lot of com-
mitments—including interviews.
With all due respect,” he added
courteously.

1. “In The Queendom of the Ants: A Brief
Autobiography” in Donald A. Dewsbury (ed.)
Leaders in the Study of Anunal Behavior: Auto-
biographical Perspectives, pp. 465, 483. (Cran-
bury, NJ: Bucknell University Press, 1985).

South America a Hit with MCZ Travelers

by Gabrielle H. Whitehouse

Iguassu Falls.

Natalie Goodall—Whale Researcher at
“The Uttermost Part of the Earth”

Rae Natalie Prosser Goodall is
an American woman who has
made her home with husband
Thomas Goodall on Estancia
Harborton in remote Tierra del
Fuego for the last 25 years. Her
husband is a great grandson of
Thomas Bridges, author of The
Uttermost Part of the Earth. In 1886,
Bridges founded Estancia Har-
borton, the first estancia (or
ranch) established in Tierra del
Fuego. A botanist by training with
an extensive collection of local
plants, Natalie Goodall is also the
author of the definitive guide to
Tierra del Fuego. Her most
involving activity, however, has
been the collecting and studying
of whale bones which she has
found on the estancia’s stretch of
beach along the Beagle Channel.

Goodall’s comprehensive whale
bone collection includes partial
and complete skeletons of baleen
and toothed whales and several
dolphins. What makes her col-
lection unique, however, is the
large number of bones of the rare,
elusive beaked whales she has
assembled. One of the prizes
of the collection, the skeleton of
the seventh known specimen of
Hector’s beaked whale, is neatly
arranged on one of the living
room beams in her house in
Ushuaia.

Little is known about beaked
whales because they do not
mate in shallow lagoons, like
some great whales, because they
are cosmopolitan rather than
restricted to a particular feeding
ground, and because they do not

Photo by George G. Whitehouse

Among the highlights of an
exceptionally varied and stimulating
natural history trip to Brazil and
Argentina in October were close
sightings of Southern right whale
mothers and their calves, brooding
Magellanic penguins in their bur-
rows, dozens of guanacos, rheas
with their young, and 17 Andean
condors circling overhead. The
group also traveled through a variety
of dramatic settings including the
peaks and beaches of Rio de Janeiro;
Iguassu, the world’s widest water-
falls with over two-and-a-half miles
of cataracts; Ushuaia, the world’s
southernmost city (according to the
Argentinians—the Chileans make
the same claim for Punta Arenas)
situated in rugged Tierra del Fuego;
Perito Merino, one of the world’s few
growing glaciers, constantly crack-
ing and calving into the glacier lake;
and gusty Peninsula Valdes, where
the wind was clocked at 102 miles per
hour on the first day of our stay.

gather in large numbers like pilot
whales. Consequently, there is
very little data on living beaked
whales, and specimens of
beached ones are rare.

Goodall’s contribution to whale
taxonomic studies is widely rec-
ognized. She travels to the United
States to attend share her findings
at marine mammal meetings
whenever possible. Overcoming
the obvious obstacles of her
remote location and lack of ade-
quate research support, she con-
tinues in her work, sometimes
assisted by students and other
researchers. Together with her
husband, she is now welcoming
visitors to Estancia Harborton, in
the hope that this will lead to a
greater awareness of the impor-
tance of her research.

Perito Merino glacier.

We were fortunate to have several
unusually qualified and able guides
to introduce us to the wonders
around us. Roger Payne, whose
Long Term Research Institute was
the co-sponsor of this venture, joined
us for our stay in Peninsula Valdes
and took us on a visit to his whale
research camp, which allows a van-
tage point to view the right whales
as they travel along the beach.
Research associate Vicky Rowntree
was on hand to focus spotting scopes
on the approaching whales. Payne
also accompanied us on a spectacular
three-hour whale watch in the shel-
tered lagoon near Peurto Pyramides,
where we were surrounded by
mothers and calves cavorting and
observing us with seemingly great
interest. Payne was joined by Carol
Mackie de Passere, an accomplished
guide to the Peninsula Valdes, whose
retelling of her personal experience
of having lived, together with her
park ranger husband and three
young children, at Punto Tumbo,
nesting site for more than 600,000
Magellanic penguins, made our visit
particularly memorable.

In Tierra del Fuego we were priv-
ileged to meet and learn from Natalie
Goodall who invited the group to
examine her whale bone collections

* t ties “} E

a.

Naturalist Michael Ellis and whale researcher Natalie Goodall.

