MM, yen sletter

Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Volume 3, Number 3
Spring, 1974

MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

NEW LIVING INVERTEBRATES HALL PLANNED

BT ENOPHORA

PLAT Y ELAUNTHES

AN SAC
e ig SS Ast

A view of the Marine Invertebrate Section of the new Living Invertebrates Hall is shown in this rough working drawing by
Carol Campbell, Exhibits Preparator. The exact contents of all the cases have not yet been determined but there will
definitely be a giant octopus suspended from the ceiling. Gifts to help complete particular cases will be ac tively sought and

a descriptive brochure will be available in the Fall.

The challenge of creating an entirely new exhibit
hall devoted to living invertebrates has inspired the
MCZ’s large staff of curator/professors in this area.
The MCZ’s unusually fine material will be displayed
in such a way as to complement the teaching cur-
riculum of the basic biology courses on invertebrates.
Besides the displays of the major groups, there will be
exhibits detailing life histories and ecological rela-
tionships. Ant hills and insect nests will demonstrate
the complexities of insect social behavior.

It is hoped that in the years to come, as other exhibit

halls are refurbished and updated, they will also be
planned in conjunction with the teaching of basic
courses in the appropriate areas.

Exhibit Preparator Carol Campbell is being expertly
assisted by Dr. Martin Naumann, an entomologist,
and they project that the new hall, which will be
completed in sections, will be finished within two
years. Formerly one of the glass flower halls and part
of a space swap with the Botanical Museum, it will
form a striking entry point to the exhibit area of the
MCZ.

?

WHAT ARE THEY

(Answers on next page)

The MCZ Newsletter is published three times a year by
the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard Univer-
sity, Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138;

A.W. Crompton, Director.
Editor: Gabrielle Dundon
Photographers: A.H. Coleman
Paula Chandoha

One of the results of Photographic Assistant Paula
Chandoha’s winter trip to Kenya and Tanzania with her
animal photographer father. These lion cubs live on the
Masai Mara Game Reserve, Kenya.

IN THE SPRING
THE BIRD DEPARTMENT GOES TO COLOMBIA

For the third consecutive year, through the finan-
cial support of some loyal friends, Dr. Raymond A.
Paynter, Jr., Curator of Birds, took a group of under-
graduate students south during the Spring recess.
This year they returned to Colombia where Dr.
Paynter introduced his students to the most diver-
sified birdlife on earth and to Colombia’s great variety
of habitats, ranging from Andean tundra to tropical
rainforest.

The group drove more than 1000 miles in central
Colombia, much of it over dirt mountain roads, unsul-
lied by guard rails. They were fortunate to see some of
Colombia’s fast-disappearing montane, as well as
other habitats now vanishing from more populated
parts of the country. Despite narrow roads, rain, and

ANSWERS:

a) Massachusetts fern spore magnified 1980 times, photo-
graphed by Dr. Alice F. Tryon. The complexities of this
infinitesimal spore were hidden to human eye before the
advent of the scanning electron microscope.

b) A view into the mouth of a priapulid worm magnified
230 times, photographed by C. Bradford Calloway,
graduate student in invertebrates. The tubules of this tiny
creature (it is no larger than a millimeter, approximately the
same size as the grains of sand it lives between) are newly
visible with the aid of the scanning electron microscope.

c) A fly’s eye. The facets of a sciomyzid fly’s eye magnified
2400 times, photographed by Dr. Robert E. Silberglied. It is
composed of many facets which together provide informa-
tion to compose ‘‘mosaic” images.

landslides, disaster nearly struck only twice: once
when a mudslide had covered the road and once when
the car had to be pushed from the edge of a cliff 150
feet above a rushing mountain stream.

Although the trip was intended as an introductory
overview of the enormously rich avifauna of South
America, students John Fitzpatrick and Richard
Webster were lucky in that they were able to observe
many of the species they have been studying in the
museum. Dr. Paynter and Steve Simkins had less
success with ‘their’ species, while David Duffy, after
two trips to Colombia, is still looking forward to spot-
ting his first Torrent Duck, the species he has been
working on.

d) The head of the butterfly Eurema lisa magnified 41
times, also photographed by Dr. Silberglied. The round
object in the center is the eye, the antennae extend above it,
and the coil is the “‘tongue”’.

