Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Volume 12, Number 1

Fall, 1982

and the white ‘‘chin’’.

The first Friends of the MCZ trip
(August 29—September 4) to see
right whales (so called because they
were the “right” whales to kill in
the days of New England whaling)
in the Bay of Fundy was a spectac-
ular success. In three days on the
water, guided by whale expert Scott
Kraus, 17 to 19 right whales were
sighted, a sizeable percentage of the

Right whale calf posturing and demonstrating its remarkable flexibility. Note the facial collosities which are present at birth

remaining population in the north
Atlantic, estimated at around 200,
including three mother/calf pairs
and two courtship groups. Several
of these acrobatic whales came close
enough to the boat to allow the 14
participants to view them from all
sides. The group also saw finback
whales, harbor porpoise, and har-
bor seals, and 49 species of birds
including a feeding frenzy of thou-

Photo by Dotte Larsen

sands of northern phalarope. The
two land days included visits to the
Roosevelt cottage on Campobello
Island, peat bogs, berry patches,
and a Lubec sardine canning fac-
tory. With a few refinements based
on this year’s first experience, this
trip will undoubtedly become one
of the MCZ’s most popular annual
offerings.

Marjorie
Sturm Retires

Marjorie Sturm surrounded by three
MCZ directors, (1. tor.) A. W. Cromp-
ton, James J]. McCarthy, and Ernst
Mayr at the farewell party in the Har-
vard Faculty Club on October 22.

Marjorie Sturm, Administrative
Officer of the MCZ, retired on
October 31 after more than 22 years
of dedicated service. As chief
administrator to three directors,
Alfred S. Romer, Ernst Mayr, and
A. W. Crompton (and a brief asso-
ciation with current director James
J. McCarthy), she played a central
role during a period of dramatic
growth for the MCZ. The acquisi-
tion of the Concord Field Station,
the building of the laboratory wing,
the growth of the MCZ population
from about 60 in 1960 to over 150
in 1982, and the growth of the
annual budget from $400,000 in
1960 to close to $3,000,000 in 1982
resulted in ever-increasing admin-
istrative challenges. Fortunately for
the MCZ, Marjorie Sturm, with her
solid judgement and sense of
humor, was there to meet them.

In her remarks at a farewell party
in her honor, Marjorie Sturm
pointed out that “this is an early
retirement. I am not as old as Ronny
Reagan—I just want to start col-
lecting Social Security before he
tells me I don’t need it.” Former
director A. W. Crompton captured
the prevailing mood by observing:
“The MCZ will somehow survive
without her, but it will certainly
never be the same.”

Marjorie Sturm is moving to
Cape Cod and looks forward to
being able finally to devote more
attention to her much-neglected
golf game

Frank M. Carpenter at 80

For Frank M. Carpenter, Fisher
Professor of Zoology emeritus,
Alexander Agassiz Professor of
Zoology emeritus, and Honorary
Curator of Fossil Insects, his 80th
birthday was a gala celebration.
Surrounded by 16 of his 31 living
graduate students, who had trav-
eled from as far away as New Zea-
land to be present, he had the honor
of having the year’s first meeting
of the Cambridge Entomological
Club dedicated to him. Professor
Thomas Eisner of Cornell, an out-
standing Carpenter graduate stu-
dent, spoke on Exploration and
Diversity in Nature.

‘Frank Carpenter's achievement
is historically unique,” according

to Edward O. Wilson, Curator of
Entomology. ‘We will probably not
see, at least in the foreseeable

future, such a period of expansion
in American evolutionary biology
during which one person will be
able to train so many Ph.D.’s, place
them so well, and have such a far-
reaching impact on a subject, in this
case, entomology.”

Carpenter’s retirement ten years
ago affected only his teaching and
committee activities. His research
and collection improvement efforts
have continued unabated. Due to
his energetic dedication, the MCZ’s
fossil insect collection is the second
largest in the world, exceeded only
by a collection in the Soviet Union.

The establishment of ‘The Frank
Morton Carpenter Fund in
Paleoentomology” to continue the
curatorial work was announced on
the occasion of his 80th birthday.

