MCZ newsletter

Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Volume 16, Number 2
Spring, 1986

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Check-list of Birds of the World Completed

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Raymond A. Paynter, Jr., (1.) and G. William Cottrell, two of the editors of the
recently-completed Check-list of the Birds of the World.

MCZ to Celebrate Harvard’s 350th
Anniversary with Birds-In-Art Exhibit

Preparations are currently under-
way to renovate one of the MCZ’s
exhibit halls and create a new display
area for changing exhibits. To inau-
gurate the transformed gallery, a
special exhibit titled Birds-In-Art,
featuring paintings by John James
Audubon, James Coe, Alexander
Wilson, and Julie Zickefoose, and
sculptures by Charles G. Chase,
Robert Braunfield, and Beverly
Benson Seamans will be on display
from September 4 to September 26,
1986. An exhibition of bird photo-
graphs, winners of a contest orga-
nized by Emily Hubbs Scott, Chair
of the Advisory Board to the MCZ’s
Public Programs, will also be on
display and will continue through
November.

The gala opening reception will
take place on Thursday, September

4 as part of the festivities marking
Harvard’s 350th anniversary.

Bonaparte’s Gulls, bronze sculpture by
Beverly B. Seamans

Drawing by Laszlo Meszoly

newsletter

MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

With the publication Volume XI,
the final volume of the 15-volume
Check-list of Birds of the World, the
longest such MCZ project has come
to a gratifying conclusion. “I feel like
I got rid of the millstone or alba-
tross—the reader can choose
which—around my neck,”’ is the
reaction of Professor Emeritus Ernst
Mayr who has been involved with the
project since 1931 when James L.
Peters enlisted his help. Peters, who
had joined the MCZ’s curatorial staff
in 1924, decided to enlarge on his
assignment of creating a card cata-
logue for all the birds in the collec-
tions. Thomas Barbour, who was
Director at the time, encouraged
Peters to embark ona revision of the
existing Hand-list, published by the
British Museum’s curator R. Bowdler
Sharpe from 1899-1912.

The undertaking of the project was
inspired by ornithology’s boom
period. From the turn of the century
until World War II the MCZ’s bird
holdings grew from a modest col-
lection to a comprehensive global
representation. World-wide there
was a burst of new taxonomic infor-
mation about birds rendering
Sharpe’s Hand-list hopelessly out-

- dated. Even more important was a

drastic change in the species con-
cept. Sharpe called every distinct
population a species, while Peters
adopted a more modern concept in
which geographic races (subspecies)
were combined into broad polytypic
species. Peters had completed the
first seven volumes by the time of his
death in 1952.

The ambitious project was taken
over by Mayr, who came to MCZ in
1953, and James L. Greenway, until
his departure from the MCZ in 1960.
Raymond A. Paynter, Jr., now Cura-
tor of Birds, took over Greenway’s
duties upon the latter’s departure. In

(Continued on page 7)

Patterns of a Life in Science: Herbert W. Levi

by Hilary Hopkins

Six years ago, when I began to read
avidly in science (the result of a
journey to East Africa, but that’s
another story), it was not long before
I discovered that at least as entranc-
ing as the science itself were the lives
of the people doing the science. Iam
a teacher of gifted children, and I
became curious about the threads of
science that so often appeared to spin
out from the earliest experiences of
scientists. I was interested to notice
that passion for science, like that for
music and mathematics, seemed to
flow out of the childhoods of those
who follow these callings in
adulthood.

Herbert W. Levi

While investigating patterns of
lives in science, I had the pleasure of
speaking with Herbert W. Levi,
Alexander Agassiz Professor of
Zoology and Curator in Arachnology
at the MCZ, whose specialty is
spiders.

I met Professor Leviand his wife,
Lorna Levi, one bright snowy Sat-
urday morning at their home in the
woods of Pepperell. We stopped on
the front steps to admire the birds
who sang songs among the trees.
Inside, my sense of welcome in the
coziness of a low-ceilinged living-
room was deepened by the sweet
scent of herbal tea and fresh-baked
pastry.

