a” Ay MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

Harvard University y
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Volume 12, Number 2 ee i
Spring, 1983 aces

Friends of the MCZ to g0 to India in 1984

Young male grey langurs play-fighting at Mt. Abu epoca Py James Vgore

Jogi Mahal, a lake-side pavilion below the historic 10th-century Hindu fortress of
Ranthambhore.

The next major natural history
expedition planned for the Friends
of the MCZ is a visit to India’s
nature sanctuaries accompanied
by Dr. John D. Constable, found-
ing member of the Friends of the
MCZ (see p. 4), Professor Stephen
Jay Gould, widely known for his
writings on evolutionary biology,
and Gabrielle Dundon, Director of
Public Programs. The 24-day itin-
erary, leaving March 5, 1984, also
includes visits to Bombay, Delhi,
Jaipur, Agra (site of the Taj Mahal),
and Kathmandu. An optional four-
day extension to view Mt. Everest
is planned. A descriptive brochure
will be mailed to Friends of the
MCZ in May.

In conjunction with the India
expedition, an exhibition of pho-
tographs by graduate student
James Moore and John D. Con-
stable will be on display in the
MCZ Gallery in the fall. The
exhibit will cover a range of India’s
people and wildlife, focusing on
the langurs studied by Moore at
Mt. Abu (known to readers of
Sarah Blaffer Hardy’s The Langurs
of Abu) and Ranthambhore (a little-
known sanctuary with one of the
highest concentrations of tiger,
sambar, and chital in India).
Moore, who has spent several field
seasons conducting behavior stud-
ies on langurs, has been able to
make special arrangements for the
MCZ group to visit Ranthambhore.

The decision to go to India was
the result of two meetings of the
Friends Trip Committee whose
members include John D. Con-
stable, Gabrielle Dundon, Ros-
anne Kumins, Director James J.
(Continued on page 6)

OEB Director of
Administration
Appointed

Dr. Jay Taft was appointed Direc-

tor of Administration for the
Department of Organismic and
Evolutionary Biology (OEB) as of
January 1, 1983. This new depart-
ment and another, Cell and Devel-
opmental Biology, were formerly
separate wings of the Department
of Biology. OEB is composed of a
far-flung group of professors some
of whom work in the Biological
Laboratories while most are asso-
ciated with the various affiliated
institutions including the MCZ,
Arnold Arboretum, Gray and Far-
low Herbaria, Botanical Museum,
and the Harvard Forest in Peter-
sham, Massachusetts.

Taft, a biological oceanographer
from the Chesapeake Bay Institute
at Johns Hopkins University where
he studied phytoplankton growth
and nutrition, welcomes the chal-
lenges of his new position. He sees
his purpose as two-fold: “First, to
help establish a single identity for
this new department which is
made up of historically separate
sub-units; and second, to achieve
the best possible administration at
the least cost to all the units
involved. While the institutions
will maintain their separate iden-
tities within the department, con-
sistent with their endowments and
their longstanding scientific tradi-

tions, many aspects of their day-to-
day operations will be adminis-
tered by a single group of people.”
[his first phase of Taft’s work is

currently underway. He is already

combining the personnel and

graduate student administrative
functions under the new
Administrative Assistant for these
areas, Mary Reynolds (see next
article), and is now planning the
centralization of the budget,
accounting, and purchasing
aspects of the administration. Inte-
grating the building maintenance
functions will be the next area to
be tackled.

Taft’s ultimate objective is ‘’to
have a_ unified administrative
department in one place rather
than the seven locations we have
now. It takes me an hour just to say
‘good morning’ to everyone!”

