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In the Field

The Bulletin of The Field Museum March/April 1995

5-8 10

ECOCIDE IN
MADAGASCAR

The Field Museum Great science A complete schedule Net surfers can visit Despite international efforts to preserve
Exploring depends on cre- of March/April the Museum elec- Madagascar’s forests and their unique ani-

The Earth And Its ative vision — but events, including tronically; The mal species, logging proceeds at a rapid
People let's not forget the special programs for — beginnings of the pace. A Field Museum biologist reports

facts, please. Earth Day “virtual Museum.” from the field. Letter, Page 11

OLDEST NEW WORLD MONKEY
SKULL FOUND IN THE ANDES

he oldest-known and most com-
plete skull of an extinct South
American monkey has been dis-
covered high in the Andes moun-
tains of Chile by an international
team of scientists co-directed by John J. Flynn,
chairman of The Field Museum’s Department of
Geology and curator of fossil mammals.

Reported in the February 16 issue of the
British scientific journal Nature, the discovery
provides a missing piece in the puzzle of mon-
key evolution and clues to what the environment
was like in South America at the time.

The 20-million-year-old skull, which repre-
sents a new species, is amazingly well preserved
— with both eye sockets and every tooth in the
upper jaw intact. It helps fill a huge gap in the
fossil record of New World monkeys.

“You could take all the primate fossils from
South America and they wouldn’t even fill a
baseball cap,” says Flynn. “They’re so rare, you
never really expect to find one.”

The oldest South American monkey, found
in Bolivia, lived about 28 million years ago. But
it’s known only from a few teeth. In the Chilean
skull, “we have every tooth in the skull, with no
cracking or breakage of teeth,” says Flynn.
“That’s spectacular preservation.”

The new species is named Chilecebus car-
rascoensis: “Chile” for its country of origin,
“cebus” for an ending commonly applied to
New World monkey names, and “carrasco” for
Gabriel Carrasco, the Chilean fossil hunter who
first spotted the specimen.

“New species are not that rare, but this is
obviously something in a different ballpark than
all other South American fossil monkeys,” says
Ian Tattersall, chairman of the Department of
Anthropology at the American Museum of Nat-
ural History in New York. “It opens a whole
new window on the early evolution of primates
in South America.”

Big Eyes and a Fat Brain

lynn and his co-authors — Andre R.

Wyss of the University of California at

Santa Barbara, Reynaldo Charrier of the
University of Chile, and Carl C. Swisher of the
Berkeley Geochronology Center — with Car-
rasco, colleagues from the American Museum,
and others have been exploring the crest of the
central Chilean Andes mountains for more than
five years with support from the National Muse-
um of Chile, the U.S. National Science Founda-
tion, and the University of Chile.

Two years ago, the team unearthed the
remains of a 32-million-year-old rodent — the
oldest known in South America. Last January,
they had returned to the same rock formation at
a location about 100 kilometers to the north.
They were trekking around rocks formed from
the debris of an ancient volcano when Carrasco
saw something in a house-sized block of vol-
canic rock that had fallen from the cliffs above.

John Weinstein / GEO85944

All that was visible were the weathered
sides of a few teeth. When Flynn and Wyss
popped the fist-sized piece of rock out, they saw
a skull that was round and bulbous. “No other
kind of creature has such a big, fat brain but a
primate,” says Flynn. The eye sockets are large,
round, and aimed forward. “When we got back
to the lab and saw the combination of big eyes
and a big, fat brain, we knew it had to be a pri-
mate,” says Flynn.

“In the field, we were always joking about
finding a monkey skull — it seemed so prepos-
terous,” says Andre Wyss. “When it really came
to pass, it was a shock.”

Seeing Inside the Rock

ost of the monkey skull was encased

inside very hard volcanic rock —

the key to its good preservation.
Field Museum preparator Steve McCarroll is
using dental picks to remove rock from deli-
cate bone one grain at a time —a task that could
take more than a year to complete.

To learn more quickly about the monkey’s
anatomy, the scientists turned to a medical
instrument, the CAT scan, to literally
see inside the rock. In this way, they
were able to calculate the brain vol-
ume, the eye size, and different
aspects of the teeth. The CAT scan also
gave them a clear picture of where the bones
lay inside the rock, so preparators could
avoid accidentally chipping away clues.

“This is a very exciting new use of the
CAT scan — being able to study the inter-
nal structure of a fossil without having to
do all the manual preparation,” says Tatter-
sall.

The monkey’s brain volume was smaller
than that of most New World monkeys living
today, but comparable to other fossil forms. The
size of the eyes indicates that the monkey was

diurnal (most active during the day), rather than
nocturnal.

A cast of the fossil teeth was photographed
with a scanning electron microscope to produce
enlarged three-dimensional images. Using those
photographs to zoom in on details and to make
precise measurements of the teeth, the
researchers have determined that the monkey
was a fruit or leaf eater — like many of today’s
small tropical monkeys.

The Family Tree of New World Monkeys

mong all major primate groups, per-

haps the least is known about the evo-

lution of New World monkeys. Part of
the reason their fossil record is so poor is that
the majority of monkeys live in tropical regions
of the world.

“Typically, when something dies in the
Tropics it’s either eaten by something else or
rots away,” says Andre Wyss. “Our fossil record
of tropical animals is very, very poor. New
World monkeys are rare to begin with, and
restricted to the Tropics — so it’s sort of a dou-
ble whammy.”

There are about 85 species of New World
monkeys living today, including tamarind mar-
mosets, owl monkeys and capuchins (known as
organ-grinder monkeys). Scientists disagree on
how the major groups of living New World
Monkeys are related to each other — and how
they fit into the Anthropoid suborder. Anthro-
poids include New World monkeys, Old World
monkeys (found mainly in Africa and Asia),
apes (such as chimpanzees, gorillas and orang-

ufans)and-bumans, (Continued on page 9)

The remarkably pre-
served skull of Chile-
cebus carrascoensis
is about two inches
long. Scientists’ best
guess is that the ani-
mal may have
looked something
like the lemurine
douroucouli (Nyctip-
ithecus lemurinus),
below.

Diane Alexander White / 294043 biw

WE ARE OUR INSTITUTIONS

By Willard L. Boyd
President, The Field Museum

€ are our institutions. People not

structures make great museums.

Yet many visitors and non-visi-

tors think of museums as huge
buildings exhibiting inanimate objects not to be
touched by humans. In reality everything about
a museum is human. Humans create museums,
humans build collections, humans operate
museums, humans use museums, and humans
pay for museums. Individuals determine the
future of a museum.

We have been thinking a lot about the
active and differing roles of individuals in the
future of The Field Museum. This concern was
generated by a conversation with Bill Searle in
the late 1980s. Bill and Sally Searle had made
an extraordinarily generous gift to The Field
Museum. They did not want to designate a par-
ticular use for the funds because they believe so
strongly in funding the basic mission of The
Field Museum, In the conversation with Bill, he
made the point that he wished that we could
make clear to visitors their role in The Field
Museum. He wanted us to enlist greater public
participation as volunteers and as donors — new
partners for The Field Museum.

As a first step we assessed our volunteer
needs for the next decade. We already had a
long standing and strong volunteer program.
Nevertheless, we found we needed to double the
number of volunteers involved in every aspect
of the Museum whether it be working with the
collections, assisting in research or educating
the public through on-the-floor programs and
the new visitor resource centers. Since our
meeting with Bill Searle, we have doubled the
number of volunteers working in the Museum
on a regular weekly basis.