Hilary Hopkins, a Friend of the MCZ
since 1981, is a science enthusiast and
educational consultant specializing in
gifted children. This article is the first
of two she has prepared for the MCZ

Newsletter.

As we ate, Professor Levi spoke
about the deepest joy of his child-
hood in Germany. ‘“My grandpar-
ents bought a house in the country,
and I spent all my happy days in
childhood at the country house, all
the summers, the weekends .. .
I wasn’t happy living in the city, and
going to that house of my grandpar-
ents and just wandering around in
the woods sort of channeled me in
the direction of natural history.”

Looking around at the plant-filled
room and into the woods close
beyond, I felt somehow that here was
that same country house.

Professor Levi related one long-
ago country house memory with an
amused smile. ‘I remember one
thing that bothers me still. At our
country house there was a distant
relative visiting about my age, who
asked me, ‘You don’t know the bird
songs?’ How embarassed I was at the
time. But now I can recognize them!”
He added, ‘But I have some trouble
at present with the European
finches.

“It was always one of my delights
asa child,” Professor Levi went on,
“walking and hiking, going to one
place and another, seeing different
trees, discovering a lizard in one
place—great discoveries!” He added,
“T remember when I went to sec-
ondary school—I was 10 years old—
lasked my mother what biology was.
She said, ‘Oh, that would be some-
thing you would really like.” And I
did.” And he does.

Professor Levi's pleasure in soli-
tude and independence also emerged
early in his life. He remembered,
“T played with little ships in a brook
in a meadow, completely isolated.
I must have been 3 or 4 years old.”
Except for an older cousin, he had no
childhood companions in natural
history.

He recalled some troubles with his
habits of independence in his early
school life. ‘I remember as a kid the
teachers thought I was lazy. I was
always daydreaming.”

I commented that the gifted stu-
dents I teach are often described by
their teachers as lazy daydreamers,
when in fact they may be absorbed
in their own ideas and interests.
Professor Levi described how his

independent interests once coincided
with the requirements of a special
teacher. ‘I had a very good second-
ary school biology teacher who was
inspiring. We were given walking-
stick eggs, and we had to keep notes
on them very strictly. Every year we
had a similar project. I think I even
still have the notebook I wrote about
birds and the observations I had of
them, when I was 11 years old.”

His fondness for working alone
with his questions continued in his
college years, when “I always
wanted to go my own way. When I
was a graduate student, under pres-
sure of teaching, all my imagination
disappeared. After I was free from
graduate school it reappeared. |
ended up in the Extension Division
of the University of Wisconsin at
Wausau, with limited facilities, but
I had a good microscope, I could
work, and the director encouraged
research.”’ There he began his stud-
ies of the taxonomy of spiders. He
commented, ‘There is always the
problem, ‘What is the beast?’ before
you can study it.”

When I asked Professor Levi about
his most useful abilities as a person
doing science, he was quick to reply,
“Being able to draw!” It turned out
that this too was a thread of his life
which began early and contributes
importantly to his present work. He
explained, ‘‘When I was about 12
years old, my parents, who were
both amateur musicians, gave up on
my music lessons in despair, and
sent me to an artist to study painting.
I was much happier with that. When
I went to science, I found that I could
use my ability to draw, and it’s such
a wonderful combination.”

His study, flooded with natural
light like a studio, was filled with
elegant drawings and photographs
of spiders. He showed me the Levi
holiday card of 1985, a fine photo-
graph of a handsome red and yellow

(Continued on page 4)

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

sachusetts 02138; James ]. McCarthy,
Director.

Editor: Gabrielle Dundon
Photographer: A. H. Coleman

Invertebrate Department Students Focus on Spiders

Wayne Maddison

Jumping spiders may well provide
a lifetime of work for graduate stu-
dent Wayne Maddison. His primary
interests are in using the spiders’
similarities and differences to dif-
ferentiate species and reconstruct
their phylogenetic relationships. In
addition to using the more traditional
clues in the form of the body and
genitalia, Maddison has been using
male courtship behavior as an indi-
cator of relationships, illustrated in
the photographs. The courtship
behavior involves dancing and a sort
of buzzing noise made by the male’s
vibrating the back part of his body.

