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Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Volume 4, Number 1

Fall, 1974

RARE ANIMALS IN RESIDENCE IN CONCORD
AND CAMBRIDGE

You're not seeing double! This baby slow loris (a nocturnal primate found in India, Ceylon and south-east Asia who rarely
breeds in captivity) is not going to let go of mother no matter what! Undergraduate student Polly Parsons has constructed a
rope treadmill to measure the energy costs of langorously brachiating — loris-style.

Over the past year the Concord Field Station has
become a veritable menagerie. The animals, which
range from the exotic echidna (an egg-laying mammal
with a pouch) to the more humble domestic dog, are
taking part in a variety of studies including measure-
ment of the amount of energy used in moving and the
rate of oxygen consumption during exercise. For some
of these experiments, masks are tailor-made for the
animals. ‘‘We can make a mask for any head now,”
says Victoria Rowntree, research assistant to Profes-

sor C. R. Taylor, an experienced mask-maker for os-
triches, lions, hedgehogs, and monkeys.

The animals are comfortably housed in a new facil-
ity (made possible by the support of the Faculty of
Arts and Sciences) which allows them to stretch their
legs both indoors and out.

City-living in Cambridge is also enjoyed by some of
the animals who live in two specially-designed rooms
on the second floor of the MCZ Labs.

a. These galagos (also knownas bush babies) are relatives of
the lorises and come from Africa. Unlike the tail-less loris, they
have long bushy tails. Their hind legs are much longer than the
fore limbs, making them high jumpers. Dr. Taylor is measur-
ing how much energy it takes them to leap.

b. The fossil record, it has been claimed, shows that this
diminutive creature, the hyrax, is related to elephants and sea
cows. His temperament belies his gentle mien and thick gloves
are anecessity for the protection of the handler. During a rather
turbulent photography session, this animal escaped from his
box and is contemplating his next move.

c. Ludwig, the female rhea from South America, in full
bloom.

d. The echidna (or spiny ant-eater) is also called Tachyglos-
sus which means “sticky tongue’’. This primitive animal from
Australia has ingeniously adapted its long tongue to function
like fly-paper to trap the staple of its diet — termites.

e. These setifers, a rare insectivore from Madagascar, are
rarely seen in the United States. It is even rarer for them to be
born and bred in Concord. These babies have just opened their
eyes.

f. The European hedgehog in Vicky Rowntree’s gloves is
obviously feeling comfortable. If he weren’t, he’d roll up into a
ball of prickles.

g. Pam Chassin has her hands full with her fast-growing
charges. These lion cubs (here on loan) are getting rid of some
of their excess energy in constructive ways — by running on
the treadmill to provide data for Pam’s senior thesis.

h. These three month old baby ostriches are bound for Italy
to participate in studies using Professor Giovanni Cavagna’s
“force plate’. This instrument helps researchers analyze the
force generated in all three dimensions while an animal walks.

A portrait of the accommodating lizard, Anolis. This particular animal
belongs to an as yet unnamed species. (Drawing by Laszlo Meszoly)

Happy is the researcher who works on Anolis! This
genus of lizards, which abounds in the Caribbean and
South America, has become the ecological counter-
part of Drosophila, the fruit fly which has long been
the star performer for geneticists.

There are several factors which contribute to the
undeniable charm of Anolis. They are frequently very
abundant which facilitates collection of masses of data
— this in turn permits detailed analyses of behavior
and ecology not possible with other, less common
lizards. Moreover, they are extremely diversified.
Over 200 species have been named to date, and new
species are being discovered even now (two probable
new species were found this past summer). The
evolutionary and ecological diversification of this
genus is impressive. These lizards exhibit a variety of
adaptations: some live in cave entrances, others in
tree crowns, others on the trunks, others in bushes
and grass; they vary in size (leaving out the tail) from
an inch and a half to over 8 inches; most eat insects but
a few eat plants. They don’t fly, but there is little else
that they don’t do. (Some of them live on river banks
and take refuge under water when pursued.)

The fact that they are diurnal and visually oriented
is another obviously favorable attribute — all of their
interactions are visual, and these can easily be wit-
nessed. The hospitable climates that they inhabit also
add to the allures of studying Anolis. (But as the
photograph on the right shows, the vegetation is not
always as hospitable as the climate — nor are the
mosquitoes.)

Professor Ernest E. Williams, Curator of Herpetol-
ogy (Reptiles and Amphibians), sits at the center of a

network of researchers who, with the help of a gener-
ous grant from the National Science Foundation, are
radiating throughout the Caribbean and down into
South America trying to find out all there is to know
about Anolis.