Approximately five hundred volunteers are
engaged in all sorts of vital Museum activities.
The Field Museum could not function without
these committed volunteers whose talents and
background reflect the diversity of our commu-

nity. To recognize their vital role we have estab-
lished the Searle Volunteer Recognition Award
for volunteers who have given their time week-
ly for twenty years. To date ten people have
received that Award.

Our second step in enlisting more partners
was to commit ourselyes to reaching out. In
1992 the Board of Trustees adopted a new
Museum mission statement charging the
trustees, staff, and volunteers of The Field
Museum with the responsibility to reach out to
others to provide educational opportunities to
varied publics. Specifically the new mission
statement provides:

“Field Museum serves diverse publics
ranging from children, adults, and families to
the national and international research commu-
nity. We reach out to our diverse publics and
their changing educational needs. We have a
special responsibility to reach out to the people
of Chicago, neighboring communities, and the
State of Illinois. Our visitors should reflect the
cultural, educational, and economic diversity of
the Chicago metropolitan area. We must work
collaboratively and sensitively with the people
in our locality, country, and world whose cul-
tures and habitats are represented in our collec-
tions, research, and
public programs. In
reaching out, the
Museum must
build on its long-
standing tradition
of “outreach”
which takes its
resources and pro-
grams to schools,
parks, and commu-
nities.”

In reaching out
we want to serve
others but in the
process we want to
enlist others as

partners in the
future of The Field
Museum. To help

March/April 1995
Vol. 66, No. 2

Editor:
Ron Dorfman

Art Director:
Shi Yung

Editorial Assistant:
Jason B. Hamlin

at Chicago, Illinois.

Orisegun Olomidum
demonstrates Aftican
drumming in the new
Searle Lounge, The
display cases, which
will change from
time to time, exhibit
objects donated to
the Museum collec-
tions by individual
supporters.

Ron Dorfman

accomplish this objective we have created a
public lounge which is also an “exhibit”
describing for our visitors the opportunities
available to them — and the need for them — to
join as active Field Museum partners.

In planning this area we looked around the
country to see what other museums were doing.
We found only one exhibit on philanthropy, the
unigue American tradition of citizens giving of
their time, their money, and their objects to
build museums. We saw many members lounges
that focused on the role of individuals in the
museum. We finally decided to create a public
lounge that would be open to every visitor and
which would also be an exhibit about participa-
tion.

In January, 1995, we opened the Searle
Lounge on the north mezzanine of Stanley Field
Hall looking to Lake Michigan on the east, the
Michigan Avenue skyline on the west and Lake
Shore Drive to the north, This area is designed
as a place where visitors can rest and in so
doing learn about how crucial they are to the
present and future of The Field Museum, Volun-
teer needs are described and the opportunity to
participate is presented. Opportunities for gen-
eral membership, Friends of the Museum
Library, the Collections Committee, and other
interest groups are made available. A part of the
area is set aside for exhibits of collections given
to the Museum by individual collectors, A spe-
cial tribute is made to the people of Chicago for
their generous tax support of the Museum
through the Chicago Park District.

We have named this combined exhibit visi-
tor area The Searle Lounge. It is formally dedi-
cated “To William L. and Sally B. Searle,
distinguished benefactors, who have inspired
volunteerism and philanthropy through the
example of their lives and through the Searle
Award, given annually in recognition of excep-
tional volunteer service at The Field Museum.”

We see the Searle Lounge as a means of
“personalizing” the role of each visitor in the
future of The Field Museum. It is our “recruit-
ing office” for the new partners needed to serve
our many publics.

In the Field

The Field Museum
Exploring

The Earth And Its
People

In the Field (ISSN #1051-4546) is published bimonthly by The Field Museum, Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive,
Chicago IL 60605-2496, Copyright © 1995 The Field Museum. Subscriptions $6.00 annually, $3.00 for schools. Muse-
um membership includes /n the Field subscription. Opinions expressed by authors are their own and do not neces-
sarily reflect policy of The Field Museum. Museum phone (312) 922-9410. Notification of address change should
include address label and should be sent to Membership Department. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to /n
the Field, The Field Museum, Roosevelt Ad. at Lake Shore Dr., Chicago, IL 60605-2496. Second class postage paid

CREATION,
DELUGE,
APOCALYPSE

cience is a matter of hard facts, so it

seems. And yet, science is also an

eminently creative process. Every

branch of science celebrates heroes

: whose creative minds linked known

facts in novel ways, thus opening the door to
major innovations in their respective fields.

One such is Alfred Wegener, a German geo-
physicist (1880-1930) whose imaginative mind
linked the observed shorelines of the continents
and combined them in a supercontinent, Pan-
gaea. This supercontinent would have broken up
in the distant geological past, and given rise to
the present-day surface of the Earth by “conti-
nental drift,” a process that Wegener first postu-
lated in print in 1915. He was not the first to
notice the congruence of the western shoreline
of Africa and eastern shoreline of South Ameri-
ca — the science philosopher Francis Bacon had
commented on it in 1620. But Wegener was the
first to propose a hypothetical causal mecha-
nism, continental drift. At the time, however,
continental drift remained as much an occult
force as did gravitation at Newton’s time, and
Wegener’s ideas succumbed to ridicule.

If anything, the history of continental drift
illustrates the power of images — in this case
the ideal matching shorelines of continents — in
the creation of novel scientific ideas. To turn an
idea into a scientific theory requires the testing
of underlying causal mechanisms. If those can-
not be demonstrated, the idea remains only a
hypothesis — and if Wegener’s belief in moving
continents has proved right after all, he still was
unable to explain how and why it happens. That
explanation would have to await the develop-
ment of the theory of plate tectonics in the
1960s.

The creative hero of comparative biology,
of course, is Charles Darwin. Again, images of
an ever-changing world are as ancient as human
cultures, but it was left to Darwin to propose
hypothetical causal mechanisms of natural
change, i.e., variation and natural selection.
These forces might cause the evolution of new
species — but what, exactly, might cause the
observed extinction of species? Competition
between species, perhaps, or change in the phys-
ical environment? His theory would shed new
light on the origin of mankind, Darwin pro-
fessed, but what could that mean? Would

mankind ultimately succumb to competition
with other species — insects perhaps? Or could
it be that physical causes would ultimately drive
mankind towards extinction in an ever-changing
environment? -

Darwin's creative thinking was constrained
by Western philosophical tradition under the
influence of Christian beliefs, such as the doc-
trine of a beginning and an end in time. Ancient
philosophers had emphasized the cyclical nature
of change; Plato, for example, conceptualized
human destiny as an eternal cycle of birth,
death, and reincarnation, coupled with change.
If aman was unjust or acted cowardly during his
earthly existence, he would be re-born as a
woman, according to Plato. Worse behavior
would result in his reincarnation as a bird or a
tetrapod, while his soul would have descended
to the lowest rung in the ladder of life if he were
reborn as a creature living in the sea. Aristotle
held that any kind of change was movement,
which implied an immovable First Mover. Sim-
ilarly, any kind of change might affect matter,
but matter itself would have to be eternal. The
attempt to accommodate Plato’s ideas with Aris-
totelian philosophy in the developing Christian
tradition resulted, by the 14th century, in an
emphasis on the cyclicity of change. Divine
Creation thus turned into the Creation of order
from chaos, a change of eternal matter initiated
by a never-changing (i.e., eternal) entity. Simi-
larly, the Deluge turned eternal matter into
chaos from which a “new world order”
emerged. And as predicted by Holy Scripture,
the Apocalypse would signify another episode
in the eternal cycle of destruction and reincarna-
tion, of death and birth, of change.