Maddison’s work presently focus-
es ona group of 40 species, but he is
trying to gain some understanding
of the relationships of a large group
of 400 species. Considering that the
family of jumping spiders has in total
perhaps 5000 species and most have
been studied only a few times from

-

pickled specimens, much work
awaits him.

Maddison has done extensive col-
lecting throughout the western U.S.
and in Mexico in the last few years.

Metaphidippus flaviceps from Maine, female (1), and male (r)

Metaphidippus manni male (dis-

playing to female) from California

Metaphidippus harfordi male (dis-

playing to female) from California

The low position of the male’s first legs in the courtship display of Metaphidippus
flaviceps and Metaphidippus mannii pictured above corroborates the morphological
evidence that they are more closely related to each other than to Metaphidippus

harfordi.

He uses a “beating sheet” which he
places under a healthy tree or bush.
Beating the plant usually causes
dozens of spiders to drop on the
sheet. Acquiring live spiders is
important not only for the behav-
ioral work but also for Maddison’s
work on the evolution of spider
chromosomes.

Leticia Aviles

Of the over 40,000 species of spi-
ders, only 16 are known to have a
quasi-social level of behavior. These
are found mostly in the tropics, and
were a natural choice for Leticia
Aviles, who is a native of Quito,
Ecuador and received her under-
graduate degree from Pontificia
Universidad Catolica del Ecuador
in Quito.

Leticia Aviles

Aviles’ initial interest was to study
the evolution of social behavior and
social spiders were not only conve-
nient but also attractive because few
people have thus far studied them.
In the colony, spiders conduct the
basic business of life communally.
This includes brood care, food cap-
ture, and web construction and care.
This communal activity allows them
to capture prey larger than prey
caught by solitary spiders and thus
occupy a different ecological niche.

The observation of the intriguing
fact that females in social spider col-
onies outnumber males by ten to one
has led Aviles to focus her interest on
the study of the relationship between
the population structure, sex ratio,
and the levels of selection. Aviles has
proposed a model to explain why
this bias exists in social spiders
which is based on their population

(Continued on page 4)

Photo by Wayne Maddison

Leticia Aviles

(Continued from page 3)

structure and proposes that selection
occuring at a level higher than the
individual overrides the within-
group selection that should other-
wise produce a 1:1 sex ratio. The
functional hypothesis is that the
female bias, by increasing colony
growth rate, increases the chances
for colony survival and proliferation.
Aviles has identified and marked a
number of colonies in Ecuador which
remain stable for a long period of
time, providing an ideal situation for
long-term studies. She has already
conducted monthly observations of
these colonies for a long enough
period to compile detailed life his-
tories. She is currently working with
Professor William Bossert on a
computer simulation to test the
model.

Jacqueline Palmer

Jacqueline Palmer’s comparative
study of the silk and silk-production
systems of mygalmomoph spiders
forms the basis of one of the most
popular special exhibits, Trapdoor
Spiders and Tarantulas: the inside story
of how they make their silk. The success
of the exhibit, which features live
spiders (in ingenious plexiglas cases
created by the MCZ’s_ exhibit
designer extraordinaire, Ed Haack)
isa result of the hard work and ded-
ication of Palmer and the Exhibits
Departments to making an intrin-
sically fascinating subject intelligible
to visitors of all ages.

Palmer’s work with spiders is
actually an extension of her interest
in textiles and specifically natural
fibers. The particular properties of
each of the many different types of
silk so beautifully perfected by the
spiders, directly reflects the com-
position and technique of formation
of the fibers. These properties cor-
respond clearly to the uses of silk and
the spiders’ lifestyle and ecology.
Palmer is investigating all aspects of
silk and its production including the
functional morphology of the spin-
ning apparatus as well as the cell
biology and biochemistry of pro-
tein secretion. She anticipates that
the questions generated by her pre-

Jacqueline Maric Paluer

Jacqueline Palmer

liminary comparative descriptions
will provide her with ample material

Herbert W. Levi
(Continued from page 2)

spider. A mystery spider, it turned
out: inside the card he’d written
“Genus?” before sending it off to his
friends. In due course, back came an
identification from one of them.