Photo by Gabrielle H. Whitehouse

in her laboratory in Ushuaia’s mod-
ern research center and also at her
Ushuaia home.

Throughout the entire adventure
‘we were escorted and tutored by
Michael Ellis, a California naturalist
with a great flair for teaching anda
keen interest in people, the origins
of words, and trivia, as well as
wildlife. As usual on these MCZ
expeditions, the participants added
their individual flavor to the blend of
personalities and, in this case, with
exceptionally rich results. A photo
exhibition by one member, Sean
Palfrey, is planned for the MCZ
Gallery next fall. This will give
others the opportunity to enjoy this
highly photogenic journey vicari-
ously or perhaps it will entice them
to travel south with the MCZ when
this trip is offered again in 1990.

ol

Photo by George G. Whitehouse

Photo by Gabrielle H. Whitehouse

Jackie Palmer, the MCZ’s Spe na)

Fitth-year graduate student Jackie
Palmer is well on the w ay to com-
pleting her thesis on silk production
in the primitive spiders. Using
scanning electron microscopy, she is
comparing the spinnerets and spig-
ots of all 15 families of tarantulas and
trapdoor spiders. Simultaneously
she is examining the corresponding
silk glands and fiber chemistry so as
to identify new types of spider silks.
The more advanced form of spiders
and their silks have been studied
more extensively and are much bet-
ter known to science. In order to
understand the origin and evolution
of silk production, Palmer reasons,
itis necessary to investigate the more
primitive spiders which produce less
specialized forms of (or ‘‘general
purpose’) silk. In the course of her
survey, she has discovered a new
form of spigots on the spinnerets of
the California Aptostichus and plans
to name them ‘‘pumpkinoform”
spigots in recognition of their dis-
tinctly pumpkin-like shape.

Palmer's research has led her to
look beyond the spinning apparatus
to the chemical properties of the silk

WO:

—_

Jackie Palmer with Agatha, a red-kneed
tarantula

42nn

Py ump! inoform™ spigots of the California spider, Aptostichus schlingeri.

e bar 100 micrometers.

Photo by Jackie Palmer

itself. The phenomenal strength of
some spiders’ silk is graphically
demonstrated by its use by inhabit-
ants of New Guinea to custom-spin
their fishing nets. In some species
the silk is stronger than steel and
rivals the strongest synthetic thread.

Her interest in spiders and their
silk has led Palmer to explore beyond
her scientific investigations into
the rich mythology that spiders
have inspired and to the practical
uses beyond fly-catching of their
remarkably strong yet elastic prod-
uct. She has published an article,
‘Spiders: Masters of Natural Tex-
tiles’ in Fiberarts, The Magazine of
Textiles. A second article dealing with
spider silk and webs in religion,
mythology, art, technology and
medicine has been submitted to
Threads.

Most cultures have their spider
lore, Palmer points out. Their sci-
entific name, Arachnida, is derived
from Roman mythology. According
to the poet Ovid, the maiden
Arachne challenged Athena, the
goddess of handicrafts, to a weaving
contest. Athena’s envious rage when
she viewed Arachne’s superior tap-
estry led her to transform her com-
petitor into the first spider. Other
legends attribute the creation of the
world to a spider. The Native Amer-
icans of the Southwest, for example,
revere a being they call Spider
Woman, believing that she gave birth
to the two mothers who began the
human race after being impregnated
by a ray of sun.

Spider webs have inspired poetry,
such as the moral emblem ‘Enter
Not, or Pass Through” published in
1865 by Jacob Cats and Robert Farlie.

Both religious and secular paint-
ings have been made using spider
silk as the canvas. Historically, there
was even a school of cobweb painting
in Vienna. The only current Amer-
ican practitioner of cobweb painting

The MCZ Newsletter is published two or
three times a year by the Museum of
Comparative Zoology, Harvard Univer-
sity, Oxford Street, Cambridge, Mas-
sachusetts 02138; James ]. McCarthy,

Director.
Editor: Gabrielle H. Whitehouse
Photographer: A. H. Coleman
Contributing writers: Jane
Anderson, Alfred Alcorn

is 86-year-old Mrs. Mabel Wood of
New York state who paints rural
scenes and wildlife directly on spider
webs or tent caterpillar nests
stretched on cardboard frames.

A weaver herself, Palmer’s admi-
ration for her subject’s proficiency
has taken on a personal dimension.
She has tried spinning the three-
dimensional cloud of silk produced
by her spider ““employee”’ (genus
Ischnothele) with a simple toothpick
or pencil—more effective than a drop
spindle. The process has turned out
to be too difficult for mass produc-
tion, but her goal is to wear a small
article of clothing, perhaps a lace
spider silk collar, to her thesis
defense.