These are powerful images, which have left
their imprint on modern biological thinking.
Dinosaurs once ruled the earth, as mankind does
today. Yet dinosaurs succumbed to the cycle of
destruction and change, and the nagging ques-
tion remains as to when it might be man’s turn.
This parallelism may lie at the heart of today’s
fascination with dinosaurs, and may explain the
intense interest in dinosaur extinction.

n January 3, the Chicago Tribune

reported yet another theory of

dinosaur extinction, according to

which a supernova (the explo-
sion of a star) may have resulted in the
destruction of the ozone layer, causing
the demise of the dinosaurs. This theory
neatly reflects today’s concern with the
depletion of the ozone layer, which is
linked not to a supernova but to man-
made chemicals called chlorofluoro-
carbons (CFCs), according toa NASA
announcement last December 19. The
idea that a supernova could have
caused the extinction of dinosaurs is
not entirely new. In fact, it had been
proposed, in the journal Nature, on Feb-
ruary 19, 1971, during the heyday of the
Cold War. This hypothesis led some to
suggest that nuclear explosions could pro-
duce atmospheric effects comparable to a
supernova and result in a new round of mass
extinctions — a thesis revived in recent years
as the “nuclear winter” scenario. The green-
house effect is another suspect in the hit list of
explanations offered for dinosaur extinction
(Science, August 4, 1978), and it was identified
as a major threat to human welfare at the inter-
national conference on environmental problems
in Nairobi in May 1982,

But the parallelism of images does not stop
there. A questionnaire designed to collect as
many of the diverse ideas on dinosaur extinction
as possible produced such hilarious theories as
“anatomical degeneration,” i.e., herniated inter-
vertebral discs, or “overspecialization” (a com-
mon phenomenon in modern industrialized
nations), and “mass psychosis” (no religious
hysteria inyolved!). None of those theories

explains, of course, why dinosaurs had to go,
while crocodiles and turtles survived; why
ammonites and mosasaurs had to go, while
sharks and bony fishes were allowed to thrive.
As with Wegener’s ideas on continental drift:
There is a parallelism of phenomena, but no
hypothesis of an underlying cause open to test
and potential refutation.

The demise of the dinosaurs did not mark
the first, nor the only, major event of extinction.
Indeed, the fossil record points to repeated
events of mass extinctions, and an elaborate sta-
tistical treatment of changes in faunal diversity
over time indicates a regular periodicity in
major extinction events, on the order of 26 mil-
lion years. These periodically recurrent catastro-
phes appear to correlate with rare-element
abnormalities in marine sediments which sug-
gest extraterrestrial impacts as a cause of cycli-
cal catastrophes. It is the same image again —
“Creation, Deluge, Apocalypse” — but this time
framed within a scientific context. And as with
Wegener’s theory of continental drift, a causal
mechanism had to be found to render periodic
extraterrestrial impacts a scientifically valid
explanation for the recurrent major extinction
events during earth history.

Such a model explanation was not generat-
ed by paleontologists, but by astronomers. An as
yet unknown companion star of the Sun with a
highly asymmetrical orbit, called “Nemesis,”
would cause a periodic disturbance of gravita-
tional relations in the planetary system, and
cause a periodical comet shower on Earth. Her-
alded as a major innovative idea, few people
seemed to bother that “Nemesis” remained elu-
sive, and that its discovery might pose insur-
mountable practical problems. Interestingly
enough, a theory of cyclical change on Earth
(“Creation, Deluge, Apocalypse”) had been
explained by William Whiston in an analogous
manner, i.e. by the
effects of

a companion star of the Sun with a highly asym-
metrical orbit, as early as 1696.

Images transported by creative minds influ-
ence the course of science. There is nothing
wrong with this process, nor does it diminish the
significance of science. Quite to the contrary,
images transported by creative minds are the
source of scientific innovation. All that this dis-
cussion is meant to emphasize is that empirical
tests of hypothetical underlying causes are
essential correctives of the eternal metaphors of
cyclical change.

3

March/April 1995

William Whiston’s
explanation (first
proposed in 1696)
of cyclical change
on Earth caused by a
comet shower trig-
gered by an asym-
metrically orbiting
companion star of
the Sun. A similar
thesis has been pro-
posed in recent
years to explain
periodic mass
xtinctions.

UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS

‘STRENGTH & DIVERSITY’

OF JAPANESE AMERICAN WOMEN

ay Kuwahawra poses during an opening reception January
12 in front of a display of photographs of Chicago-area
Japanese American women. The local photographs and
other items were presented by the Chicago Japanese Amer-
ican Historical Society in conjunction with the traveling exhibit
“Strength and Diversity: Japanese American Women 1885 — 1990.”
Below, a visitor contemplates Dorothea Lange’s photograph of
Camp Manzanar in the California desert, where thousands of Japan-
ese Americans were confined during World War II. The exhibit is in
the Special Exhibits Gallery on the ground floor through March 19.

Diane Alexander White / GN87436.26

Diane Alexander White / GN87435.34

Diane Alexander White / GN87435,36a

Mae Nakano, author of Japanese American

h h Women: Three Generations 1885 — 1985, aufo-
fr om tie §. op. 5 of graphs a copy of her book for Willard L. Boyd,

Th e Fi el d Mu S eum : : : . president of the Museum, after delivering a lec-

ture on the subject.

An exciting array of newly arrived gift sacrthdadae fon
worldwide sources, suitable for every gift occasion. —

Latin American... . hand-carved, pone peed mir-
rors and picture frames . . . brightly painted folk carv- __
ings signed by the artist. . . papiermacheé and _

Plants
wooden masks... gallery quality gourds

Americas

Japanese... ceramic tea sets ,. . hand-painted -
mugs and juice seis . , lacquer and ceramic serving
pieces .

Native American , . . Southwestern sterling tow
handsome pottery ‘and textiles

Dolls . . . a truly unusual, major collection of dolls from
ee corner of the world

“Wei ts your opportunity to selec fin a huge array of. gift
items availa lable for the first time. The Museum Sho ops are

open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, and Museum Spee
receive a 1 0% discount on all purchases. .

: ~The Shops of

The Field Museum :

Howard Millhuff, Capital Investment Accountant, from General Mills Consumer Foods Technology
and Operations, presents a $15,000 contribution to Jessie Thymes for the Museum’s Community
Outreach Program. Standing next to Jessie is Susan Nemoy, Staff Assistant at General Mills. At left is
Carolyn Blackmon, who heads the Museum’s Education Department. The General Mills Foundation
a also contributed $100,000 to the Museum’s “Africa” Exhibit.

March/April 1995

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

LAURA GILPIN: PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE SOUTHWEST

n photography, where an increasing
demand for technically-minded composi-

tion has influenced how photographs look

and feel, emotion in print has become a
secondary attribute. Placing emotion into a pho-
tograph is nearly impossible, capturing emotion
on film perhaps even harder. In The Field Muse-
um’s latest photography exhibit, “Laura Gilpin:
Photographs of the Southwest,” one sees a suc-
cessful combination of both detail and emotion.
Laura Gilpin (1891-1979) began taking
photos as a young woman growing up in Col-
orado, Her experience at the Clarence H. White
School of Photography not only began her pro-
fessional career but also taught her a sense of

mood in photography. A chance happening in
1930 — Gilpin and her companion, Elizabeth
Forster, ran out of gas in a remote section of a
Navajo reservation — sparked her interest in
and formed an early bond with the Navajo peo-
ple. Forster stayed at the reservation as a nurse
and was often visited by the intrigued photogra-
pher Gilpin.