Near the end of our conversation,
I asked Professor Levi how much
play is a part of his work. ‘Oh, my
work is almost—recreation,”’ he
responded. ‘Since I’ve been ill (he
was recovering at home from a seri-
ous infection), I have nurses coming
in to measure my blood pressure,
and it’s clearly lower after I do some
scientific work.”

Nature, independence, art: these
threads play through one life in
science.

to occupy the remainder of her
professional career.

Staff Notes

Graduate student Kimberlyn
Nelson has been awarded a National
Science Foundation grant to support
her doctoral research on mitochon-
drial DNA variation in mammalian
hybrid zones. Laurie Sanderson is
the recipient of an American Fel-
lowship for predoctoral research
from the American Association of
University Women Educational
Foundation for the coming academic
year. The $10,000 stipend is to cover
her academic and living expenses
during her final year of doctoral
work on the functional morphology
and ecology of prey capture in trop-
ically specialized and_ general-
ized fishes. (See MCZ Newsletter,
Fall, 1985.)

Fossil Finds Make Headlines

Graduate student Neil Shubin has
received a great deal of publicity for
the vertebrate fossils he and the
MCZ's Vertebrate Paleontology field
crew discovered in the Nova Scotia
coastal rock formations during the
last two field seasons. How these
exciting finds came about make an
interesting, though not atypical,
behind-the-scenes story at a natural
history museum.

It started three summers ago when
Shubin was participating in Profes-
sor Farish A. Jenkins’ field expedi-
tion in the Kayenta Formation of
Arizona and_ speculating how
pleasant it would be to have a field
season closer to home and in a more
temperate climate. Although the east
coast, which contains rocks of the
same age as the richly-fossiliferous
Kayenta Formation, is distinguished
historically as the site of the first
United States dinosaur find, in recent
years restricted access to interesting
sites has interfered with progress on
the paleontological front.

Shubin decided to study an east
coast map to see if there were any
likely areas and discovered that there

Sally Richardson
1944-1986

Visiting Scholar Sally Richardson
died unexpectedly on May 15 during
a brief stay in Mississippi. She was
planning to represent the MCZ at the
Tenth Annual Larval Fish Confer-
ence at the University of Miami in
Coral Gables. As reported in the Fall,
1985 MCZ Newsletter, Richardson
was working on establishing a major
archival center of fish larvae at the
MCZ with the support of a grant
from the Biological Resource
Research Program of the National
Science Foundation.

In his ‘‘Message of Condolence
from Friends and Co-Workers of the
Museum of Comparative Zoology,”
Professor Karel F. Liem, Curator of
Ichthyology noted: ‘Sally Richard-
son came to the Museum of Com-
parative Zoology as a Visiting
Scholar in March 1985. She quickly
established herself as a quiet, self-
effacing woman, who despite her

AWE A. ee (L re Neil Shubin
hammering out fossils from the Nova
Scotia rock, summer, 1985

was a lot of exposed rock right next
to the waters of the Bay of Fundy.
Coincidentally, Shubin found that

many accomplishments, never
sought accolades. Instead she
worked diligently to get things done
in the fish department. In record
time she single-handedly trans-
formed the large collection of larval
fishes into an_ internationally
acclaimed major archival facility. In
less than a year she examined nearly
90,000 unidentified larval speci-
mens. She furnished us with the
driving force to expand the use and
research of the larval fish collection
at Harvard ... In the short time
at Harvard, she has made many
friends. . . She leaves a void that will
become more widely sensed as time
passes and the magnitude of her
contributions can be seen more
clearly. The project envisioned by
her will be brought to completion.
For this, we are deeply indebted
to Sally.””