The West Indies has always been the center of
Anolis operations. The animals are better known
there, and many of them are fantastically common.
Recently Hispaniola (Haiti plus the Dominican Re-
public) has been the point of greatest concentration. It
has several chains of high mountains, deserts and rain
forest — in fact, an extraordinarily diverse set of
habitats all occupied by Anolis, some generalized,
some specialized.

The widespread species in Hispaniola are all
known, but new local species are continually turning
up. Professor Williams and T. Preston Webster are
collaborating in describing two such local species,
one of which is the third member of a miniradiation
that is an example of speciation by chromosome dif-
ference. The other is a species recognizable in the field
by the color of the dewlap but otherwise extremely
similar externally to a common and widespread
species. This species is of interest because it is very
distinct biochemically.

Preston Webster is just finishing his thesis on one
group of Hispaniolan Anolis, combining field evi-
dence with biochemistry to establish species status,
occurrence of hybridization, etc.

Professor Williams, in addition to other tasks, such
as sorting out the species groups of West Indian and
South American anoles, is interested in species bor-
ders. One case of a moving species border is that of a

Curatorial Associate Patricia Haneline readies some
anoles to be sent out on loan.

Cuban Anolis that long ago invaded western Jamaica.
It is slowly moving eastward, as a survey last summer
demonstrated. Robert Holt is interested in this case as
well as the more general problem.

The Bahamas are another center of Anolis interest,
especially for Drs. Thomas and Amy Schoener. They
have been watching and marking the lizards of the
area for years. Last spring they spent two months ona
small boat studying the distribution of anoles and
other lizards on the little islands and islets that sur-
round the big islands of the Bahamas in an attempt to
test some current theories of island biogeography. It
turned out to be an often lonely and sometimes
dangerous business, but the data obtained made the
venture worthwhile.

In Panama Stanley Rand, formerly a graduate stu-
dent at the MCZ and now with the Smithsonian Trop-
ical Research Institute, is using direct observations
and films in a comparative analysis of anole display
behavior. He has at Balboa an outside orchid house in
which many species of anoles are living and breeding,
providing data that would not otherwise be available.

Dr. Robert Trivers has studied the mating behavior
of two Jamaican lizards which inhabit the same area
but differ greatly: one is a fast, aggressive and territo-
rial green giant; the other is gray, smaller, slow, and
non-aggressive.

Graduate student Kenneth Miyata and Junior Fel-
low Ross Kiester journeyed to an arid section of Ven-
ezuela and on a barren, windswept peninsula where
there are only thorn bushes and low herbs and grass
found 70 individuals of one species living in a three-
acre vegetational island. This proved a perfect natural
laboratory to study the ecology of a species that lives
alone, quite isolated from its relatives.

Graduate student Paul Hertz is particularly in-
terested in the systematics and ecology of a group of
small, secretive Hispaniolan anoles which live in
grass clumps (not surprisingly, they are nicknamed
“grass anoles’). Last summer he confirmed his pre-
diction that two closely related species coexist in
many localities — previously they had been thought
to occupy different habitats, one in wet areas and the
other in dry ones. He and Ray Huey found what they
believe to be a new species of grass anole on the
Barahona peninsula in the Dominican Republic;
Hertz is currently doing biochemical studies to de-
termine the status of these animals.

(Photo by Paul Hertz) ®%

Graduate student Ray Huey is examining tempera-
ture regulation and has studied a particular group
along an altitudinal gradient from the lowlands to the
mountain tops in Hispaniola. Since their body temp-
erature is not maintained by metabolism (as in mam-
mals), these lizards must behaviorally adapt to their
environment to survive. In the hot lowlands, they live
primarily in shaded habitats but montane popula-
tions live in open spaces and bask in the sun to absorb
sufficient heat.

A colony of lizards is now living in one of the
bunkers at the Concord Field Station. In the simulated
tropical climate of this underground home, their
locomotion is being studied by Dr. Jane Peterson. She
is particularly interested in learning what makes the
adhesive pads (the hallmark of the genus) on their feet
work.

In order to exchange information between all these
and a number of other researchers, a Second Anolis
Newsletter was issued last April. (There never was a
“First Newsletter’ as such but there was an annual
report to the National Science Foundation that was
used as an in-house information bulletin.) In his
“Editorial Notes and Comments”, Professor Williams
comments, “The Editor does not suppress some exul-
tation at the breadth of the coverage of one vertebrate
group that is here achieved. But he is happier still that
broad advance has been and continues to be one in
which the separate assaults on particular problems
turn out in fact to be mutually reinforcing.”