The assembled students with their professor at the Frank M. Carpenter celebration
at the Faculty Club on October 12, 1982. The year of the award of the Ph.D. degree
is given. First row (1. to r.) Thomas Eisner ‘55; William L. Brown, Jr. ‘50; Frank
Morton Carpenter; Richard ]. Goss ’52; Edward O. Wilson ‘55. Middle row (I.
to r., shoulder to shoulder) Beverly A. Holloway '59; Fung-Ying Cheng ‘52;
Charles Porter ‘67; Carl F. Moxey ‘73; Stewart Peck ‘71; Guy L. Bush '64. Back
row (I. to r.): Alfred F. Newton '73; Lee A. Miller ’69; Graham B. Fairchild '42;
Philip Adams '58; Charles L. Remington ‘48; Charles S. Henry ‘73.

Romer Hall Fundraising
Nearing Goal

Now well into the second year
of work, the Romer Hall of Verte-
brate Paleontology is taking shape.
The completion of the project is
anticipated by the end of June, 1983.
Due to unexpected savings in cost
of materials, the total budget will
be $70,000. With the generous sup-
port of many Friends of the MCZ,
$60,000 has been raised to date. A
final push to raise the remaining
$10,000 will take place in the next
few months. If you have been
planning to contribute to this
worthwhile project, there is still
time! Checks should be made pay-
able to the Museum of Comparative
Zoology and mailed to Friends of
the MCZ, Museum of Comparative
Zoology, Harvard University,
Cambridge MA 02138 with a note
designating the contribution for the
Romer Hall.

Harvard Museums
Exhibit at Museums Fair

As part of the kick-off for the
Museums of Boston (also known as
“The Mob’) October is Museum
Goers Month campaign, the sev-
en Harvard museums, including
the MCZ, Botanical, Mineralogical
and Geological, Peabody, Semitic,
Busch-Reisinger, and Fogg Art
Museums, took part ina three-day
fair at Boston’s Faneuil Hall Mar-
ketplace. United for the first time
in an attractive collage-style exhibit
designed by Edward Haack of
the MCZ Exhibit Department,
the Harvard contributions also
included demonstrations by staff
members on fossils and minerals
and an appearance by the Univer-
sity pep band which attracted much
attention from the Quincy Market
lunch crowd. This first joint effort
of the seven Harvard museums also
resulted in the publication of a
combined brochure which will be
helpful in clearing up the confusion
surrounding the identity and loca-
tion of the various museums for
tourists—and many residents as
well.

Director to Serve on
Cambridge Science

Advisory Board.

James J. McCarthy, MCZ Direc-
tor, has accepted an invitation to
serve on the Science Advisory
Board of the Cambridge Public
Schools. A strong advocate of
museum involvement in public
education, McCarthy welcomes
the opportunity to participate in
Cambridge’s science curriculum
planning.

Children’s Programs

A new series of Saturday morn-
ing (9 to 11 year olds) and Wednes-
day afternoon (6 to 8 year olds)
children’s programs _ entitled
“Skeletons in our Closet” is cur-
rently being taught by Anndy
Dannenburg Rosen, educator and
biologist. New programs on Animal
Defenses: ‘The Best Defense is a
Good Offense’, and Mammals:
“Aardvarks to Zebras’ will be
offered in January and February.
Call Dale Seecof Pastor at 495-2341
for more information.

Library Receives

Preservation Grant

An MCZ Library project to
organize and microfilm Agassiz
materials and correspondence has
been funded from a University
Library grant awarded by the
Strengthening Research Libraries
Resources Program of the U.S.
Department of Education. The
award of $9,500 will provide for the
microfilming of materials stored in
the MCZ Library Archives and
selected materials now on deposit
in Houghton Library, Harvard’s
Collection of Rare Books and
Archives. The project will be com-
pleted by the end of June, 1983.

The MCZ Newsletter is published two
or three times a year by the Museum of
Comparative Zoology, Harvard Unt-
versity, Oxford Street, Cambridge,

Massachusetts 02138;
McCarthy, Director.

Editor: Gabrielle Dundon
Photographer: A. H. Coleman

James J.

Public School Science

Partnership Formed

The MCZ is providing a natural
sciences program for two _ local
Cambridge schools this year. Stu-
dents in the third and fourth grades
at the Peabody School and the third,
and combined fourth and fifth
grades at the Agassiz School are
studying a comprehensive curric-
ulum, both at their schools and at
the MCZ. Arlene Nichols has joined
the Public Programs staff to teach
this program. An _ experienced
teacher who formerly taught at
Elbanobscot and in a Water, Air,
Land, and Solar Energy Project
(Title VI-C), she is the author of an
environmental science curriculum
for urban students.

Both the MCZ and Cambridge
Assistant Superintendent Richard
Woodward hope to expand this
program to reach other Cambridge
Schools next year. The program was
made possible in part by a donation
from Harvard’s Office of Govern-
ment and Community Affairs and
by contributions from the Cabot
Family Charitable Trust and the
Cambridge Trust Company.