Columbia geologist Paul Olsen was
already investigating the area and
had found some small bones. So with
the support of the MCZ’s Barbour
Fund, Shubin, together with Charles
Schaff and William A. Amaral of the
MCZ’s Vertebrate Paleontology
Department, set off on an initial
three-week collecting trip. They
found many rock exposures but no
bones. They telephoned Olsen to
find out where he had located bone
and in the final two days Amaral
decided on just the right point where
bone should be. He pointed to the
spot and proclaimed: “I’m going to
dig right here.” There, indeed, was
a bone which they tentatively iden-
tified as a small rib. It turned out that
they had found a bonebed and they
proceeded to dig up and ship back
to the MCZ’s preparation lab as much
of the bone-bearing rock as they
could in the time remaining. It
wasn’t until Amaral prepared some
of the material he had found that they
realized that they had brought back
a jaw of a rare trithelodont, an extinct
reptile that is closest to mammals in
the fossil record.

Last summer the original trio, plus
former MCZ graduate student Dr.
Hans Sues, a specialist on reptiles,
returned to the area with funding
from the National Geographic Soci-
ety only to find that the area had
been bulldozed. They continued
their search in an area 200 yards
away from the original site and there
discovered large quantities—a ver-
itable treasure trove—of fossil ver-
tebrate material embedded in
sandstone and shale. Now that the
area has been confirmed as an
extremely abundant locality, plans
for the coming season, again with
funding from the National Geo-
graphic Society, will be to work
towards the ultimate objective of
calibrating the area accurately
through time.

Sues, who will join the Depart-
ment of Paleobiology at the U.S.
National Museum in the fall, plans
literally to follow the fossils across
the Atlantic ocean to the east coast
of the African continent which split
with the coast of North America
approximately 165 million years ago.

iS))

Mammal Department Takes Steps to Protect
Its Specimens of Endangered Species

The curatorial staff of the Mammal
Department has recently completed
a listing of all the endangered and
protected species that are repre-
sented in its collections. Using this
list, the systematic records of species
have been annotated with color-
coded signal dots. The status of
individual specimens can be easily

checked by using this system, and,
it is hoped, damage can be mini-
mized by controlling their use.

We alw ays knew that we had
endangered species specimens and
each of us was more familiar with
one or a few groups than with
others,’ said Curatorial Associate,
Maria Rutzmoser, “‘so the protection
we could offer was spotty. Now that
we have a list, we can be more con-
sistent in our policies throughout the
collection and be sure of the status
of each species.

Cambridge Schools
Science Program

In the fourth year of the MCZ’s
science program with the Cambridge
Schools, the number of schools
served grew from the original four
to seven schools. The Harrington,
Morse, and Fletcher schools joined
the Agassiz, Peabody, Harrington,
and Graham and Parks schools and
a total of 623 students from the third
and fourth grades took part in the
year-long program. Funding to
support the program came from
several new sources this year
including several Cambridge cor-
porations—Arthur D. Little, Pola-
roid, Draper Labs, and Biogen—and
several generous individuals. A
contribution was received from the
Harvard Cooperative Society and
the Cambridge School Department
underwrote a portion of the costs. In
addition, the Harvard Office of
Government, Community and Pub-
lic Affairs again contributed to the
ram. As in past years, grants
from the Massachusetts Council on
the Arts and Humanities accounted
for approximately half of the pro-
gram funds.

[his vear,

prog

for the first time, Por-

We have had some really bad
experiences in the past, loaning pri-
mate material and having it come
back broken or damaged in some
way. These are specimens which we
simply cannot replace, and we felt
that we really needed some way of
identifying them in the collection.
Now, when we receive requests for
loans or other usage, we can easily
tell if the specimen is of a species that
is protected. If itis, we then ask if we
can substitute a specimen from a
common animal. The endangered
species specimens are still available
to researchers visiting our collection
but are no longer sent through
the mail.”

The Mammal Department has in
its collection over 400 species and
subspecies of extinct, endangered,
and rare mammals. These include
skeletons and skins from mammals

tuguese bilingual classes, from the
Harrington School, participated in
the program. Museum teacher
Maureen McDonald used a visual
approach to reach these students, as
wellas students from the Morse and
Fletcher schools who come from a
wide spectrum of cultural back-
grounds, and the resultant art work
was one of the main attractions at the
open houses held for the students
and their parents at the museum.