A natural result of all this activity is a steady stream
of new specimens to be added to the collections. For-
tunately, the entire herpetological collections are now
rebottled and realcoholed. The whole area is in the
process of being renovated, and additional space has
been allocated to allow expansion space for specimens
and work space for staff, students and visitors. Pa-
tricia Haneline has been appointed Curatorial As-
sociate in Herpetology and brings her experience at
the California Academy of Sciences to bear in her new
role.

Graduate student Ray Huey is dwarfed bY a cactus —a tree
Opuntia — in the Dominican Repub

ic last summer.

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NEW ROMER LIBRARY IS
OFFICIALLY OPENED

Alfred S. Romer’s wry wit and wisdom was recalled
through pithy quotes from his correspondence by his
wife, Ruth, at the ceremony on June 5 to officially
open the new Romer Library. Professor Romer’s ex-
traordinary collection of books and reprints on ver-
tebrate evolution will now continue to be an invalu-
able resource for students in the field.

Professor Farish A. Jenkins, Jr., Curator of Verte-
brate Paleontology, remarked that it was fitting that
Professor Romer’s old office, now graciously refur-
bished, would continue to serve as a meeting place for
students, staff, and visitors to the MCZ.

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The photo of Professor Romer in the field hangs behind (left to
right) Professor Farish A. Jenkins, Jr., Miss Nelda Wright (Pro-
fessor Romer’s research assistant for many years), Mrs. Ruth
Romer, and Professor A. W. Crompton, Director of the MCZ, at
the opening of the Alfred Sherwood Romer Library.

EL MUSEO PATTERSON,
ESTANZUELA, GUATEMALA

Professor Bryan Patterson was happily surprised
this summer when he found that the new fossil
museum in Estanzuela, Guatemala was to be named
in his honor. Serving as aconsultant with the Interna-
tional Executive Service Corps, Professor Patterson
spent two months during the summer of 1971 in Es-
tanzuela in response to a request from the Guatema-
lan Tourist Bureau (INGUAT). Reports had been
made to the Bureau of bones found in the area, and
INGUAT wanted to know if it would be worthwhile to
erect amuseum at the site. Professor Patterson and his
group found anearly complete Mastodon skeleton, the
skull of a large extinct Capybara (one of the largest
rodents that ever lived), and other finds that now

constitute part of the Museum’s permanent collection.
In fact, Estanzuela is built on an ancient flood plain
now rich with the fossilized remains of animals which
inhabited the area in the late Pleistocene, some 30,000
years ago. Ingeniero Roberto Woolfolk continued to
collect and prepare fossil finds in order to complete
the exhibits. President Kjell of Guatemala dedicated
the new Museum in June, 1974.

LARGEST TURTLE MAKES
BIGGEST NEWS

Ripley really hit on something with his Believe It or
Not. The MCZ’s biggest publicity ever has come from
finding and displaying the largest turtle carapace
(from Venezuela, 6 million years old) ever found.
From the Paris edition of the Herald Tribune to the
second-grade edition of My Weekly Reader to count-
less local papers, everyone (it seems) now knows that
they can see the world’s largest turtle if they visit the
MCZ.

Chief Preparator Arnold Lewis and six movers from Casey
and Hayes Moving Company maneuver the huge shell
into its exhibition spot in the Museum's Fossil Reptile
Hall.

MARINE-STYLE BABY BOOM

If you’ve spent any time on a Cape Cod beach,
you've doubtless seen these long white egg cases. If
you ve broken into one of the unopened discs, you’ve
probably discovered at least fifty little shells inside
that didn’t eat their way out on schedule. But you
probably haven’t seen where they came from before.
This picture by George Buckley shows a whelk shell
giving birth. George, who has been around the Mol-
lusk Department for the last twelve years and teaches
at Watertown High School, is the co-founder with
William Sargent of the Cape Cod Marine Science
Center in Pleasant Bay, Orleans where they are con-
ducting faunal and floral studies of one of the largest
local unpolluted bodies of water.

The MCZ Newsletter is published three times a year by the
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Ox-
ford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138; A. W.