Gilpin’s interest in the Navajo people was
immediate, and many of her photographs of the
Navajo were taken before 1940. But with the
tribulations of the Depression and World War II
Gilpin’s work in the Southwest was put on hold
while she did more commercial work. By 1949,
however, Gilpin had published three chronicles
of her work in the Southwest,

Then 1950 came and Gilpin went back
to the Navajo reservation to join Forster
and continue her work with the people
there. Times had changed since her pho-
tographs like Camera Study at Acoma
Pueblo (1939), and Gilpin was forced to
catch up with the new ideas while captur-
ing what she had missed in the post-war
era. Eighteen years later, Gilpin published
The Enduring Navajo (1968), a collection
of her work around the Red Rock area.

Through her work Gilpin proved a
photograph could evoke an emotion. Even
in White Sands (1945), a photo of rippled
dunes, an amazing calm is both captured
and implied. Her love of the Southwest is
the common bond of her photographs. This
love helps to explain her ability to work
closely with the Navajos and portray them
not as an unhappy people but as a strong,
enduring community.

“Laura Gilpin: Photographs of the

ONE HOUSE, ONE VOICE, ONE HEART

T he Santa Fe Indian School was founded
in 1890 in New Mexico, one of many
federally operated schools designed to
bring Native Americans into the “white world.”
Ironically, many whites did not even believe the
Indian culture was teachable. In an attempt,
perhaps, to forestall public ridicule, Santa Fe
and schools like it became virtual military
schools.

Children of many tribes came to the schools
only to be stripped of their clothing, their lan-
guage, and their culture. These were replaced by
uniforms, marching, and the English language.
In uniform, many of the Pueblo Indians found
the new way of life more than a little alienating.
Often students would run back to their homes
(some were as close as 60 miles away), never to
return.

But to find a Pueblo Indian with a bad thing
to say about the school is quite a task. Pueblo
culture taught the positive in everything, and the
young students came to cooperate. In 1930, a
positive change came from outside the Indian
culture. Chester Faris, an Indiana Quaker, abol-

ished the marching and developed a high school
program. In 1934, the first senior class graduat-
ed from Santa Fe Indian School.

Though the school was closed for several
years in the mid-sixties, its success today is
impressive. Now tribally operated, 80 percent of
the students plan to continue education after
graduation. The basketball team recently won
state championships and in 1987 the school was
given a national award for excellence by the
U.S. Office of Education.

In a traveling display, the history of the
Santa Fe Indian School is captured on film, in
interviews, and in four photo murals. “One
House, One Voice, One Heart: Native American
Education at the Santa Fe Indian School” is on
display through May 8. Based on an oral histo-
ry project at the Santa Fe school in 1986 and
1987, the exhibit was made possible through
funding provided by the National Endowment
for the Arts, the New Mexico Endowment for
the Humanities, and the Foundation for Indian
Leadership. It is brought to The Field Museum
by TREX: the Traveling Exhibitions Program of
the Museum of New
Mexico.

Laundry Class, 1904,
Santa Fe Indian
School

Southwest” opens in the South Gallery on
March 11 and closes on May 21. As inspiring as
they are educational, these photographs will cer-
tainly give back what they once captured. This
exhibition was organized by the Museum of
Fine Arts, Museum of New Mexico, and is cir-
culated through TREX: Traveling Exhibitions
Program of the Museum of New Mexico.

Georgia O'Keeffe
(1953) by Laura
Gilpin. Gilpin’s work
captures the nature
of the subject by
relating the sur-
roundings to the
emotions of the
people in them.
Left, Camera Study
at Acoma Pueblo
(1939).

HELD MUSEUM

THE SMART WAY TO HAVE FUN.

Gayle Ross, master
of ceremonies and
Cherokee storyteller,
March 18.

MARCH/APRIL EVENTS

Hannibal Peterson,
composer and jazz
trumpeter, in an

eclectic afternoon of

music and story-
telling in “African
Portraits,” April 29.

3 4 Saturday

Hinamatsuri Festival

11 am -12:30 pm. This traditional Japanese
celebration honors girls with peach blos-
soms. Bring your favorite doll or toy. See
Visitor Programs Page for more information.

3 4 Saturday

Symposium:
Crossing Boundaries

1-3 pm. In conjunction with the exhibit
“Strength and Diversity,” join us for an after-
noon in which five ethnically diverse
women share stories of overcoming person-
al obstacles and barriers. The speakers are
Faith Smith, Lorna Stone, Barbara Ransby,
Maureen Lai-Ping Mark, and Carmen
Velasquez, with moderator Joy Yamasaki.
Cost is $7 ($5 for members, students, and
seniors), registration required; call (312)
322-8854.

3/4-25

Saturdays

New Voices:
Latin American
Women’s Fiction

10 am - noon. This course focuses on the
works of contemporary Latin American
women writers. Selected stories from the
book Beyond the Border: A New Age in
Latin American Women’s Fiction will pro-
vide information about similarities and vari-
ations between Latin American women
authors and their counterparts. The course
fee includes a copy of the text. Cost is $63
($55 for members). Registration is required;
call (312)322-8854.

3/11-12.....

Matsuri Festival

Il am - 4 pm. A performance by Taiko drum-
mers from the Midwest Buddhist Temple
starts this celebration which honors mothers
and grandmothers. See Visitor Programs
Page for more details.

B/N sss

Exhibit Opening:
Laura Gilpin Photos

“Laura Gilpin: Photographs of the South-
west” includes 44 evocative images. This
exhibit will be displayed at The Field Muse-
um through May 21. See Calendar of Events
page for more information.

3/13 snes

Nature Camera Club

7:30 pm. A slide program titled “Depth of
Field in Depth” will be presented by Ron
Rubenstein. Everyone is invited to this meet-
ing. For more information call Bill Burger at
(312) 922-9410, ext. 318

3/14-4/4

Tuesdays

Chocolate, Coffee,
Sugar, and Spice

In-this four-week course for
adults, you'll have the
opportunity to learn
about the growth and
production of
chocolate and
selected fruits and
spices while tast-
ing some of these
culinary treats from the -

plant kingdom. Cost is $58 ($50 for mem-
bers). Hours are 6:30-8:30 pm. Registration
required. Call (312) 322-8854.

3/18 sain

Native American
Performance

8 pm. Join Native American artists for an
evening of music and dance. The Field
Museum will host performances “From
Plains, Pueblos and Tundra.” See Calendar
of Events page for details and ticket prices.
For information call (312)322-8854.

4 7 Friday-Saturday

Family Overnight

5:45 pm Friday to 9 am Saturday. Come
join our popular overnight for adults accom-
panied by children grades 1-6. $40 per par-
ticipant ($35 for members). Preregistration
is required. Call (312) 322-8854 for space
availability.

AMO seni

Photo Competition

7:30 pm. The Nature Camera Club sponsors
a slide competition on the subject of trees.
Entries will be scored and discussed by three
judges. Everyone is welcome. For more
information, please contact Bill Burger at
(312) 922-9410, ext. 318.

4/29 scsi

African American
Historical Tour

10 am - 4 pm. Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable,
an African American trader and _ trapper,
became Chicago’s first resident in the late
1700s. Since then millions of African Amer-
icans have made Chicago their home. Take
a trip through time in this day-long bus tour
of African American historical sites that con-
tributed to the growth of the city. Enjoy soul
food at Gladys’ Luncheonette. Cost is $45
($39 members). Registration is required; call
(312) 322-8854.