Student interviews with MCZ
curatorial and research staff mem-
bers and graduate students have
been arranged by teacher Wendy van
Dyke for her classes at the Agassiz,
Peabody, Longfellow, and Graham
and Parks schools. Fourth- -grade
students will be exposed to a wide
range of science disciplines and be
introduced to a variety of role
models. Participants in this program
include: Scott Shaw and Charles Vogt
(Entomology), Jose Rosado (Her-
petology), Laurie Sanderson
(Ichthyology), Ardis Johnston, and
Laura Leibensperger (Invertebrates),
Maria Rutzmoser and Jane Winchell
(Mammals), David Backus (Mol-
lusks), Leonard Diggins, Anna
Haynes, and Ken Weber (Population
Genetics), and Charles Schaff (Ver-
tebrate Paleontology).

Mountain gorilla, one of the endangered

MCZ’s

species on exhibit in the
Mammal Hall.

such as the thylacine or marsupial
wolf, the black-footed ferret, and the
mountain gorilla. These specimens
were trapped many years ago, before
the vulnerability of these and other
rare species was appreciated, and
they now represent a planetary
treasure of importance to scientific
research.

Museum Guide Program
Passes 10-Year Mark

Started in 1976 as an intern project
by Kate Walton O’Connell, then a
student in the Museum Studies at
George Washington University, the
Museum Guide program continues
to provide museum programs and
guided tours to both adults and
school groups of all ages. Of the 25
current guides, who all volunteer
their time and talent after a seven-
week initial training period, one—
John Slavinsky—is from the original
January, 1976 group and three—
Linette Elliot, Anita Lewtas, and
Louise Randall—joined the program
in the October, 1976 training session.

The Guide Program, which is part
of the Museum Education Depart-
ment under the direction of Arlene
Nichols, has been steadily growing
and is currently operating at capacity
level. In 1984-85, 368 groups partic-
ipated in the program and the num-
ber for this academic year will exceed
400 by the end of June. Staff Assistant
Elisa Karnofsky manages the com-
plex task of matching groups to
guides and is adept at improvising
when unavoidable circumstances
delay either the group or the guide.

Photo by Jane Reed

Check-list of Birds
(Continued from page 1)

1974, G. William Cottrell, who was
previously Editor in the Harvard
University Library, was lured back
to the editing task after his retire-
ment; his meticulous attention to
detail contributed greatly to the
thoroughness of the work. The fifth
editor, Melvin A. Traylor, Jr., Curator
of Birds at the Field Museum, joined
the project in 1978. Thirty-three
ornithologists from around the world
have made contributions to the work

in what Mayr terms ‘a triumph of
international cooperation.”

Birds are the group of organisms
thus far best-known to science and
consequently the Check-list of the Birds
of the World represents the most
detailed and comprehensive survey
currently achievable. Each entry
includes the original citation, (i.e.,
the name first published), a list of
all the synonyms, its current name,
as well as the geographic range.
According to Mayr: “To the best of
my knowledge we haven't over-
looked a single previously-published

Ruth Turner Co-Chairs Conference in India

Professor Ruth D. Turner, Curator
of Malacology, has just returned
from her most recent extended trip
to India (where she served as co-
chairman of an international con-
ference), Pakistan (where she pre-
sented a paper at the International
Conference on Marine Science of the
Arabian Sea), and Australia, where
she visited colleagues and collabo-
rators on some of her far-flung
projects.

A prime mover in the organization
of the second International Confer-
ence on Marine Biodeterioration in
Goa, India, Turner presented an
overview of ‘‘Future Directions in
Marine Biodeterioration Research.”
The conference, which was attended
by an approximately equal number
of Indian and American scientists,
was aimed at facilitating the
exchange of ‘““Advanced Techniques
Applicable to the Indian Ocean.”