Museum Guide Program

Marion Carey of the Boston
Children’s Museum is conducting

. this fall’s training program for 15

new museum guides. A natural
history specialist and experienced
teacher, Carey is also providing
resource materials for a new pro-
gram on volcanoes in conjunction
with the current Mt. St. Helens
exhibit in the Geological Museum.

MCZ Library Open
Evenings

Starting this fall, the MCZ
Library is open until 10:00 PM on
Tuesdays and Thursdays to mem-
bers of the Harvard community.
These new evening hours were
made possible for the 1982-83 aca-
demic year by a gift from Visiting
Committee member David Arnold.
At the Spring, 1982 meeting of the
committee, he was impressed with
the case made by graduate students
for greater access to the library.

Two Memorable Tanzania Safaris

A solitary male wildebeest waits on his territory for the females to appear. Proximity
to a shade tree often proves to be an irresistible enticement.

lebeest and zebra as far as the eye can see at the height of the annual wildebeest
he Serengeti

Prepared for rugged conditions,
the Friends of the MCZ’s first
“roughing it’ adventures this
summer in Tanzania proved to be
comfortable. The two
groups, the first accompanied by
Emily Hubbs Scott and the second

surprisingly

Photos by Sally Davidson

by Gabrielle Dundon, found that
the truck had upholstered seats, the
food was plentiful and delicious,
and everyone quickly became adept
at putting up and taking down a
tent in varying conditions. The
rewards exceeded all expectations.

The daily sightings of large num-
bers of African game with ample
time to stop and observe social
behavior, accompanied by animated
narration by scientific guide Dr.
Richard Estes, soon became a
pleasant routine. Interspersed were
moments of high drama such as
when a martial eagle swooped
down and plucked a Thompson’s
gazelle calf, the ensuing battle
between eagle and mother, and the
happy ending of calf and mother
trotting off together being watched
by the eagle, now perched in a dead
tree. Naturally, no one had their
camera ready to record this unex-
pected sequence. Another heart-
stopping moment took place for the
second group in Ngorongoro Cra-
ter, when a female rhinoceros who
looked ready to give birth (although
it is difficult to be sure given their
naturally rotund contours) threat-
ened to charge the truck. This time
all cameras were ready and many
identical rhino portraits were
viewed at the reunion. The annual
wildebeest rut was in full swing
when the second group arrived and
the sheer numbers and the all-per-
vasive “big hum’’—the reverbera-
tions and harmonics resulting in
the cumulative constant sound
produced by hundreds of thou-
sands of wildebeest—left an incre-
dible impression on the group.

Two Tanzania safaris are planned
for 1983 based on this year’s superb
experience.

Mammal and Fish
Courses for Adults
to be Offered

A repeat of Curatorial Associate
Karsten E. Hartel’s course on fish
identification will be offered in
January and a new course on
mammals of the world by Curatorial
Associate Maria E. Rutzmoser will
be introduced in March. Both these
courses will take place on one eve-
ning a week for nine weeks. For
more information, call the Public
Programs office at 495-2463.

Second China Field Season Planned =

Dr. James D. Lazell, Jr., Associate
in Herpetology, conducted two field
expeditions to tropical China this
year, the culmination of eight years
of negotiation and planning. The
1982 expeditions resulted in a
highly promising beginning of a
new active exchange of specimens
and publications with Chinese
colleagues, unprecedented since
before World War II, including 40
species of herps not previously
represented in the MCZ collections.
Information on China’s relatively
unknown insect and spider fauna
was also gathered.

Tropical burrowing frog, Kalophrynus
pleurostigina

Plans for the 1983 season include
three three-week trips in April,
May, and June with such specific
goals as: to investigate the status
of rare, endangered, and little-
known species; to begin mark-and-
recapture studies of mammals,
reptiles, and amphibians; to begin
line transect bird censuses and
potential nesting censuses; and to
continue to document invertebrate
species.

The April and May teams will
return to the 1982 sites, spending
one week at the Dinghuson Man
and Biosphere Reserve and about
two weeks on Hainan Island.
Dinghuson is a well-documented
tropical moist forest reserve with
about 200 known bird species and
such notable mammals as leopard,
serow, pangolin, and palm civet.
On Hainan Island the team will visit
forest reserves for macaques, Eld’s
deer, black-faced gibbon, and birds.

ia

Cea
hee

Drawing by R. Gowen Tiffney

Giant salamander from China, discovered by Pere Armand David, which reaches
a length of about 3 feet. This is by far the largest living amphibian.