A SPIDER’S WEB AS A FISHING-NET: A STRANGE
NEW GUINEA DEVICE.
Avery huge and strong spider's web, common to New Guinea,

is used by the natives as a fishing net. They set up in the forest
a bamboo, bent as in the picture, and leave it until the spiders
have covered it with a web in the manner shown.

From A. E. Pratt: Two Years among New Guinea Cannibals,
Second Edition, Seeley & Co. Limited, London. 1906

From Moral Emblems of Jacob Cats and Robert Farlie, by John Leighton, Longmans,
Green, Reader and Dyer (London), 1865.

ii

Enter Not, or Pass Through

As the web spun by Spider’s care,
T’ entrap the flies and gnats which
fill the air,
So with th’ entangling nets by
Venus laid
T’ ensnare the hearts of heedless
youth and maid:-
For in the love net, as the Spider’s
too,
The gnat is taken, but the Bee
breaks through. Hence, young folks, learn thro’
Venus’ nets to break,
Nor let their flimsy meshes captive
take
Both heart and mind: Take pattern
by the Bee:-
Like him resist the loss of liberty;
Break boldly through; but if the
strength you lack,
Take my advice, and cleverly turn
back.

Denizens of the
Fish Department

Diligent by day and night the
denizens of the fish department,
under the leadership of Karel F.
Liem, Henry Bryant Bigelow Pro-
fessor of Ichthy ology, immerse
themselves in the my steries of the
deep and shallow. Since Liem’s
arrival at the MCZ in 1972, a constant
stream of graduate students and
undergraduates, through their
research projects in Liem’s course on
the Biology of the Fishes, have cre-
ated a lively research atmosphere in
the Fish Depar tment. Liem has also
made extremely important contri-
butions to the MCZ through his
supervision of a major renovation of
the fish collections, a project for
which he has received continuous
National Science Foundation support
since 1974.

Found in the labyrinthine base-
ment of the old museum building are
preserved remains of rare, extinct,
and improbable fishes spanning vast
geographical and chronological
bounds. Curatorial Associate Kar-
sten Hartel manages these world-
class collections and has seen their
number double to 800,000 as a result
of his work with Liem on selectively
upgrading the holdings. When he is
not curating the collection, which
is the first at the MCZ to be com-
puterized, or serving on national
collection committees, Hartel con-
centrates on local fishes. Dr. David
Smith, one of the world’s leading
experts on eel-like fishes and their
larvae, is working on an NSF funded
project to develop an archival col-
lection of larval fishes.

Live sharks, puffer fish, catfish,
lungfish and eels dwell in the bub-
bling aquaria of the MCZ labs along
with marine creatures so obscure
even their common names are unfa-
miliar. These fish behave strangely
and are watched closely by members

f the lab who wonder, how do puffer
fish puff?, why can catfish walk?,
and how do sharks eat? Liem’s
team is attempting,
through asking questions such as
these, to provide insights into the
problem of how selection acts to
produce interdependency among

research

Fish Department members (I. to r.) Karsten Hartel, Ernie Wu, Beth Brainerd, and
Karel Liem

physical features allowing the fish to
adapt to their present habitats and
whether these adaptations then limit
the fishes ability to survive under
changed circumstances.

Liem has just been awarded a
grant from the National Science
Foundation to study development in
surf-perch. The project will examine
free-swimming larvae and offspring
born fully mature to see what con-
sequences the differences in selective
pressure might have on the different
types of broods. The research will
compare embryos and larval juve-
niles at the same stage of develop-
ment by measuring all features of the
specimens from each group and then
plotting cross-sectional information
into a computer. This creates three-
dimensional diagrams that can be
easily manipulated and examined.

Graduate students Jeff Jensen and

Ernie Wu are both investigating the
evolution of feeding mechanisms.

Jensen is working on a compre-
hensive description of feeding
evolution of surf-perch from a sys-
tematic point of view. Through the
use of high-speed video filming to
examine movement during feeding
and implantation of pressure trans-
ducers to see how suction is gen-
erated in feeding, Jensen will doc-
ument structural and functional
variation within the group. This
information will be combined with
ecological data to determine the rel-
ative roles hereditary or environ-
mental factors play in shaping these
patterns of variation.