Turner’s remarkably active role in

Ruth D. Turner lecturing. . .

her field was recognized in the recent
dedication of the symposium volume
titled Marine Biodeterioration: An
Interdisciplinary Study, Proceedings of
the Symposium on Marine Biodeterio-
ration published by the Naval Insti-
tute Press. The dedication reads in
part: ‘Far too often we wait until
colleagues leave the active roles of
scientific research before recogniz-
ing their contributions and leader-
ship. This symposium volume is
dedicated to Dr. Ruth D. Turner of
Harvard University in recognition
both of her many contributions to the
Navy and the field of research on
marine biodeterioration, and of her
leadership and ability to stimulate
many of her colleagues to embark on
related research projects... Asa

worker, she has brought a sense of
indefatigable dedication to the pur-
suit of scientific understanding. As
a colleague, she has inspired, taught,
aided, and cajoled a large number of

species. World-wide only about
three new species are discovered
each year. Our knowledge of birds
is very mature and we do not expect
that there will be many changes.
There might be a few on the family
level but not on the species level.
We now have a tool which is invalu-
able as a basis to a great deal of
research on speciation, ecology and
biogeography.”

Paynter adds: “‘It is also an impor-
tant conservation tool because it
provides a complete inventory of an
animal group.”

current workers in marine biodete-
rioration research. Always ready to
help and give of her time and ideas,
her impact on her colleagues con-
tinues unabated. Typically, Turner
was too busy to notice the dedication
and only realized that she was being
so honored when a colleague con-
gratulated her after she received
the volume.

Her current research, a contin-
uation of work originally reported in
a 1983 joint paper with John B.
Waterbury and C. Bradford Callo-
way in Science, is concerned with ‘a
novel bacterium that has been iso-
lated in pure culture from the gland
of Deshayes in six species of tere-
dinid bivalves. It is the first bacte-
rium known to both digest cellulose
and fix nitrogen, and it is a partici-
pant in a unique symbiotic relation
with shipworms that may explain
how teredinids are able to use wood
as their principal food source.”

at the Untversity of Karachi

Travel Program

1986 Round-Up

Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Bo-
tswana continue to be very popula r
with the Friends of the MCZ. The
January trip was extremely success-
ful despite, and to some minds
because, of the rainy season which
made for excellent birding condi-
tions. Two more departures are
scheduled for this summer. The
Nature and Culture of India in Feb-
ruary took participants to national
parks and temples in both the north
and the south of this ever-fascinating
country. While the Circumnaviga-
tion of Madagascar, also in February,
did not entirely live up to expecta-
tions, it proved to be an enjoyable
and extremely educational experi-
ence for the combined group of
Friends of the MCZ and Harvard
Alumni. The Provincetown Whale-
Watching Weekend was among the
2 or

A couple of gentoo penguins exchange
nest duties in Niko Cove, Antarctica
peninsula. Note the chick under the
penguin on the left.

best ever in the 11 years we have been
sponsoring this program with a
breaching humpback calf on the
Saturday excursion and unusual
close encounters with two minke
whales on Sunday.

Current Status of
1987 Programs

Only a few spaces remain on the
two-week January Antarctica expe-
dition led by Director James J.
McCarthy. Reservations are coming
in for the visit to the lagoons and
islands off Baja California, led by
Leslie Cowperthwaite and Bruce

Wellman, in March. Brochures will

Photos by Dotte Larsen

ALL INDIA

ma &

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a" an

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TOURIST PERMIT

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Escort Tony Kang boards the Friends of the MCZ bus on this year’s India trip.

be mailed in early September for a
new itinerary to Kenya, led by Mark
W. Skinner and Gabrielle Dundon,
which features visits to the best
remaining game parks and culmi-
nates in a three-day stay at Masai
Mara. An optional extension to visit
the home of the mountain gorillas in
Rwanda is also planned. A compre-
hensive tour of Borneo is scheduled
for August to be jointly sponsored by
the MCZ and the Arnold Arboretum.
Dr. John C. Constable, a member of
the Faculty of the MCZ, and Arbo-

retum Director Peter Ashton have

planned a unique itinerary and will
co-lead this trip which features an
optional visit to Professor Mark
Leighton’s study site and ends with
three days in Bali. An August tour
of Malawi, Luangwa National Park
and Lake Tanganyika, Zambia, led
by Professor Melanie L. J. Stiassny
and Gabrielle Dundon, will intro-
duce Friends to parts of Africa sel-
dom visited by American tourists.
Participants will have an opportu-
nity to see the incredibly diverse
cichlid fish populations of two lakes
and a variety of terrestrial habitats.

Photo by Sheffield Hale