4/29 soci

African Portraits

1 pm. “African Portraits” performance.
Exerpts from an oratorio tracing 350 years of
African-American history. Hannibal Peter-
son, noted composer and jazz trumpeter, is
joined by griot Alhaji Papasusso, blues musi-
cian David “Honeyboy” Edwards, and the
tone Drummers. Presented in cooperation
with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, this
show is free with Museum admission.

Thru 5/8

The Santa Fe
Indian School

“One House, One Voice, One Heart: Native
American Education at the Santa Fe Indian
School” is an exhibit featuring the history of
this American Indian school. The history of
Indian education and issues of assimilation
and self-determination are explored. At The
Field Museum through May 8, free with gen-
eral admission. For more information, call
(312) 922-9410.

GREEN AND GROWING ...
AN EARTH DAY CELEBRATION: APRIL 1 - 3

his year's Green and Growing Fair is

a celebration of the 25th Anniversary

of Earth Day. Green and Growing is

designed to be an interactive forum
where the general public can learn about and
meet representatives from a variety of non-prof-
it organizations.

Ecologically-based performances, demon-
strations, hands-on activities, and teacher work-
shops are planned. Performance highlights
include visits by Hody Coyote and Looking
Glass Theater on Saturday and storyteller Nola
Carlson on Sunday (see the next page for a full
schedule of performances and times). The fair
will also serve as a resource for information
about regional environmental projects and pro-
grams, and will feature displays by local teach-
ers and school groups. Scientists from The Field
Museum will exhibit specimens from the
research collections and talk about their work.
The fair is free with regular Museum admission.
There will be a nominal charge and pre-registra-
tion for participation in teacher's workshops.

For more details, please call (312) 322-8854.
The Green and Growing Fair is co-spon-
sored by The Field Museum, Chicago Botanic
Garden, City of Chicago - Departments of Envi-
ronment and Transportation, Chicago Park Dis-
trict, Openlands Project,
University of Illinois
Cooperative Extension,
the Chicago Environmen-
tal Network, and

Urban

sources

Partner-
ship.

Re-

EARTH DAY AND THE
ENVIRONMENTAL PROSPECT — APRIL 22

oin us for an afternoon of thought-
provoking discussion as the Field
Museum commemorates the 25th
Anniversary of Earth Day with Nor-

Norman Myers,
Ph.D., speaks on
the environmental
future April 22, at
1:30 pm.

man Myers, Ph.D. and Henry Henderson.
Dr. Myers will address the global-scale
experiment that our current population of
5.7 billion people is conducting with the
planetary ecosystem through pollution,
deforestation, soil erosion, mass extinction
of species, and climate change. Within the
next four decades the world population
may double, imposing further strains and
aggravating the environmental ruin in our
planetary ecosystem.

That's the bad news. According to Dr.
Myers, there is also good news. Much of
the predicted environmental disaster may
be avoided if we tackle our problems ahead
of time. There is still time, Dr. Myers
argues, for citizen activism to play a major
role in helping deter global and local prob-
lems. In his lecture, Dr. Myers will discuss
what individuals can do to become a part
of the solution.

Dr. Myers, one of the world's most
consulted
environ-
mental-
TS er tees; py
advises
govern-
ments and
develop-
ment and
scientific

organizations on an array of issues from
global warming and the population explo-
sion, to the future of our economies and
the overall theme of living in an interde-
pendent, connected world.

Following Dr. Myers’ lecture, Henry
Henderson, commissioner of the City of
Chicago’s Department of Environment,
will talk about Chicago’s urban environ-
ment restoration agenda. “Sustainable
environmental and economic development
requires a revision of our view of the
nature of the city as an environment, and
its relation to-a bigger ecosystem of which
it is an essential part,” he says. Mr. Hen-
derson will discuss the City’s program to
create a natural habitat for human beings
including the Chicago Brownfields initia-
tive, the restoration of natural habitats at
North Park Village Nature Center and
Jackson Park, and the implementation of
the City’s Solid Waste Plan.

This program starts at 1:30 pm Satur-
day, April 22 in the James Simpson The-
atre. The cost is $5 ($3 for members).

o register for these lectures, please
T send a check made payable to the Field
Museum, Education Department, Roo-
sevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago,
IL 60605, attention: Program Registration.
Indicate the number of tickets you are
requesting, your name and address, mem-
bership status and a daytime phone num-
ber. Please also include a self-addressed
stamped envelope.

YeVY ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ aay

Business phone

Become a Member
of The Field Museum

and receive these benefits:

Free oneal saison

Free priority admission to “Life Over Time”
_ Free coat checking and strollers
Invitation to Members’ Night __

Free subscription to In the Field —

10% discount at all Museum stores

10% discount at Picnic in the Field

13-month wall calendar featuring exhibit
_ photographs

Reduced subscription prices on selected

magazines

‘Opportunity to receive the Museum's

annual report |

Use of our 250,000-volume

natural history library

Discount on classes, field trips, and seminars

for adults and children

Members-only tour program

Opportunity to attend the annual

children’s Holiday Tea

Children’s “dinosaur” birthday card.

MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION

New Members only. This is not a Hees form.

e Plea enroll me as a Member of
ee Field Mosca

State__Zip

Home phone

Business phone

arr so
Name
Address _ iS
Cy
State Zip _

Home phone

MEMBERSHIP CATEGORIES
Cy Individual — one year $35 / two years $65
O Family — one year $45 / two years $85
* (Includes two adults, children and grand-
children 18 and under.)
Student/Senior — one year $25
~ (Individual only. Copy of ID. required.)
() Field Contributor — $100 - $249

() Field Adventurer ~ $250 - $499

() Field Naturalist — $500 - $999
: O Field Explorer - $1,000 - $1,499

“All pele ofa fay =

onan Gouna as 500

Ron Dorfman

Museum Highlights
tours are offered
frequently.

Wednesday, March 1
9am-12noon Arthropod Cart
activity

11am Museum Highlights Tour
1pm Museum Highlights Tour

Thursday, March 2
11am Museum Highlights Tour
lpm Museum Highlights Tour

Friday, March 3
11am Museum Highlights Tour

Saturday, March 4

10am-2pm Africa Puzzle Game activity
11am-1pm Horns & Antlers activity
11am-12.30pm Hinamatsuri Girls’ Day
Festival

See schedule below

Sunday, March 5

1;30-2:30pm Origami demonstration
by teens from Midwest Buddhist
Daruma School

Monday, March 6
11am Museum Highlights Tour
Tpm Museum Highlights Tour

Tuesday, March 7
9Yam-12noon Owl Pellet activity

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
FOR BATTY ASSIGNMENT

olunteers are needed to
help staff “Masters of the
Night: The True Story of
Bats,” a traveling exhibit at The
Field Museum from June 17 to
September 4. Volunteers will help
out in the exhibit and staff hands-
on activities. Activities range from
puppeteering and storytelling to
teaching about the anatomical dif-
ferences between bats and other
mammals. So if you are a bat
enthusiast or simply would like the
opportunity to interact with the
Museum’s vast array of summer
visitors, consider volunteering.
Volunteers are required to devote
one day a week during the sum-
mer and attend two training
sessions prior to the exhibit
opening. Please contact Anita
Morgan, Volunteer Coordinator, at
(312) 922-9410, ext. 360 for more
information.