Appointed OEB
Administrative
Assistant

7 Lai |

Mary Reynolds joined Admin-
istrative Director Jay Taft of the
new OEB Department as of March
1, 1983 when she was promoted to
Administrative Assistant for the
areas of personnel and graduate
affairs. Reynolds had been Admin-
istrative Secretary to MCZ Director
A. W. Crompton since 1977 and
continued to work in that capacity
for Professor James J. McCarthy
when he assumed the directorship
last July. Reynolds, who is enrolled
in the Radcliffe Seminar Land-
scape Design Program, maintains a
balance between pursuing her hor-
ticultural interests and juggling the
myriad duties of her new position.

Wisconsin Museum
Appoints Kirsch

John Kirsch, Associate Professor
of Biology and Associate Curator in
Mammalogy, will become Director
of the University of Wisconsin

Zoological Museum as of July 1.
Kirsch joined the MCZ staff in July,
1979 and has taught the Biology of
Mammals course, Introductory
Biology, a graduate seminar in
marsupial diversity, and several
tutorials. His two graduate stu-
dents, Elizabeth Procter-Grady
and Michelle Scott, are currently
completing their Australian field
work.

Under Kirsch’s curatorship, the
Mammal Department received an
historic collection of Vermont
mammals obtained over the span
of most of this century, starting in
1914. Known as the Kirk collection,
it includes apparently the earliest
Vermont record of a vole, Microtus
chrotorrhinus. | Under Kirsch’s
administration, the Mammal
Department staff has doubled and
the equipment necessary to com-
puterize the collection has been
acquired. A new type catalog will
be published within a year and the
valuable types have been rehoused
in new cases.

Kirsch looks forward to the chal-
lenges of his new position. He
foresees a significant expansion of
the Wisconsin museum’s facilities
and holdings. The museum, which
essentially constitutes the Wiscon-
sin state collections, already owns
one of the largest collections of
skeletons nationwide and he hopes
to add to this. Other notable hold-
ings include the Mossman collec-
tion of fetal membranes and a
series of preserved brains. Kirsch
will continue his teaching activi-
ties as an associate professor of the
University. His dog, Apple, is also
delighted with the move.

Photo by Rosamond W. Purcell

Staff Notices

With support of a Guggenheim
Foundation grant, Professor A. W.
Crompton will spend the next aca-
demic year completing several cur-
rent projects on the origin of
mammals with colleagues in
England and China. He will also
continue his collaboration with Dr.
Alan Thexton of Guy’s Hospital,
London on the control of move-
ment of the tongue. Crompton and
his wife plan to sail across the
Atlantic in mid-June aboard their
43-foot sloop and spend the next
two summers sailing in the Medi-
terranean. He will return in the
Fall to teach the first half of his
course with Professor C. R. Taylor,
Structure and Function of the
Vertebrates.

P. Humphrey Greenwood,
Senior Principal Scientific Officer
at the British Museum (Natural
History), is a Visiting Professor in
the Fish Department this spring.
He is sharing the teaching of Biol-
ogy 130: Biology of Fishes, and also
joining Professor Karel Liem and
students in a research project on
Arapaima, an airbreathing fish.

Professor Ruth D. Turner, Cura-
tor of Malacology, has just
returned from a six-week visit to
India at the invitation of the Indian
Government Forest Research Insti-
tute. She participated in the plan-
ning of a new center for research
on marine biodeterioration, which
will assess the damage caused by
woodboring molluscs and crusta-
ceans and recommend preventa-
tive measures. India’s fishing
industry is particularly affected
since the fishermen traditionally
use wooden fishing boats. The
annual loss to the woodboring
bivalves reaches literally millions
of rupees and the problem has
been further aggravated in recent
years because lumber has become
a scarce commodity in India.

Turner also traveled extensively
through the country revisiting
working sites she had established
during a 1965 visit, collecting spec-
imens to add to the MCZ collec-
tions, and lecturing at several
universities. She will return to
India in January, 1984.

