There aren’t many people out there who would feel honored to have a foul smelling, two-inch, phallus-shaped fungus named after them – but herpetologist Bob Drewes is an exception to the rule. On a 2006 expedition to São Tomé, which involved Drewes (below, left) and researchers from a variety of scientific disciplines, Academy research fellow Dennis Desjardin discovered a new species of stinkhorn mushroom, and after a few jokes, the name Phallus drewesii stuck. Read more about it in the July/August issue of the journal Mycologia , or for more casual fungus fans, in the San Jose Mercury News.

 

Behind the scenes at the Academy, biologists are caring for fourteen baby Jackson’s chameleons, each about the size of your pinky finger. The exhibit where they were born (yes, born–the Jackson’s chameleon is one of the few reptiles out there that gives birth to live young) is not “baby-proofed,” so to feed and keep an eye on them, they’ve been moved out of African Hall and into a holding area. They’re on a diet of fruit flies, and once they are mature enough, some members of this group will be sent off to other institutions.

The Academy’s mammalogy department recently acquired a mounted tiger specimen that was confiscated by officials at San Francisco’s SFO airport. Tigers are listed as endangered species under the Federal Endangered Species Act, and are also protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna (CITES).

When U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials confiscate an animal skin or other such material that has crossed the border illegally, they contact institutions like the Academy that maintain research collections. This particular tiger is not well-suited for exhibit display, so it will remain in collections storage, as part of the Academy’s library of life (below, left). These research collections are of great value to the scientific community; they document the diversity and evolution of life on our planet, helping us understand how to sustain it.

On occasion, a confiscated specimen can become part of an educational exhibit seen by thousands of people every day. That’s exactly what happened when officials confiscated a mounted leopard during the Academy’s rebuilding project – they called the Academy and we were able to incorporate it into African Hall, where it now sits perched in a tree above the double-wide open diorama (below, right).

The weather stations on the Academy’s living roof are an integral part of our building’s natural ventilation system. The stations gather data all day long, and feed it into a computer which controls when the various windows and skylights open and close, among other functions. The entire system is automated, and allows the building to work in harmony with the surrounding environment to cool all of the public spaces without air conditioning.

Each station packs five different instruments into one unit, and can measure solar radiation, rainfall, wind speed and direction, temperature, and humidity. As for which instrument is which, see the caption below this photo to find out.

1. Rain gauge
2. Solar radiation sensor
3. Wind direction
4. Anemometer (wind speed)
5. Temperature and humidity gauge

Like all of the animals at the Academy, Claude, our albino alligator, receives regular check-ups from our animal health staff. Last week, during one of those exams, staff noticed that Claude had some swelling in one foot, and suspected it was due to an infection. This week, he was taken out of his regular Swamp exhibit to spend some time behind-the-scenes, where our animal health staff can treat him more effectively. His transfer to the holding tank was uneventful (always a good thing when you’re moving an alligator!), and his medical treatment has started. We all wish him a speedy recovery.

In the past two months, two Silver-beaked Tanager chicks have hatched out in the Academy’s rainforest exhibit. Right now, they are honing their flying skills in the exhibit, and Academy biologists are monitoring their progress daily. For this species, it takes just four weeks from the time the egg is laid to when the bird is self-sufficient. The timeline goes something like this:

1. The parents select a nesting site, build a nest, and lay 2-3 eggs. Our biologists have been collecting valuable information about successful nesting/fledging sites in the exhibit, which they hope can be applied to other species.
2. Incubation of the eggs lasts about 12 days.
3. After hatching, the chicks stay in the nest for about 10 days.
4. After the chicks are able to leave the nest, the parents continue to feed them for another 5-7 days, while their tail feathers grow. This is the fledgling stage. At this point, they’re not strong fliers yet. They have short stumpy tails, but are still quite mobile.
5. Once they have the feathers and wing muscles needed for flight, the chicks are basically on their own and considered juveniles. This is the stage these two chicks are in now – they are fully-flighted and self-sufficient, but not sexually mature.

In the left-hand photo, the fledgling is on the left, next to an adult female Silver-beaked Tanager. In the photo on the right, a closer view of one of the fledglings.

Make a New Year’s resolution for the planet this year – you can pick up ideas from the Academy’s new sustainability card, and tell us what your top green resolution is for 2009.

875 Howard Street – the staff has moved, the research collections have moved, the animals are out, so what’s left at the Academy’s temporary home? A few odds and ends in the basement, and until recently, hundreds of empty aquarium tanks, cages, and terrariums.

Now, those pieces are on their way to new homes. The largest tanks, at 20 feet across (below, right), had to be cut in half to fit out the door. Some of the equipment is being re-used behind-the-scenes at the new Academy. And just about everything else has been donated to other institutions in the Bay Area, which will re-use the equipment for their own exhibits and educational programs. Read more here.

If you’ve visited the Academy’s exhibit on climate change, you may have seen a wall labeled “Share Your Ideas,” where visitors can post their thoughts on how to lessen their impact on the environment (if you haven’t seen it, it’s pictured below, left). In search of a more sustainable source for the tags on the wall, our creative services department and our printer Paragraphics came up with a great solution: re-using make-readies.

What’s a make-ready, you ask? It’s the paper that goes through the press to perfect the ink coverage and colors for a print job. Paper often goes through the press several times before being recycled, and the effect is interesting layers of text and graphics on one side. The other side is blank for writing on. Paragraphics has offered the Academy free use of their make-readies, and they even trimmed and punched the paper to fit the current specs of the posting board. Kudos to those who put this creative, sustainable idea into practice!

Friday marked the last scheduled trips for the Academy’s collections move. One truckload at a time, 20 million specimens have made their way from Howard Street to Golden Gate Park. There are a few odds and ends left, but Friday’s two trips included one of the most unwieldy specimens, the 11-foot tall Kodiak bear featured in the video clip below. At right, additional specimens from the Ornithology and Mammalogy department being unloaded in Golden Gate Park. Since the time the Academy first moved to Howard Street, the research collections have grown by about 2 million specimens.