Wednesday, March 8
9am-noon Arthropod Cart activity
10am-2pm Africa Puzzle Map activity

Thursday, March 9
11am Museum Highlights Tour
1pm Museum Highlights Tour

Friday, March 10
11am Museum Highlights Tour

Saturday, March 11

9am-10am Adinkra activity
10am-2pm African puzzle map activity
11am Museum Highlights Tour
llam-4pm

Matsuri Festival Weekend

See schedule below

lpm Museum Highlights Tour
1:30pm "Tibet Today” and “Bhutan:
Land of the Thunder Dragon”

slide lecture

Sunday, March 12

11am “Into the Wild” tour
llam-4pm

Matsuri Festival Weekend
See schedule below

Monday, March 13
11am Museum Highlights Tour
1pm Museum Highlights Tour

Tuesday, March 14
11am Museum High-
lights Tour

Wednesday, March 15
10am-2pm Africa Puzzle
Map

Friday, March 17

11am Museum High-
lights Tour

10am-2pm Africa Puzzle
Map

Saturday, March 18
10am-2pm Africa Puzzle
Map

“ful, elega
beautiful,

VISITOR PROGRAMS

Sunday, March 19

1pm Origami demonstration

1pm Owari Traditional Japanese musi-
cal instruments and dance demonstrat-
ed by Japanese-American seniors

Monday, March 20
11am Museum Highlights Tour
1pm Museum Highlights Tour

Wednesday, March 22

11am Museum Highlights Tour

1pm Museum Highlights Tour
10am-2pm Africa Puzzle Map activity

Thursday, March 23
11am Museum Highlights Tour
lpm Museum Highlights Tour

Friday, March 24
11am Museum Highlights Tour

Saturday, March 25

9am-10am Adinkra activity
10am-2pm Africa Puzzle Map activity
11am Museum Highlights Tour

Ipm Museum Highlights Tour
1:30pm “Tibet Today” and “A Faith in
Exile” slide lecture

Monday, March 27
11am Museum Highlights Tour
1pm Museum Highlights Tour

Wednesday, March 29

10am-2pm Africa Puzzle Map activity
11am Museum Highlights Tour

1pm Museum Highlights Tour

Thursday, March 30
11am Museum Highlights Tour
Tpm Museum Highlights Tour

Friday, March 31
11am Museum Highlights Tour

Saturday, April 1

Green and Growing

Earth Day Celebration:

noon Hody Coyote Puppet Show
1pm Looking Glass Theater presents
"Gluscabi and the Wind Eagle”
2pm Hody Coyote Puppet Show

Sunday, April 2

Green and Growing

Earth Day Celebration:

10am GAIA Theater presents “Use it
Again”

1pm Museum Highlights Tour

1pm Master Storyteller Nola Carlson
2pm Master Storyteller Nola Carlson

Monday, April 3

Green and Growing

Earth Day Celebration

10am GAIA Theater presents
"Use it Again”

11am Museum Highlights Tour
1pm Museum Highlights Tour

Saturday, April 8

1lam-3pm Recycled Jewelry

activity

1:30pm “Tibet Today” and "A Faith in
Exile” slide lecture

Monday, April 10
1pm Museum Highlights Tour

Saturday, April 15
10am-4pm Insects on Display
demonstration

Sunday, April 16
10am-4pm Insects on Display
demonstration

Monday, April 17
11am Museum Highlights Tour
1pm Museum Highlights Tour

Saturday, April 22

10am-4pm Insects on Display
demonstration

11am-3pm Birds demonstration
11am-3pm Recycled Jewelry
activity

Monday, April 24
11am Museum Highlights Tour
Ipm Museum Highlights Tour

Saturday, April 29
Tpm “African Portraits”
performance

MONKEY SKULL ...

(Continued from page 1)

A large time gap in the fossil record of
South America — from about 55 to 30 million
years ago — represents a crucial period in the
evolution of New World monkeys. It was during
this time that monkeys first arrived on the conti-
nent, as did rodents.

South America was an island at the time —
completely surrounded by oceans. Questions
baffling scientists include: How did the mon-
keys and rodents get there, and where did they
come from? They could have traveled to South
America from another continent: perhaps Africa
or North America or Antarctica.

One theory holds that the animals “rafted”
across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa on giant
floating mats of trees and other vegetation. At
the time the New World monkeys arrived, when
Africa was closer to South America than it is
today, the distance would have been about 800
miles — a journey that would have taken only
one or two months with prevailing ocean cur-
rents.

Anatomical similarities between the 20-
million-year-old Chilecebus and Old World
anthropoids provides new evidence of an
African origin for New World monkeys.

Rewriting the Geologic History of the Andes

hen the researchers first started find-
ing mammal fossils in this part of the
high Andes mountains five years
ago, Flynn says some geologists were incredu-
lous. The rocks along the crest of the Andes
were thought to be more than 100 million years
old — formed during the Age of the Dinosaurs.

But in those rocks the team found a group
of mammal bones about 50 million years old,
and another that was only 32 million years old.
The rocks were indeed much younger than geol-
ogists had suspected, indicating that the moun-
tains had been formed more recently.

“Since then, we’ve been working together
as an international team of geologists and pale-
ontologists to get a better picture of the geolog-
ic history of the Andes,” says Flynn. “It’s

Mustersan

WOUUEDESeOCSECEEDER FETAL ERED)

Casamayoran

Pr

Riochican

ep apep=5=5-

Paleocene

completely transforming our understanding of
the age and geology of the formation, uplift, and
deformation of the mountain range.”

Their latest discovery shows that the rocks
along the crest of the Andes were crunched
together even more recently than others had pre-
viously thought. The monkey fossil was found
in the middle of giant folds in the rock. Since the
rocks were flat-lying when the monkey was
buried in a flow of volcanic debris, that folding
had to happen sometime after 20 million years
ago. “Just as importantly, we're now finding
volcanic activity in these rocks occurring at
times when volcanoes weren’t supposed to be
active in the Andes,” says Flynn.

The kinds of mammals the researchers have
found throughout the Chilean Andes — many of
them plant eaters specializing either on forest
plants or grasses from open plains — are also
telling a new story of climate and environmen-
tal change in South America, The team’s earlier
discoyery of 32-million-year-old communities
of fossil mammals dominated by grass-grazing

Stratum 2; Monkeys and Rodents Arrive,

Modernization of Ancient Lineages

oy CS
Stratum 1: Archaic South American Mammals

John J. Flynn, curator
of fossil mammals
and chairman of the
Department of Geol-
ogy, shows off the
fossil skull of Chile-
cebus carrascoensis
in the Museum’s fos-
sil-preparation labo-
ratory. The map
locates the area on
the crest of the
Andes where this
and other fossils
have led scientists to
rewrite the geologi-
cal history of the
region.

forms documented the earliest known occur-
rence of widespread grasslands anywhere in the
world.

According to Flynn, it appears that the
southern part of the continent later experienced
a general warming 20 million years ago and that
forests and grasslands were expanding south-
ward towards higher latitudes and Antarctica.
The fossil monkey is the earliest found outside
the Tropics, providing further evidence of a
warm climate.

All of the fossils have been found in a rock
unit called the Abanico Formation, which is one
of the most geographically widespread in the
central Andes, stretching oyer hundreds of
miles.

“This very widespread formation points to
a huge warehouse of fossils that no one knew
about,” says Wyss. “Nobody had ever looked
there before.”

“It’s certainly expanded the region in which
fossil primates are known in South America,”
says Tattersall. “If there’s one primate there,
there are presumably more.”

The team is returning to the Chilean Andes
early this year to find out.

March/April 1995

John Weinstein / GEO87437.17

In the chart at left,
the asterisks mark
the time, 20 million
years ago, when
Chilecebus carras-
coensis lived. The
right-hand column
of the scale indi-
cates the succesion
of South American
land-mammal
assemblages through
geologic time, sug-
gested by the corre-
sponding
illustrations.