Ernie Wu, using similar tech-
niques, is documenting the evolution
of feeding apparatus in sharks and
rays, a major taxonomic group that
has not been well studied with

modern analytical methods. Wu is
looking at the relationship between
form and function, focussing on the
functional role of hyostyly, (a con-
dition where the jaw and cranium are
connected by upper gill arches). This
is a significant feature in the evolu-
tion of sharks and rays. Although the
occurance of hyostyly is widespread
in this group there is enough differ-
entiation among members to provide
a good model for studying diversi-
fication of a biomechanical system.

Beth Brainerd is working on fish
in the order Tetraodontiformes, a
morphologically bizarre group with
very interesting defense behaviour.
This group includes puffer fish with
poisonous flesh and inflatable spine-
covered bodies, trigger-fish with
locking spines, box fish encased in
armor, and the giant ocean sunfish
with no tail that lolls along by flap-
ping its long dorsal and ventral fins.
The goals of her research are two-
fold: to use the group to study
historical (genetic) constraint in
evolution by looking at why these
fish are so extreme in their differ-
ences from all other reef groups and
to learn more about the biomechanics
of their defense mechanisms. She is
currently investigating the mechan-
ics of puffer fish inflation and
studying how their skin stretches.
Among her findings to date is doc-
umentation that puffers’ mouths
function as pumps to force water into
their stomachs at a rate of three puffs
per second.

Alan Launer, presently working
on his Ph.D. thesis at Stanford, is
investigating development in feed-
ing mechanisms of freshwater sun-
fishes. Launer’s approach is from an
ecological perspective and he is
specifically interested in community
structure. He documents feeding at
various developmental stages from
larval to adult with the use of high-
speed video equipment. This type of
study has only become possible with
the advent of high speed video
technology because the heat gener-
ated by the light required for the
older method of high speed filming
could not be tolerated by the small
fishes. One of the aspects Launer is
looking at is the ‘“ontogenetic niche
shift,”’ or the ability of juveniles and
adults at different stages in devel-
opment to co-exist in the same area

ii.

Spiny pufferfish Diodon holocanthus
before...

utilize different resources.

Horacio Higuchi, a nocturnal
polyglot, is working on the anatomy
and relationship between groups of
a neotropical catfish family. He is
currently redescribing a species that

and after inflation

was known for the last hundred
years from only a single specimen,
and describing a closely related new
species. Higuchi is from Brazil
where he completed his masters
thesis on several south Atlantic sea
catfishes.

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Fossil Hunting
in Greenland

This past summer while some of
us sweltered in the oppressive
Cambridge heat, Farish A. Jenkins,
Ir., Charles R. Schaff, William A.
Amaral of the MCZ Vertebrate

Paleontology Department and Neil
Shubin, 1987 Harvard Ph.D. now at
Berkeley mounted their first fossil-
finding expedition to the rugged
landscapes of eastern Greenland.

in plaster for safe transport to the lab.

The project was designed to
explore various formations of the
Scoresby Land Group, a cluster of
strata in eastern Greenland, for fossil
vertebrates and other evidence
relating to the evolutionary transi-
tion in land animals that took place
approximately 200 million years ago
during the Late Triassic through
Early Jurassic times. Funded by a
grant from the National Science
Foundation, paleontological recon-
naissance was undertaken from four
base camps.

The choice of this isolated location
was based on the geological age (the
transition from Triassic to Jurassic)
of exposed outcrops of rock previ-
ously only known through an
extensive sedimentological and

Photo by Farish Jenkins

—

Amaral.

stratigraphic analysis by Danish
geologists.

The team embarked on the 31-day
expedition on June 30 with 2,000
pounds of camping gear, collecting
equipment and freeze-dried food
needed for a month in the Artic wil-
derness. With the exception of hel-
icopter assistance while moving
camp, their only outside contact was
by two-way radio. Armed with
picks, chisels, hammers, brushes,
plaster bandages and other tools of
the trade. They endured the highly
variable climate and scored the bleak
landscape for fossils. Their search

Looking for fossils in Greenland are (1. to r.) Neil Shubin, Farish Jenkins, and Bill

was modestly successful than antic-
ipated turning up fossil evidence of
dinosaurs, reptiles, amphibians, and
fish.

Perhaps their most interesting find
was what it believed to represent a
turtle. If this is confirmed through
further preparation, the specimen
may be an extremely important
addition to our knowledge of turtle
evolution. The origin of Chelonia is
at present an unresolved problem.
Turtles appear in the fossil record
some 180 million years ago, which is
approximately the age of this newly
discovered specimen.