Why the photographs and why the answers? Simply to
announce that, thanks to a very generous grant from the
National Science Foundation, it will soon be possible to take
photographs like these on the MCZ’s own scanning electron
microscope to be located in the basement of the MCZ
Laboratories. Needless to say, the addition of such a useful
research tool is an important event in the life of an institu-
tion and the entire staff is indebted to the dedicated efforts
of the SEM Committee consisting of Drs. J. F. Lawrence, R.
E. Silberglied (Chairman), A. F. Tryon (of the Gray Her-
barium), R. D. Turner and R. M. Woollacott.

With seemingly limitless ingenuity, a large number of students
are using a variety of techniques and a diverse menagerie of ani-
mals to answer some basic questions about locomotion, mastica-
tion, structure, and physiology. With the guidance, frequently
accompanied by amazement and/or consternation, of Professors C.
Richard Taylor, A. W. Crompton, Karel F. Liem, and Farish A.
Jenkins, Jr., the students have constructed experiments using im-
aginative variations of basically simple techniques.

Locomotion

How do you measure the energetic costs of locomotion? By con-
structing a treadmill, letting the animal run on it, and measuring
the oxygen consumption. If the animal is a vertical climber, like a
flying squirrel for instance, you construct a vertically-moving
readinill afd add bark to simulate a tree. This device enabled Tom
Shatten to study how the flying squirrels’ claws provide support for
gripping and to examine how the claws on the hind legs rotate,
allowing the animal to run down as easily as up. Cats, on the other
hand, do not possess this rotating mechanism and that’s why
firemen often have to rescue them out of high treetops.

Polly Parsons and Tom Holton are studying the energetics of
forelimb swinging (brachiation) by using spider monkeys on a
specially-constructed aerial treadmill. They are using film analysis
to find out whether the monkeys act as pendulums when they
brachiate.

Spider locomotion is Bill Kirber’s project and while his trained
tarantulas stroll on a treadmill, he’s observed that spiders only have
muscles to bend their legs; they stretch them by means of fluid
pressure (in the same way that worms move). With the aid of
electromyography, a device which records the electrical activity
during muscle movement, he is able to ascertain when and how
pressures are generated and coordinated.

Jamie Deckoff has constructed a ‘‘pegmill” to measure snake
locomotion. Snakes move with the aid of vertical projections (they
are practically incapable of moving on a sheet of oltiss) and with the
use of adjustable pegs Jamie hopes to be able to measure the
“stride” of different sized snakes. She is working with several black
racers, a corn snake, and a seven-foot reticulated python (which
used to be part of the act of a stripper in Boston’s Combat Zone!).

Comparative stride and gait is also being studied by Norman
Heglund. With the aid of a treadmill and high-speed film he is
comparing the stride frequency and gait of different sized animals
to determine the relationship between animal size and the energet-
ic costs of locomotion. At which point does a mouse or a horse
change from a trot to a gallop? The mouse on the left cooperatively
allowed itself to be filmed in action. A visit to a local race track was
necessary to measure the horse’s gait and stride frequency.

Mark Sullivan and Alec Danso are making a similar study on
bipedal running. They are using humans, turkeys, pheasants,
quail, and possibly monkeys to find out if hopping is really bipedal
galloping.

Is kangaroo hopping analogous to pogo-sticking? This is the
question being asked by Pam Chassin and Roy Geronemus and
they are comparing height of jump, oxygen consumption, hop
frequency, and angle of take-off of both kangaroo and pogo-sticker
to find out.

X-Ray Studies

X-ray films allow the researcher to study structural-functional
relationships in action. Scott Camazine is exploring the interrela-
tionship between the hindlimb posture, movement, and pelvic
structure in the raccoon, the red fox, and the cat; Thayer Simmons is
interested in the function of the superficial muscles on the cat’s
femur; Tom King is concentrating on the ankle of a variety of
animals (and claims to have brought a hitherto undescribed joint to
light); and Rick Bassett is studying the ankle and foot of the
crocodile.