James Balodimas & Julie Pitzen / Cat. 36052c

A brilliant violet
flower of Cristaria
integerrima pho-
tographed by
Michael O. Dillon in
the Antofagasta
region of Chile,
October 27, 1988.
The actual flower is
about 2cm across.
This color image file
and that of the
Javanese mask below
were downloaded
from the World Wide
Web and electroni-
cally converted to
black and white for
use in In the Field.

FIELD MUSEUM ON THE WEB

eople with access to the World Wide

Web of the Internet can visit a “virtual

Field Museum” now under construc-

tion. As of mid-February, materials
available on the Web site include a century-old
collection of Javanese (Indonesian) masks and
related information about the dance-dramas in
which they were used, and an abbreviated inter-
active version of the exhibit “DNA to
Dinosaurs.” Also available on the Web is a col-
lection of field photographs and associated Field
Museum herbarium information on rare plants
of the Chilean and Peruvian coastal desert.

The most elaborate of these projects is the
multimedia “DNA to Dinosaurs,’ which
includes text, photographs, sketches, anima-
tions, audio segments, and a 3-D Tyrannosaurus
rex tooth that can be spatially manipulated for
examination from any angle. The selections cur-
rently on-line are mainly from the parts of the
exhibit dealing with the Triassic Period (245 to
208 million years ago), when dinosaurs first
appeared, diversified, and became the dominant
creatures on Earth.

The Indonesian masks are from a group of
80 in the Museum collection. All were brought
to Chicago by dancers from the island of Java
who performed traditional wayang topeng dra-
mas at the “Java Village” that was part of the
Dutch East Indies exhibit at the World’s
Columbian Exposition in 1893. Carved from
soft wood and painted in traditional patterns and
colors, they are among the oldest and most
beautiful Indonesian masks in the United States.

Drama mask topeng
of Buta Macan, a
tiger demon. Used in
an as-yet unidenti-
fied wayang topeng
dance drama. Cen-
tral Java, Indonesia,
ca. 1880 A.D.

March/April 1995

Both “DNA to Dinosaurs”
and the Javanese mask collec-
tion reside on a computer at the
Biomedical Visualization Lab-
oratory of the University of
Illinois — Chicago. To access
them, you need a connection to
the Internet, a “web browser”
such as Mosaic or Netscape,
and several utilities for trans-
lating audio-visual files, All
the software is available free
from many sites on the Inter-
net, and will soon be part of
the packages offered by Amer-
ica Online, Compuserve, and
other information services. They will also be
bundled with the operating-system software on
many new computers, starting later this year.

The address — or URL, universal resource
locator — of the Experimental Field Museum
WWW Server is:

<http://rs6000. bvis.uic.edu/museum>.
(The brackets are not part of the address.)

A selection of several dozen photographs
from botany curator Michael O. Dillon’s expe-
ditions to Peru and Chile after the major El Nifio

10

phenomenon of the mid-1980s is accessible
from the Biology Image Archive, a Web site at
Cornell University. BIA too is still in develop-
ment, and currently includes images and data
from the research of botanists at Harvard Uni-
versity and the New York Botanical Garden as
well as Dillon’s photographs. The photos and
herbarium data may be copied or downloaded
and used for educational or other noncommer-
cial purposes.
The address of BIA is:
<gopher://muse.bio.cornell.edu/11/images>.

A menu page explains how to navigate the

archive and includes DOS, Windows, and Mac-
intosh versions of the JPEG image viewer.

Field Museum anthropologists Jonathan
Haas and Bennet Bronson initiated the project to
put Museum collections on-line. Steve Bory-
sewicz, a Field Museum exhibit developer,
worked with Brad Blumenthal and Paul Neu-
man of UIC to translate “DNA to Dinosaurs” for
the new medium. Mary Rasmussen and students
in the Biomedical Visualization Lab designed
and produced the Web pages.

OF MICE AND MEN
.-» AND RED TOMATOES

By William Burger
Department of Botany

he theory of evolution gave biology

unity where, before, there had been

only the grand diversity of God’s cre-

ation. Suddenly there was a single
over-arching theme: Descent through eons of
time might possibly explain the richness of liy-
ing things. The ways in which plants and ani-
mals were earlier grouped into ‘natural orders”
fit easily into the new idea of groups of descen-
dant lineages. The fossil record provided strong
evidence that simple early life preceeded the
richer and more diverse later periods. Addition-
al evidence for the unity of life came with the
discovery that all living things use the same
twisted chains of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA)
to encode their hereditary information. Now that
we are able to extract selected pieces of this
genetic coding and analyze the actual make-up
of specific genes, the unity of life is becoming
ever more apparent.

Each species has small, highly variable
regions of DNA which, like fingerprints, differ
in almost every individual. But there are impor-
tant larger regions of DNA that code enzymes or
regulatory genes and that are similar among
very different plants and animals. It is these sta-
ble regions of the DNA chains that bear testi-
mony to the relatedness of all living things.
Scientists at The Field Museum and elsewhere
are using snippets of DNA to clarify the course
of evolution in related lineages.

By using the more variable regions of DNA
they examine the kinship of closely related
species. The more stable areas of DNA can be
used to compare less closely related lineages:
classes, orders, and families. These DNA data-
sets help us determine how lineages have
diverged, and help place groups whose relation-
ships have been controversial. The DNA data,
together with the morphological features that
scientists have been using for more than 200
years, are giving us a much clearer picture of
evolutionary diversification.

Geneticists and physiologists have also
been probing the fine structure of DNA in spe-
cific genes, and some of
their results bear directly
on the underlying unity of
living things. Scientists
have long thought that
the compound eyes of
insects and the camera-
like eyes of vertebrates
are profoundly different in
both structure and origin. It is
true that these very different @
eyes develop in very different ‘.
ways, but geneticists have
recently learned that the genes
controlling the early develop-
ment of the eyes of fruit flies

are very similar to certain genes that control the
development of eyes in mice (and by extension
our own eyes). This is evidence for a common
origin hundreds of millions of years ago. One
can imagine that an ancient common ancestor,
perhaps a worm-like creature, had the genetic
information for nothing more than bringing
together a few light-sensitive nerves. But these
“eye spots” (and the genetic information that
produced them) were probably the starting point
for vision in a wide range of later animal lin-
eages. It appears that the same original genetic
information has been transformed and amplified
through eons of time to produce both a many-
faceted image for the dragonfly and the single
sharply focused image in the eye of the eagle.

Earlier, geneticists had discovered that the
genes controlling the early differentiation of the
fruit fly embryo were very similar to some
genes controlling early differentiation in the
mouse embryo. Further studies have substanti-
ated these findings in the early development of
these very different animals. Fruit flies and lab-
oratory mice have been studied intensively for
decades in genetics and physiology laboratories.
It is therefore not surprising that these newest
revelations have come from these particular ani-
mal species.

The differentiation of the early embryo and
the development of eyes are controlled by genes
that express themselves in the growth and
development of groups of cells. Modern DNA
studies are also shedding light on even deeper
relationships in the genes that determine bio-
chemical processes within the cells. Would you
believe that a medicine recently developed to
reduce cholesterol production in people has pre-
cise effects in the development of tomatoes? By
injecting this drug into small (1 cm), immature
tomatoes, botanists have been able to produce
large, mature tomatoes without red pigmenta-
tion. The biochemical pathways that produce
cholesterol in humans and red pigments in
tomatoes are not that different. It is likely that
the genes controlling these processes within the
cell have arisen from the same precursor genes
before plants and animals took their separate
paths.