Li River, near Yangsuo

There is a good possibility of find-
ing sea-snakes, crab-eating mon-
gooses, and such remarkable birds
as the magnificent night heron.
The June team will explore new
territory in the Xi Shuang Banna
Forest Reserve in the Mekong River
drainage for Yunnan. Members will
spend several days at Kummon,
Yunnan’s capital, and the small
town of Siyii in the far southwest.

Photos by J. Lund

Opportunities exist to participate
in these field projects. Friends of
the MCZ who are interested in
joining the research teams will pay
the same tax-deductible share-of-
costs as other team members; how-
ever, $100 of the total will be a con-
tribution to the MCZ. For detailed
information and a _ registration
form, call Gabrielle Dundon at
495-2463.

Visitors
7 ear

Montserrat Aguadé

Montserrat Aguadé, Associate
Professor of Genetics at the Uni-
versity of Barcelona, has spent the
last eight months working with
Marty Kreitman of the Population
Genetics Department. She has been
learning DNA sequencing tech-
niques which she will bring back
to her group in Barcelona. She has
also been compiling a genomic
library for the European species of
the common fruit fly, Drosophila
subobscura, to be used to screen for
different genes.

Andrew Pomiankowski

Andrew Pomiankowski of Oxford
University is spending the year in
the MCZ’s Population Genetics lab
with the aid of a Kennedy Fellow-
ship. As one of a dozen annual
recipients of this award from the
Kennedy Foundation of England,
Pomiankowski is using the oppor-
tunity to study the history of biol-
ogy with Professors David Kohn of
the History of Science Department
and Richard Lewontin of the MCZ.

' a [ ; '

Malcolm Kottler

Now that some of the furor over
creationism has died down, Mal-
colm Kottler is returning to his main
interest, the history of evolutionary
biology and genetics. Kottler, who
is Associate Professor of the History
of Science and Technology in the
Bell Museum of Natural History at
the University of Minnesota, orga-
nized a symposium on “Creation-
ism and its Challenge’ for the
History of Science Society this year
and delivered a major paper on the
treatment of evolution in high
school biology textbooks from 1920
to 1982.

As a Visiting Scholar at the MCZ
this year, Kottler plans to conduct
extensive taped interviews with
Ernst Mayr, his MCZ sponsor. This
will be the first oral history project
with Ernst Mayr, whose contribu-
tions over his 60-year career con-
stitute a major chapter in modern
evolutionary thought. The conver-
sations will focus on the origin, later
development, and current status of
the ‘“evolutionary synthesis.”

Kottler, who devotes as much
time to following current devel-
opments in biology and talking to
biologists as he does to studying the
history of biology, says he would
not have come to Harvard this year
if he could not be in the MCZ. The
museum setting is an essential
stimulus to his work, and he is par-
ticularly pleased to be surrounded
by the insect collections in his
fourth-floor office since one of his
interests is the history of the mim-
icry theory.

Richard Krejsa

For Richard Krejsa, the MCZ is a
haven. Reimmersing himself in his
specialty, vertebrate skin, after
eight years in the forefront of envi-
ronmental politics in California, he
is spending his first sabbatical in
14 years from California Polytechnic
State University in San Luis Obispo
in the MCZ’s Fish Department this
year. His first task is to rewrite his
chapter on skin for the fourth edi-
tion of Hyman’s Comparative Verte-
brate Anatomy, edited by Marvalee
H. Wake. He is auditing classes,
both to review general biology and
to observe teaching techniques,
spending many hours in the MCZ
Library, and he anticipates giving
several seminars on fish skin and
scale development before the end
of his stay in the MCZ’s Fish
Department this year.

Krejsa has been the leading
political opponent of the Diablo
Canyon Nuclear Power Plant proj-
ect, beginning his opposition in
1973 and leading to an influential
role in California governor Jerry
Brown's public stand against the
nuclear plant in 1980. He resigned
from his elected office as Supervisor
(the California equivalent to County
Commissioner), Fifth District, San
Luis Obispo County in 1980, an
office he had held for almost eight
years, for health reasons and has
returned to full-time academic
activities as Professor of Biological
Sciences.

Marjorie Reaka

Marjorie Reaka, Associate Pro-
fessor of Zoology at the University
of Maryland, is paying a repeat visit
to the MCZ this year as a Visiting
Scholar sponsored by Edward O.
Wilson. After receiving her Ph.D.
at the University of California,
Berkeley, she spent a productive
postdoctoral year here in 1975, is
delighted to be back, and looks for-
ward to giving seminars during her
stay.