That mice gallop can be seen in this sequence from Norman Heglund’s
high speed film. A mouse’s legs move faster than the human eye can
register and the fact that it gallops was not appreciated until high speed
films were analyzed.

KANGAROOS AND POGO-STICKERS HOP,
GEESE DROP OUT OF PLANES, MICE GALLOP
TO PROVIDE ANSWERS TO STUDENTS’ QUESTIONS

a = = —_
Jamie Deckoff coaxes one of her black racers to weave its
way through her ‘‘pegmill’’.

The intricacies of jaw mechanics are also being sub-
jected to x-ray scrutiny. Andy Chester has trained a
rather vicious opossum to chew more or less on com-
mand, while Emmett Schmidt is tangling with a par-
rot whose large beak simplifies the recording of jaw
movements while sharpening the defense mechanism
of the researcher.

Physiology Experiments

Among the novel experiments being conducted by
the students, perhaps the most dramatic involves
dropping Canadian geese out of an airplane flying at
25,000 feet, with sensors implanted in the lungs, to
find out how these birds, with hemoglobin similar to
that of mammals, can breathe in such thin air. Tom
Dryer, who is practicing on chickens, thinks the spe-
cially adapted plumbing of the respiratory system will
provide the answer.

Jim Jagger is finding out if the primitive insecti-
vore, the Madagascan tenrec, operates like a mammal
or areptile. It appears that it takes the best from both.
A reptile requires about one-third of the energy it
takes a mammal to run at the same speed, provided
they are both the same size, but the reptile’s tempera-
ture follows that of the environment while a mammal
maintains its own constant temperature, giving it the
advantage when it comes to activities like nocturnal

foraging. The remarkable tenrec maintains a constant
body temperature but does so with the low energy
needs of the reptile. No doubt this animal will provide
new insight into the evolution from reptiles to mam-
mals.

One of Howie Seeherman’s projects is the determi-
nation of the anaerobic (without oxygen) scope of
mammalian muscle as a function of size. Gary Collin
and Martin Kernberg are directly measuring the loss
of heat through the blood flow to a dog’s tongue
during second stage panting (i.e., when it’s very hot)
to determine the tongue’s effectiveness as a dissipator
of heat.

It is easy to understand how the mammalian heart,
with its four chambers, keeps the oxygenated and
de-oxygenated blood separated. But how does the
amphibian with its three-chambered heart manage it?
To find out, Gordon Leff and Gerald Heslinga have
surgically implanted catheters in some large horned
toads to allow them to analyze their blood while they
exercise.

Obviously, the awe-inspiring complexities of the
animal kingdom are providing a lively challenge for
this resourceful group of students. It is fortunate that
the MCZ and Concord Field Station now have the
modern scientific tools to make these studies possi-
ble.

To study the jaw and beak mechanism of a parrot, Emmett
Schmidt x-rays it while the bird chews.

Professor Arthur J. Cain

LIBRARY’S PICTORIAL
TREASURES GET
TAKEN TO THE
CLEANERS

Caged in with the treasures of
the MCZ Archives, Ann Blum,
Archives Assistant, contemplates
the future of one of the many in-
valuable paintings and drawings
which are currently undergoing re-
juvenation, thanks to a generous
grant from the Massachusetts
Council on the Arts and
Humanities. It is appropriate that
this latest chapter in the history of
the relationship of the Museum to
the State coincides with the 100th
anniversary of founder Louis
Agassiz’s death. It was in 1859 that
Agassiz first approached the legis-
lature and convincingly pointed
out the advantages to the State of
supporting a teaching institution
of natural history. He foresaw that
teachers, students, agriculture,
and morals all stood to benefit for
generations to come. Fortunately
for the MCZ, Agassiz’s persua-
siveness lives on today making it
possible to preserve the important
pictorial material cared for in the
Archives

A SPRING VISITOR

Professor Arthur J. Cain always seemed to be smil-
ing during his spring visit to the MCZ as a Visiting
Professor. He confessed he was ‘delighted to be away
from the administrative responsibilities” of his posi-
tion as Derby Professor and Head of the Department
of Zoology at Liverpool University and revelled in his
first opportunity in ten years to do some uninter-
rupted research. Professor Cain’s broad interests in-
clude evolution, natural selection, the theory of tax-
onomy, and the history of biology and he shared some
of his scholarship in these areas in several eloquent
lectures, including two on Erasmus Darwin, ‘’the
grand analoger’’. He also lectured on his more specific
research area, ‘Natural Selection in Banded Snails’’.