We've all been told
that the genetics of an
oak tree or a butterfly are
based on DNA, just as is our

own. And it is not surprising that our
basic hereditary blueprints might carry
modern forms of messages that first came into
being hundreds of millions of years ago. But
who would have thought that some parts of the
DNA of mice and men still bear a resem-
blance to similarly functioning genes
in insects and plants?

‘THE HUMAN PRESSURE IS EXTREME’

Field Museum biologist Steve Goodman spends
much of each year in Madagascar, where he
participates in a variety of programs. In collab-
oration with the Madagascar office of the World
Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Goodman super-
vises a Student training program and organizes
field surveys of Madagascar’s threatened
reserves. He also teaches paleontology students
at the Université d’Antananarivo. Colleagues
Dave Willard and Tom Schulenberg recently
received the following letter, in which Goodman
describes the highlights of a two-month expedi-
tion to Anjanaharibe-Sud, a remote and poorly
known reserve in northern Madagascar, and
other news from the field:

EAR DAVE AND TOM,

Life here is good. As time goes on I become
more accustomed to the mode and pace, and at
this point, even though the country, economy,
etc. are in desperate shape, it all seems normal
to me. I am in the same house that I have occu-
pied for the past three years. Things at WWE are
more or less the same, although there is measur-
able advancement in the students taking part in
the Ecology Training Program. This is most sat-
isfying and provides the fuel to continue.

The situation with forest destruction does
not improve. It is amazing that after all of the
attention and money this island has received in
the past five years, there is no measurable
change in the policies of the government toward
forest protection nor any decline in the destruc-
tion of forested areas within protected areas. A
recent fiy-over and aerial photographs of Maro-
jejy shows that about 4,000 hectares of forest
have been cut within the reserve in the last few
years. This represents over ten percent of the
total area of the reserve, and an even greater
portion of the lowland forest. Marojejy is not
exceptional in this regard. Thus, in short the
inventories that we have been doing have
important archival value, since many of the sites
will not exist as forest in the near future. For
example, our lowest site in Anjanaharibe-Sud
reserve will be gone within a few years. The
human pressure on the remaining forest is
extreme.

The Anjanaharibe-Sud trip was most inter-
esting. Jean Mare Thiollay and Frank Hawkins
were responsible for the majority of the bird
work. I concentrated my efforts on small mam-
mals. Thiollay saw Madagascar Serpent-Eagle.
Other interesting things include large numbers
of Sunbird-Asity in the lowland forest and gobs
of Yellow-bellied Sunbird-Asity high up,
temarkable numbers of Rufous-headed Ground-
Roller, a few Bernier’s and Helmet vangas, two
observations of Red-tailed Newtonia, and just
about everything else one would expect in
humid forest. I think the only thing missing
from the list is Pollen’s Vanga. The survey was
in the heart of the breeding season and evidence
of breeding was found for almost 30 species.
Thiollay found a nest of Nuthatch Vanga — pre-
viously unknown. The coua species in the
reserve include Blue, Red-fronted, and Red-
breasted couas. Hairy-eared Dwarf Lemur was
regularly observed in the lowland forest. Noth-
ing else particularly exciting with lemurs,
although Gray Gentle Lemur occurred all the
way up to the summit (2,000 meters).

Last week I was down in Toliara to check

Biologist Steve
Goodman, in Mada-
gascar, holds what
may be the last
Madagascar Pochard,
a species of duck.
This specimen, a
male, was captured
by a fisherman in
1991; no others had
been seen for 20
years. The bird was
kept in hopes that a
female might be
found so that a cap-
tive-breeding pro-
gram could begin.

(1000 Km |
[7000 Mi ]

out a large subfossil deposit discovered a few
months ago. The patron of the land lives in
French Guyana, and I need his permission
before the site can be excavated. I hope this will
happen in early February. A pretty interesting
site — remains of giant subfossil lemurs, giant
tortoises, two genera of elephant birds,
hippos, and lots of other things.

I start teaching in a few days. The
course will be on the comparative osteol-
ogy of Malagasy vertebrates and will go on
to the end of January. Thereafter I will head
back out into the field. Hopefully to excavate
the subfossil site and also inventory work in
Analamera and/or Tsimanampetsotsa. I
will leave Madagascar in late April and
will arrive in Chicago in early May.
On my way back I will stop at the
Paris museum for a few days.

Well, that is the news. All the best
for the new year.

CHEERS,
STEVE

March/April 1995

T

Temples,
Tigers G

Palaces

Oct. 19-
Nov. 2, 1995

Ithough it will be possible to view a
Az eclipse from many locations on
October 24, in most places the
eclipse will not be total. The precise align-
ment of the sun, moon, and earth sends
the tip of the moon’s deep central shadow
cone to a very small area of the earth, and
only in this cone is the eclipse total. To
find yourself in the eye of this cone, it is
best to be in the state of Rajasthan, north-
west of the Arabian Sea in India.
Here, a five-city tour stops at the Koe-

oin Field

Museum

Tours ona
voyage into
the sheltered

coastline of the North

ladeo Ghana Sanctuary in the city of
Bharatpur. And while the New Moon cross-
es the path of the sun, your surroundings
change dramatically. Singing birds become
quiet, the temperature drops, and sudden-
ly it seems someone has pierced a hole
through the stratosphere.

On a wonderful journey with Field
Museum Tours, this rare sighting is only
Day Five of a fifteen-day tour of central
India. You will travel from Delhi to Bharat-
pur to Agra and beyond. By train and

ONIAN INSTITUTION LIBRARIES

WML

Total
Solar
Eclipse

Bharatpur
Oct. 24

motorcoach, you'll see everything from
exquisite ancient architecture to Bengal
tigers at Ranthambhor National Park.

Join Dr. Alaka Wali as the Field Muse-
um curator on this eclectic tour of one of
India’s richest cultural areas. Dr. Wali, an
anthropologist, will share her knowledge of
cultures in India along with our local
guide, Mr. Vishnu Singh.

Cost for this trip will be $4,935,
including round-trip airfare from Chicago.

The Folklore and Natural Bees

Pacific. From Seattle to

é You'll visit Ketchikan and the Native village
of Alert Bay, where totems abound and ancient
afts are carefully preserved. With special permis-
sion of the National Park Service, cruise aboard
_ the Yorktown Clipper into Glacier Bay National

Park.

May 24 — June 3, 1995

Juneau, explore the histories of nature and
Native Americans.

shallow. draft allows Aes ee
tion into places such as Tracy Arm,

where ice calving into the water and mountain eae
areo ervable from on deck.

n optional extension to Denali National
une 8. Call for oS _

THE RUSSIAN WATERWAYS.
From Moscow to St. Petersburg -i- July 25 — Aug. 7, 1995

travel from the commercial city of Moscow for 12 days to the Russian cultural mecca of St. Peters-
A burg by way of the Russian Waterways. We'll stop at Zagorsk and visit three basilicas, enjoy sight-

seeing guided by our ship company, and learn about the areas with our own resident lecturer. All
along the rivers, we'll explore some of the most culturally rich parts of Russia. In St. Petersburg we'll
spend four days exploring the Pavlosk Palace, the theater of the Tsars in the Winter Palace, and a special
cultural performance at the private Yusupov Palace.

MSM! Cost of the excursion is $4,765, main deck, including Pune Ii air ide from Chicago.

OTHER FIELD MUSEUM TOURS IN 1995:

Alsace, France (September 16 — 24)
Cruising Through Provence (Sept. 19 — Oct. 1)

312/322-8862

il