MCZ Archivist
Branches Out

MCZ Library Archivist Ann
Blum has developed her specialty,
American 19th-century zoological
illustration, into an extremely
active second career. She is cur-
rently completing her book, Drawn
from Nature (to be published by
Pantheon Books in the fall of 1984),
which chronicles how changes in
the zoological illustrations of the
last century reflect changes in sci-
entific thought. Blum explains:
“Three 19th-century revolutions,
the industrial, the Darwinian, and
the photographic, bore directly on
zoological illustration. The book
has a natural plot in that illustra-
tion techniques reflect the two
halves of the century—pre- and
post-Darwinian theory and pre-
and post-photography.”

She recently served as guest
curator at the Peabody Museum of
Salem where her exhibition, also
entitled Drawn from Nature and
including notable examples from
the MCZ’s collection, continues
through the summer. She has also
been taking her topic on the road.
She has just returned from speak-
ing on Charles Willson Peale’s con-
viction of the unity of art and
science at a symposium at the
Amon Carter Museum of Western
Art in Fort Worth, Texas in con-
junction with a comprehensive
exhibition of the work of this early
American artist-naturalist. Shar-
ing the podium were Professor
John H. Ostrom from Yale and
Joseph Kastner, formerly nature
editor for Life magazine. The exhi-

bition, which has already been
shown at the Smithsonian Institu-
tion, will move to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art this summer. She
also recently talked on the relation-
ship of illustration and systematics
in the nineteenth century at the
Joint Atlantic Seminar on the His-
tory of Biology. Blum views the
increased current interest in zoo-
logical illustration as a reflection of
the renewed emphasis on systema-
tics in biological studies.

Blum’s personal evolution in her
field dates back to when former
MCZ Librarian Ruth E. Hill hired
her to catalog the archival holdings
because, according to Blum, ‘she
thought I would enjoy the job. I
knew nothing about the subject at
the time.’”” Blum says she fell in
love with the illustrations, and
took up drawing and print-mak-
inge int) 1976, Wirector Ac) VW.
Crompton asked her to mount an
exhibit from the collection and she
found herself looking for an
authoritative book on the subject,
which did not exist. The exhibition
led to an article for Harvard Maga-
zine, co-authored with Sarah Lan-
dry, which in turn led to several
offers for her to write the book that
she needed. Blum will be teaching
a course in the fall on the history
of scientific and technical illustra-
tion (and looks forward to adding
the physical sciences to her reper-
toire) in the Rhode Island School of

’ Design’s certificate program in sci-

entific and technical illustration.
This year-old program is_ co-
directed by Margaret L. Estey and
Whitney Powell, both of whom
launched their illustration teaching
professions at the MCZ.

Pileated woodpecker (1.) and Ivory-billed woodpecker (r.) drawn from life by Alex-
ander Wilson about 1810. The pen and watercolor drawing belongs to the MCZ.

John Constable place rey! Role at Vietnam

Symposium

Dr. John D. Constable, a found-
ing member of the Friends of the
MCZ, Associate Clinical Professor
at Harvard Medical School, Visit-
ing Surgeon at Massachusetts Gen-
eral Hospital, and a Director of
World Wildlife Fund-U.S., was
among the 126 Vietnamese and
American scientists who attended
the International Symposium on
Herbicides and Defoliants in War,
the Long Term Effects on Man and
Nature, in Ho Chi Minh City in
January.

Constable played a number of
roles both prior to and during the
symposium. Although primarily a
plastic surgeon specializing in
burns and reconstructive surgery,
he was also considered a forester
by the Vietnamese and was one of
eight scientists who were invited
to travel into the forests and man-
groves for the week before the con-
ference to assess the damage
caused by defoliants. Other Har-
vard forestry team members
included Professors Peter S. Ash-
ton, Director of the Arnold Arbor-
etum, and Mark Leighton,
Anthropology. Constable also
delivered the tribute to Dr. Ton
That Tung, the moving force
behind this year’s conference, who
died in May, 1982, and served as
rapporteur for his working group,
which considered the possible
effects of herbicides on human
reproduction.