An active field biologist, Professor Cain has led
expeditions to many parts of the world including the
Solomon Islands, Guiana and East Africa. His book,
Animal Species and Their Evolution, published in 1954,
has been translated into four languages. An avid con-
versationalist, he is not loathe to share an irreverent
anecdote about many of the illustrious scientists of
the century.

One of the primary functions of a visiting professor
is to serve as a gadfly, stinging the resident popula-
tion into new awareness and giving it a fresh perspec-
tive. In this respect Professor Cain receives top marks.
He managed to meet and talk with a large number of
local scientists and his stimulating effect will be felt
for a long time to come.

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ANGLING IN THE DARK

Female luring with her wormy esca (bait).

In the total darkness of the ocean’s deepest depths
lives a very strange group of fishes known as deep-sea
anglers. They are thus named because the female lures
males and food by means of an exotically-shaped esca
(the Greek word for ‘‘bait’’) at the end of which is a
bioluminescent organ.

Survival in the deep where the food supply is lim-
ited has resulted in extreme differentiation in the
sexes. In fact, the differentiation is so extreme that the
female may be as much as 25 times the size of the
male. Only the females eat. The male’s only function
in life is to find a female and since this is not easy,
given the low population density in this deep zone,
once he finds one he often becomes parasitically at-
tached to her by means of special hook-like teeth and
shares her blood and consequently her food supply.
Females have been found with as many as three males
attached.

Hormonal communication by way of the blood
probably synchronizes development of the male and
female sex organs. Egg and sperm are shed simul-
taneously and fertilization takes place in the sur-
rounding water.

Dr. Theodore W. Pietsch, who came to the MCZ’s
Fish Department from the University of Southern
California this year, is studying these intriguing
fishes despite obvious obstacles. Since they are nar-
rowly adapted to a cold, dark, highly pressurized
environment, it is almost impossible for them to sur-
vive at the surface. The longest Dr. Pietsch has been
able to keep a female alive is eight days. So the re-
search must be limited to the study of dead speci-
mens.

One of the most remarkable features of these fishes
is the enormous variety of the escae. They sometimes
exceed the length of the entire fish and have all man-
ner of curiously-shaped projections, which besides
food, specifically attract the male of their own species.

Dwarfed male with large nostrils (the better to smell her
with) and large eyes (the better to see her in the dark) with
hooks poised ready to attach.

Lines to an Angler Fish
(for Ted Pietsch)

Aloof and quasi indestructible

For all the world like some religious sages
The angler ineluctable

Rests on its venter

And passeth for a piece of the rock of ages.

Casting for its bread upon the waters

The phony worm at the end of a dorsal ray
It robs the sea of sons and daughters
Converting, with a violent gulp,

Would-be predators to prey.

John M. Burns
December 5, 1973

FRIENDS OF THE MCZ
TO GOTO SEA....

. . off Baja California next January 28 to February 4
to see gray whales, elephant seals, sea lions, volcanic
islands, tropical birds, exotic fish and the other in-
habitants of this wilderness area. The response has
been enthusiastic and there are only a few more
berths left on the boat, according to Herbert Pratt,
President of the Friends. An extra three-day visit to
San Diego to see the attractions, including the spec-
tacular zoo, wild animal park, Scripps Aquarium, and
Sea World, is optional.

On April 23, the Friends were treated to a fascinat-
ing lecture by Dr. Robert L. Trivers, Assistant Profes-
sor of Biology here at Harvard. His discussion of
parent-offspring conflict gave a biological basis for
the weaning period during which the mother-child
relationship is characterized by the clash of opposing
desires. After the talk the Friends gathered in the
Agassiz Room to meet the speaker and each other.