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

PREHISTORIC PEST

If you had been camping
in Arkansas in the Eocene
(sixty million years ago)
you might have been bit-
ten by this tiny (less than
.7 mm long) midge. Per-
fectly preserved in amber,
this insect is part of an im-
portant new collection of
fossil insects, spiders, and
plants found and donated
to the MCZ by geologist
Royal H. Mapes and his
wife Gene who first dis-
covered the fossil-bearing
amber in 1971.

Professor Frank M. Car-
penter, Honorary Curator
of Fossil Insects, welcomes
this first opportunity to
learn about the insect
population of the southern
states in the Eocene. So far
it appears that there are
fewer different types as
compared with previous
finds from the northern
states of the Eocene.

Photo by F. M. Carpenter
(magnified 40 times)

DR. A. M. CHICKERING 1887-1974

Dr. A. M. Chickering, Research Associate in
Arachnology (spiders) from 1953 until 1971, died on
May 24, 1974 after a long illness. He earned a B.Ph.
from Yale University in 1913, a Master of Science
degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1916, and
a Ph.D. in 1927 from the University of Michigan. Dr.
Chickering began his long association with the
Museum in the summer of 1928 when he met Thomas
Barbour, later Director of the Museum, on a field trip
to Panama. Dr. Chickering’s contributions, most of
which have been published by the MCZ, include clas-
sifications of most of the spider fauna of Panama and
much of the West Indies.

Dr. Chickering was atireless collector, and the MCZ
collections have reaped the benefit of much of his
effort; he generously gave all of his specimens and
library to the Museum. He was especially helpful with
sorting the collections, identifying difficult speci-
mens, and giving advice to students. Since he left the
Museum in 1971, Dr. Chickering has been sorely
missed.

FROM THE
FIELD STATION

a. By William K. Newbury

The Estabrook Woods was aswarm with researchers
during the summer studying everything from beetles

to lichens to trees. The participants included faculty,
college and high school students, and a strong group
of amateurs, including one mother with her four-
month-old baby strapped to her back. It was exciting
to see how much was accomplished and how well the
new lab facilities worked. The drought caused our
only major problem. Dr. Andrew Spielman, who is
studying the spread of equine encephalitis, couldn’t
find enough mosquitos for his research! Our work
continues right into the fall with seventeen amateurs
live-trapping chipmunks as the first step in Dr.
Charles P. Lyman’s chipmunk hibernation study.

THE MCZ PUBLISHES AN IMPORTANT NEW
BOTANICAL GUIDE TO THE
CONCORD AREA

An unusual event in the history of the MCZ’s publication program
is being greeted with interested enthusiasm, not only by local
botanists but also by admirers of Thoreau, who figures prominently
in Richard J. Eaton’s A Flora of Concord. But the fact that a zoological
museum is publishing a botanical book is really not so far-fetched as
this comprehensive and readable handbook will be a valuable refer-
ence for workers at the MCZ’s Concord Field Station as well as the
many botanists that abound in this region.

Richard Eaton, past President of the New England Botanical Club,
has accumulated his store of knowledge in more than sixty years of
intermittent collecting in eastern Massachusetts. The publication of
his definitive work is along-awaited and eminently welcome event.

Richard J]. Eaton
(Photo by Barbara B. Paine)

“FRIEND”’-LY NEWS

Dr. James Mead’s talk to the Friends of the MCZ on
October 10 got the Fall Program off to an energetic
start. His slides and descriptions of the marine mam-
mals of Baja California not only whetted the appetites
of those Friends who will be traveling to see them in
person next January 28 but provided the rest of the
audience with detailed insights into the unusual life-
style of the gray whale and its neighbors. Two more
events, a lecture on November 7 and an evening of
films on December 5, will round out this program.

A series of special Saturday trips closer to home are
planned for the Spring. Among the possibilities cur-
rently contemplated are trips to Brewster, Cape Cod to
see the April alewife herring upstream migration, to
Connecticut to make castings of dinosaur footprints,
and to Concord for a walking tour of the Estabrook
Woods and a look at the animals at the Field Station.

“Friend’’-ly feelings are flourishing as more mem-
bers of the Harvard community and beyond are find-
ing out just who we are from a new brochure which
has been widely distributed. Herb Pratt, President,
extends a warm welcome to all the new Friends.

At the first Friends event of the Fall, (left to right), Herbert
Pratt, President, Dr. James G. Mead, Gabrielle Dundon, and Dr.
Theodore W. Pietsch (Ichthyology) chat before Dr. Mead's lec-
ture. Dr. Pietsch and Ms. Dundon will be accompanying the
Friends on the upcoming Baja expedition.

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