Constable originally went to
Vietnam in 1970 as part of the Her-
bicide Assessment Commission of
the American Association for the
Advancement of Science under the
aegis of Professor Matthew S.
Meselson and returned in 1971 to
collect additional specimens. In
1978 he visited Dr. Ton That Tung
and took part in the planning for
the symposium. As Constable
noted in his tribute, Dr. Tung,
director of the Viet Duc Hospital
and head of the surgical faculty of
the Hanoi Medical College, was a
superb technical surgeon, a great

eres Fe
ae. ae 2 St =
John Constable (far left), Peer Ashton (third Gorn left), Mark Leighton (second
from right), and other American and Vietnamese scientists inspect a teak plan-

tation near Dalat.

hospital administrator, a_ great
teacher and “a _ philosophical
fighter for political and academic
freedom who showed in his life
how major a contribution one sin-
gle person can make toa cause...
His interest and enthusiasm in the
problem of herbicides make him
truly the father of this
Symposium.”

The symposium included
reports from eight working
groups, four concerned with the
ecological effects of the three major
chemical warfare agents (Agent
Orange, Agent White, and Agent
Blue) employed by the United
States during the mid to late 1960s,
and the other four concentrating
on the long-term human medical
consequences. In summarizing the
ecological findings, Constable
points out:

“There is probably no significant
long-term effect on the soil. We saw no
evidence of heavy erosion, even the
shifting land once covered by man-
groves, which were reduced by the
spraying to mudflats, did not appear
to have undergone abnormal changes
in their outline. The mangrove forests,
extremely important to Ho Chi Minh
City both as a fuel source and for piles
for building, are being effectively,
though laboriously, replanted by hand.
A valuable forest will be restored
within 20 years but it will be low in
plant species variety and deficient in

Photo by Pham-Hoang Ho

wildlife unless the latter is specifically
introduced. Agricultural land, except
for additional fish ponds created by
bomb craters, has largely recovered
over the past 10 years. Long-lived
trees, such as those in our fruit
orchards, do not play a significant part
in this tropical climate; the basic crop
trees such as bananas and papayas are
easily restored within 10 years. In
some areas, particularly in_ the
uplands, defoliation accelerated the
progressive clearing of the forest to
make way for agriculture that would
eventually have occurred in any case.

The effects on the valuable ever-
green forests depended upon the
extent or severity of the chemical treat-
ment. The effects of moderate spraying
were similar to those resulting from
heavy logging. Although all the large
trees are dead, their seedlings have
survived so that there should be a fair
recovery of the vegetation over many
decades. However, whether the birds
and particularly the animals restricted
to the high forest canopy will reappear
is problematical. However, in those
areas where defoliation exposure was
sufficiently severe to reduce the forest
to grass it seems unlikely to recover
unless active steps are taken to control
fires. During Vietnam’s dry season,
fires, whether natural or deliberately
started to produce better grazing
grass, occur with sufficient frequency
that any large forest cannot invade the
grassland and the fire in turn cannot
invade the evergreen forest. Defolia-

(Continued on page 6)

Mark Patterson Wins Best Paper Award

At the annual meeting of the
American Society of Zoologists
last December, fourth-year gradu-
ate student Mark Patterson

received the “Best Paper Award’
for graduate students and recent
Ph.D’s for his interdisciplinary
approach to evaluating the effi-
ciency of soft corals as filter
feeders.

Patterson utilizes biomechanical
and engineering techniques to
investigate the passive filter feed-
ing system of Alcyonium, a com-
mon Massachusetts soft coral.
While active filter feeders such as
sponges, mussels and clams have
cilia pumps with which they create
a current to attract plankton past
their filters, the passive filter feed-
ers are solely dependent not only
on what the currents bring their
way, but even on the existence of a
current. While feeding in active fil-
ter feeders has been thoroughly
studied for a century, only recently
have marine biologists taken a
quantitative approach to passive
feeders. In attempting to model

the system with computer simula-
tion, Patterson has to account for
the fact that the food source, plank-
ton, is not evenly distributed
throughout the water, but moves in
patches, traveling along rather like
a swarm of mosquitos. Patterson is
attempting to create a mathemati-
cal model showing how an animal
should react to these passing
patches of plankton.