——————eEYee

FROM THE
FIELD STATION

Ll + By William K. Newbury

There’s good news on many fronts. Our efforts this
past winter are bearing fruit. The Field Station will be
buzzing with activity this summer with more than a
dozen undergraduates, several faculty and over forty
local residents all working on research projects in the
Estabrook Woods.

We received $14,000 from the National Science
Foundation to enable twelve undergraduates to carry
out field projects this summer. The students, super-
vised by Harvard faculty members, will study insects
in their different habitats (Dr. J. F. Lawrence), the
forest canopy (Mr. C. D. Oliver), the behavior of wild
bees (Dr. R. E. Silberglied), the population biology of
violets (Dr. O. T. Solbrig), the land use history of the
Estabrook Woods (Dr. D. S. Woodruff), and the
biological productivity of a lake (Dr. W. H. Bossert).
The students will complete honors theses based on
the results of these studies.

Similar projects are being carried out by more than
forty residents of the surrounding communities who
responded to my announcement in the local news-
papers. More than half have already begun their re-
search. Obviously they want to complete their work
before the mosquitoes come out! In fact, Peter Rubel,
the son of an MCZ Friend, has already completed a
project. He has identified and aged specimens of 14
tree species found in the Woods, and signs are now

Photo by Robert E. Silberglied

ie li ="

+

being prepared to display the information on those
particular trees.

With the help of 50 local volunteers, we conducted a
study of winter recreation in the Estabrook Woods
during February. As one of the few large areas close to
Boston with good trails and no roads or houses, it is a
valuable area for hikers and cross-country skiers as
well as for biologists and ecologists. With a good
snow cover more than 600 people per day used the
Woods for recreation on weekends, and 80% of those
people were skiers. When the ground was bare, how-
ever, only 200 people visited the Woods on a Saturday
or Sunday. People traveled from all over eastern Mas-
sachusetts to this area. Now that we know the mag-
nitude of winter recreation there, we plan to monitor
the impact of this use on the ecology of the area.

We are very excited about both the results of our
pilot projects and the interest and enthusiasm of the
participants. We are about to submit an application to
the National Science Foundation seeking funds to run
our field study program for the next three years. We
are keeping our fingers crossed.

JOINTS STUDIED AT
CONCORD FIELD STATION

Why do some animals (including humans) get ar-
thritis while others don’t? Dr. Eric Radin, an or-
thopedic surgeon at Children’s Hospital, is inves-
tigating how the natural defense mechanism in some
animals (like rabbits) prevents them from developing
arthritis when the bones and joints are subjected to
enforced exercise while others (sheep, for instance),
get the disease.

The activities of daily living subject animals’ bones
and joints to repetitive inoue loads. Animals are
constantly shifting positions, even in sleep. Dr. Radin
wants to know why this constant load-shifting takes
place (can the body not withstand steady loads?), and
how this affects body wear. It is known that the
spongy porous bone at the ends of the long bones just
under the joints (which differs markedly from the
hard dense bone along the middle of the bony shafts)
works as a shock absorber. With repeated shocks the
spongy bone normally cracks and upon healing, can
be stronger but less absorbent to shock. Under such
circumstances, the joint may degenerate.

Using the facilities of the Concord Field Station and
ably assisted by Pamela Hall, Charles Prodd, Ted
Nalwalk and some rabbits and sheep, Dr. Radin
hopes to find a cure more effective than the ones
currently available for this prevalent but poorly un-
derstood condition. The other members of Dr.
Radin’s group bring expertise in other disciplines to
bear on the problem, allowing it to be viewed from
several perspectives. These include Igor Paul, Profes-
sor of Mechanical Engineering (who builds the testing
equipment); Robert Rose, Professor of Metallurgy and
Material Sciences (who understands bone as a mate-
rial), both at MIT; and Dr. Alan Schiller, a pathologist
at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Radin studied
comparative anatomy at Amherst before attending
Harvard Medical School and brings his keen interest
in structural-functional relationships to bear in both
his clinical and research work and in his occasional
lectures to the course on vertebrate evolution, Biology
IV 2h).

Spring slithers into the Estabrook Woods.

9