Photo by Charles R. Schaff

Photo by Charles R. Schaff

Science Kits for Somerville

by Arlene Nichols, Education Director

Within the microcosm of the MCZ
there appears to be no shortage of
people who view the world in a
rational scientific manner. Recent
surveys by the National Science
Foundation and the Science and
Technology Coalition as well as
reports from the Department of
Education, however, indicate that the
public at large has little under-
standing of the laws which govern
our world. Moreover, there is a
growing problem of science illiteracy
because fewer students are choosing

Arlene Nichols (1.) and Wini Eisan and the Somerville science-teaching kits.

science courses.

The MCZ’s Public Education
Department emphasizes programs
for elementary schools because |
believe that children can be
“hooked” on science and encour-
aged to elect more science courses if
early in life, they have the oppor-
tunity to experience that science is an
exciting way of thinking.

This year Program Developer Wini
Eisan and I have responded to the
primary grade teachers’ strongly-
held belief that there is not enough

time for science because they must
teach reading and other language
arts. We have developed a kit that
integrates appropriate science skill
development with language arts. The
kits include equipment ranging from
supplementary readers, mini-
aquaria and hand lenses to artifacts
such as animal skins, jaw bones and
teeth, shells, feathers, and much
more to stimulate hands-on science
activities.

The Somerville Public Schools
contracted for 25 kits, one for each
first grade teacher. The teachers’
manuals key the activities directly to
Somerville basic readers to insure
that the materials are used. In mid-
November the presentation of the
Science and Language Arts Box
(SALAB), the kit’s official name, to
the first-grade teachers at a city-wide
workshop was met with gratifying
responses. The ultimate evidence of
its success will be the degree of use
but one immediate result is that
Wayne Legue, elementary curricu-
lum coordinator for the Somerville
Public Schools, has requested the
creation of 10 more kits for the bil-
ingual teachers.

We believe that the answer to more
and better science teaching lies in
listening to the needs of the ele-
mentary school teachers. The MCZ
Public Education Department is
dedicated to serving as a resource to
the public school educators of our
community.

Staff Notes

MCZ Director James J. McCarthy
is one of twelve Phi Beta Kappa Vis-

‘iting Scholars this year. Chapters of

Phi Beta Kappa invite a visiting
scholar to meet with students and
give a public lecture. McCarthy is
scheduled to visit seven colleges
where he is speaking about his
research related to the eddies in the
Gulf Stream, the role of plankton in
the carbon cycle, and the status of the
International Global Change pro-
gram. He is enjoying the opportu-
nity to meet undergraduates from
other colleges (including Albion,
Purdue, Ohio State) and to talk with
them about graduate research
opportunities in evolutionary biol-
ogy and oceanography.

11

New exhibit: Diversity Endangered

a

An artist's depiction of the interrelated worlds of species and habitats.

The MCZ has acquired a poster
exhibition created by SITES (Smith-
sonian Institution Traveling Exhi-
bition Service) depicting, in vivid
photos and text, the threat to many
life forms caused by such abuses as

acid rain, strip mining, deforesta-
tion, and air and water pollution. A
videotape accompanies the exhibit
which will be in the MCZ Gallery
through February.

Photo by Robert Goldstrom; courtesy of SITES.

Pheasants Under
New Glass

by Rolanda Ritzman,
Editor, OEBserver*

The MCZ’s George Washington
pheasants, among the oldest taxi-
dermic specimens in the country,
have been moved into a large, por-
table case, thanks to a grant from the
Institute of Museum Services.
“There is a growing awareness of the
importance of collections, with ani-
mals becoming rare, endangered, or
extinct, so funding agencies that
have traditionally given to art
museums for conservation are giv-
ing funds to preserve natural history
collections,’’ said Ed Haack, MCZ
Exhibits Director.

The new scratch-resistant acrylic
case uses incandescent lighting
instead of fluorescent to protect the
birds from light degradation. The
iron base, custom-made by a Ver-
mont blacksmith, conceals a ther-
mometer and a hygrometer to
measure temperature and humidity,
and silica gel to adjust the humidity
level at the optimum 50%. Exhibits
Assistant Bob Davidson constructed
the wood work and base and Kathy
Brown-Wing drew Mount Vernon
directly on to the backboard.

The Chinese gold pheasants were
a gift to George Washington from the
Marquis de Lafayette in 1786. Shortly
after acquiring them, Washington
received a request for the birds upon
their death from Charles W. Peale for
his museum in Philadelphia. They
were added to the Peale museum in
1787 and became part of Harvard’s
collections in 1914.

*Newsletter of the Department of Organ-
ismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard
University.

Lo A