Patterson explains the relatively
new application of biomechanics to
zoology in this way: ‘“Biomechan-
ics is a new, exciting field in biol-
ogy. It takes the analytical tools of
physics and the laboratory tech-
niques of engineering and applies
them to living things and how they
work.’” While this approach has
been used in medicine, where, for
example, the mechanical forces
exerted on a leg bone during walk-
ing are studied in order to make a
better artificial hip joint, analyzing
the fluid mechanics of how a coral
catches minute plankton on a reef
and how that affects the ecology of
the system is a recent innovation.

To measure flow speeds under-
water to ascertain the currents to
which the coral is subjected, Pat-
terson built a special underwater
flow-meter. The currents are con-
verted to an audio tone which is
recorded on a small tape recorder
which travels in an underwater
housing. Later the tape is tran-
scribed in the laboratory with the
aid of a micro computer. Labora-
tory feeding experiments take
place in a recirculating flow tank
which has been designed to pre-
cisely control the flow over the soft
coral colonies and to keep the same
volume of water passing over the

colony so plankton concentrations
can be monitored.

For his prize-winning talk Pat-
terson figured out how the filters
behave at different speeds and
why the capture of plankton varies
with flow speed. This is the first
time an attempt has been made to
quantify passive suspension feed-
ing, which is the modus operandi of
all coral reefs.

Patterson has now shifted his
attention away from whole colo-
nies and is concentrating on how
the individual filter elements, the
polyps, actually snatch plankton
out of the water. Patterson is cur-
rently developing course material
for an undergraduate tutorial enti-
tled ‘Biomechanics of Plants and
Animals” to be offered next year.
He is also Resident Tutor in Biology
at Kirkland House.

Patterson traces his interdiscipli-
nary activities to his undergradu-
ate years. In a physics course
taught by Professor Fred Aber-
nathy he was exposed to drag the-
ory (and incidentally designed a
rear-end for a Volkswagen) at the
same time as he was working as a
work-study student in Professor
Ken Sebens’ laboratory, making
clay models of coral colonies and
testing their drag rate in wind tun-
nels. This interest evolved into a
senior thesis which Patterson
wrote into an essay for the layman
which won a Bowdoin Prize in
1979 (Harvard prize for distin-
guished writing which has been
awarded annually since 1808). He
became interested in how living
organisms have evolved sophisti-
cated solutions to engineering

(Continued on page 6)

Two views of the same colony of the soft coral Alcyonium: (1), presenting a large surface area with its umbrella-like polyps
extended to passing plankton-rich currents, and (r), shrinking surface area during a high velocity flow caused by a storm.
Both photographs were taken at the same magnification.

- =

India
(Continued from page 1)

McCarthy, Charles Moore, Her-
bert Pratt, Sarah Robbins and
Emily Scott. The Committee thor-
oughly explored the history of the
travel program and formulated a
set of recommendations based on
the experience of the last two years
especially. It was decided to plan
one major unique expedition a year
to areas that are still rich in wildlife
and in general, not to repeat past
trips. For the foreseeable future,
1983 is the last year that cruises to
Baja California and the Galapagos
Islands, and safaris to Tanzania
will be offered. It was also decided
to give Friends the opportunity to
plan ahead to travel with the MCZ
by announcing prospective desti-
nations for a few years in advance.
The Committee decided that Israel
and Egypt, Borneo, and Sri Lanka
would be the next three areas to be
visited, probably in 1985, ’86 and
‘87, respectively. Some of our
Friends have expressed an interest
in Papua New Guinea but the
Committee thought that other
areas deserve priority. The MCZ
was a pioneer in developing local
whalewatching trips and these will
continue to be offered. This year’s
Bay of Fundy trip is already nearly
filled, two weeks after announce-
ment, and the Provincetown week-
end has a waiting list.