Reaka is using stomatopod crus-
taceans, commonly known as
“mantis shrimps’’ because they
resemble preying mantids, as her
research animals not only because
they are intrinsically fascinating
animals but also because they are
ideal subjects for the examination
of important behavioral, ecological,
and evolutionary questions. Her
current field study site is in St.
Croix, where mantis shrimps live
in natural coral cavities and are

limited to two or three inches in
length by the sizes of the holes in
their coral habitats. Sand and mud-
dwelling mantis shrimps excavate
their own burrows and grow to
lengths of a foot or more in their
less restrictive surroundings.
These shrimp are spectacular
fighters, armed with heavy ham-
mer-like claws that are spread in
colorful displays and can easily
break through the thick glass used
for laboratory flasks, the hard shell
of a mollusk, or the skeleton of
another mantis shrimp. The
armored tail is rolled up in front of
the animal as two combatants whirl,
coil, and trade blows. Reaka is
interested in the role that these
aggressive species play in coral reef

stab

attaches to body smash

The hammering raptorial appendage.
The hammer (note the stabbing tip and
calcified, smashing base) is open here
(as in combat or feeding), but is normally
folded back against the part that attaches
to the body of the shrimp.

communities. Using saturation
diving techniques (which involve
aquanauts living in an underwater
habitat for a week, whereupon their
blood becomes saturated with
nitrogen and they are able to make
much longer diving excursions than

Mantis shrimp; the raptorial claw is folded close to the body.

normal because they do not need
to come to the surface), Reaka has
been able to show that the intense
fighting behavior of these shrimps
is linked to the shortage of space
in the reef. Field experiments dem-
onstrate that food does not limit
these reef species and that, contrary
to theory, a single resource, space,
limits many different species with
broadly overlapping niche require-
ments.

Reaka is also interested in isolat-
ing the factors which affect rates
of evolutionary change, includ-
ing morphological change within
lineages and species diversification.
A number of variables, including
habitat type, (reefs vs. mud or sand
bottoms, for example), competition,
complexity of social behavior,
depth, temperature, latitude, body
size, and dispersal have all been
implicated in altering rates of evo-
lution. However, the only factors
that significantly affect evolution in
stomatopods are body size and lar-
val dispersal ability. Reaka can
show statistically that small species
with restricted dispersal potential
are much more likely to be endemic
to a local region and are much more
likely to undergo major evolution-
ary shifts in structure and habitat
than large species with the potential
for long distance dispersal.

.Ant Larva Collection

Donated to Insect
Department

The gift by Professor George C.
Wheeler and his wife, Dr. Jeannette
Wheeler of their ant larva collection
is an important addition to the
MCZ’s insect collections. According
to Curator Edward O. Wilson: “The
collection is by a wide margin the
most complete of its kind in the
world, has been the basis of the
Wheelers’ lifelong study of anatomy
and classification, and should con-
tinue to serve as an invaluable
resource for future research.’’ The
collection has been placed in the
William C. Wheeler Room (no
blood relation) together with a
nearly complete set of Professor
Wheeler’s published papers for the
use of visiting specialists.

N

: S
SS . S *

Close-up of the jaw with a ae for Bile Photo by A. H. Coleman

This plaster jacket contains the skull
and jaw of one of the as-yet-unnamed, é
newly discovered ‘‘triconodont” mam- SP j
mals. The unusual viewing hole was ,
for those who could not wait to get back
to the lab to feast their eyes on the prize

aw.

Vertebrate

Paleontology
Field Team Phy
Triumphs oe En voute.te YARDS ERE unusually late snows severely hampered fossil

collecting.

This year’s field season was the
most successful to date in the
Vertebrate Paleontology Depart-
ment’s continuing search for
early mammal remains. Farish
Jenkins, Charles Schaff, and Robert
O’Hara of the MCZ and Will Downs
and Scott Madsen of the Museum
of Northern Arizona added five
complete jaws, two partial skulls,
and some postcranial bones to the
first partial, three-toothed jaw that
was last year’s spectacular find.
These expeditions are funded by
the National Geographic Society.

2s ge Despire

° A Hine fly was needed to enable workers to pick up rocks without burning thei
Ha rdships fingers in the 110-degree heat in this site on northeastern Arizona Navajo Indian

land. Photos by Charles Schaff

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