Constable
(Continued from page 4)

tion has therefore apparently created a
grass area large enough to be indefi-
nitely maintained by fires, i.e., a per-
manent man-made savannah.”

As for the conclusions of the
study groups on the human phys-
iological consequences of the defo-
liant spraying, the cancer group,
while recognizing the apparently
higher incidence of liver cancer,
also recognized that there are so
many other possible causes,
including hepatitis B, that no ill
effects could be directly attributed
to the herbicide. The difficulties
with any study conducted in South
Vietnam is that it is hard to know
for certain how much spraying a
particular area received, making it

FLOW TANK

HEXCELL FLOW STRAIGHTENERS

SAWHORSE SUPPORTS

Motor speed controlled by Bodine ASH 502
solid state speedcontroller, | % regulation

BODINE NSH 12
MOTOR

SAFETY STRAINER

All joints sealed withMortite

Volume of system. 95 Liters

<

QUICK DISCONNECT

10 CM

JOINT

The recirculating flow tank diagrammed here, created by Patterson in the
laboratory, allows flow speeds of almost a knot to be generated and permits close

observation of soft coral feeding activity.

Patterson
(Continued from page 5)

problems (sometimes serving as
models for human engineering

difficult to compare the medical
data from various villages in the
South. For this reason, of the seven
papers prepared by Vietnamese
scientists for the reproductive
epidemiology group, the one con-
sidered of greatest immediate sig-
nificance was a study carried out
in the North of the reproductive
history of 40,064 women, none of
whom had been directly exposed
to herbicides, all married to demo-
bilized soldiers. The research team
conducted interviews with each
woman noting normal births and
all the variations of unfavor-
able outcomes of pregnancy,
which Constable terms ‘‘reproduc-
tive misadventures.” A separate
research team determined whether
the husbands had served in the
North or South and assumed that
all who had served in the South
were exposed to herbicides. The
study showed that there was a sta-
tistically significant increase in the
chance of reproductive misadven-
tures for the women whose hus-
bands had served in the South.
The other six Vietnamese studies
were recognized as being not
entirely acceptable in their present
states for a variety of reasons, such
as failure to factor in age as a

designs as in the case of submarine
hulls imitating the shape of
whales) which led to his interest in
testing the efficiency of filter
feeders.

variable. As regards congenital
anomalies, the carefully-weighed
unanimous opinion of the working
group was:

. there are several studies appar-
ently indicative of a generally higher
rate of their frequency amongst
exposed women, but these changes are
often hard to prove beyond doubt.”

There was general agreement to
continue the studies to answer
some of the unresolved questions.
No specific date for a future sym-
posium was set.

New Books from
MCZ Authors

Stephen Jay Gould: Hen’s Teeth
and Horse’s Toes, W. W. Norton

Ernst Mayr: The Growth of Biolog-
ical Thought, Harvard University
Press

E. O. Wilson: Promethean Fire,
Harvard University Press

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

Cambridge,
Massachusetts 02138; James J.

McCarthy, Director.

Editor: Gabrielle Dundon
Photographer: A. H. Coleman

Cambridge Public School/MCZ

Partnership Successful

As the first year of her involve-
ment with this MCZ’s Cambridge
School Program nears the end,
Museum Educator Arlene Nichols
is gratified with the progress of the
program. She has found that, “this
unique combination of working
with students in the classroom and
then being able to draw on the
resources, staff, and volunteers of
the MCZ have enabled me to
develop thought-provoking activi-
ties that assist students in learning
and practicing science skills. For
example, after learning about
insects, the students had to answer
the questions: ‘What would the
impact be if this insect suddenly
appeared ten times its normal size?
How would this affect the citizens
of Cambridge? Knowing what you
do about their life cycles and food
requirements, what would hap-
pen?’” Nichols got some interest-
ing answers. One student specu-
lated that a June bug x _ 10,
attracted by lights and bounc-
ing against the window screen,
would break the screen. Another
answered that such an enlarged
June bug would be too heavy to fly
and would consequently starve.
And as for other insects, several
students projected that a mosquito
ten times its normal size would
cause widespread anemia.

Nichols has received willing
assistance from the various depart-
ments; in particular, the Herpetol-
ogy Department lent her enough
specimens of representative rep-
tiles and amphibia to enable the
children to examine them closely
and speculate as to the reasons
why scientists put certain ones in
the same phylum despite the great
differences in their outer appear-
ance. The Museum Guides have
also been a source of ready assis-
tance, joining parent volunteers in
leading small group activities dur-
ing museum visits.

The program, which is funded
partially by Harvard’s Office for
Government and Community
Affairs and by private and corpo-

rate contributions, currently serves
third, fourth, and some fifth grad-
ers at the Peabody and Agassiz
schools. Both Lee Miller and Kay
Cox, the Masters of these schools,
are eager to continue the program
next year and a Parents’ Advisory
Committee, chaired by Drs. F.
Ross and Lynda Holmstrom, is
actively soliciting funds to support
the program from the corporate
community. Cambridge’s new
Coordinator of Science Dr. J.
Arnold Webb is supportive of the
program as is the Cambridge Par-
ents’ Science Advisory Commit-
tee, who would like to see the
program become city-wide.

Director James J. McCarthy
strongly supports this public edu-
cation effort: ‘“We believe that we
can effectively assist the teachers of
these children by providing a stim-
ulating environment for the devel-
opment of basic science skills. We
start with a fundamental advan-
tage: most children are truly fasci-
nated by the exhibits of the
museum. In the context of these
resources we help young minds
discover the basic principles of sci-
ence by emphasizing the need for
accurate observation, proper cate-
gorization, objective evaluation,
and ultimately, both generalization
and prediction.... Of greatest
significance, though, is the oppor-
tunity we have to stimulate these
children to see the need to under-
stand the fundamentals of science
regardless of the types of careers
that may ultimately attract them.”

Arlene Nichols, Museum Educator, makes a point during a visit by the Peabody
School’s third grade class. Ed Rader, free lance writer, takes part in the class to
gather material for an article which appeared in the Cambridge Chronicle, April
28, 1983.

Fossil Slide Set
and Lab Manual
to be Published

[he Invertebrate Paleontology
Department is currently preparing
2 new teaching tool for students at
the many institutions across the
country that do not have compre-
hensive collections of invertebrate
fossils. A 250-slide set including
representatives of all the major
groups for W hich fossils are known
have been photographed _ by
Michael Spampinato and will be
distributed by W. H. Freeman and
Company. A laboratory manual,
edited by post-graduate student
Tony Arnold including an intro-
duction by Professor Stephen Jay
Gould and chapters by Dr. Peter
Williamson and graduate students
Charles Mitchell, Warren Allmon,
Judy De Forest, Dana Geary,
Rebecca German, Rob Dorit, and
Norman Gilinsky, will accompany
the slide set. Such a cooperative
venture by an entire department is
a first for the MCZ.

[The MCZ’s invertebrate paleon-
tology collection is the fifth largest
in the United States. The fossils are
stored in ¥3 of a million lots (card-
board boxes of various sizes)
which occupy 15,700 drawers,
measuring 18” by 28”, on the first
floor of the MCZ. Specimens were
chosen for the slide set either for
their historic significance or their
outstanding quality.

emmonsl, 1 middle

Glass coelenterates (1. to r.) Pelagia noctiluca, Rhizostoma pulmo Agassiz,
Crambessa togi

Leptodus sp. a Permian brachiopod from the Glass Mtns. of Texas

;=

ft Lv
*

-la
Aarvarg Universins Muse
[154 Nezn
Jan 14, 20]

Ogy
um * Comparatiy. ~00log
e "Slette,.) 2214