The Academy is home to the world’s largest collection of skulls, skeletons, and other preserved samples of the southern sea otter (Enhydra lutris nereis). Research collections like ours are valuable resources for scientists studying California marine ecosystems, and informing conservation strategies. Southern sea otters live along the coast of California (mostly between Monterey and Big Sur), and are classified as threatened on the U.S. Endangered Species List.
From September 28 - October 3, 2009, stop by the Research Lab to see select specimens on display. Sea otter-themed books and resources will also be available in the Naturalist Center. For those ages 21 and up, stop by the sea otter table at NightLife on October 1 to talk to biologists about how these creatures are faring in the wild.
Vibrantly colored sea urchins (below, left) are a favorite food source among sea otters, and individuals who eat a lot of them over the course of a lifetime can end up with purple-tinted bones and teeth. Read more about their behaviors in this archive issue of California Wild.
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.
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).
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.
600 yards of string and 75 yards of muslin fabric later…Ornithology & Mammalogy’s antler bags are complete. Now that the sewing is done, it’s time to get the skulls into their protective bags and hang them up – a process that’s more complicated than you might think.
First, the lower mandible is attached to the rest of the skull with wire. The wire is coated with nylon to protect the bones. Next, a piece of soft foam is inserted between the upper and lower jaw, to keep them from bumping together (below, left). Then a wire is inserted through the back of the skull and a loop is formed at the top (below, right) for hanging.
Then the skull is placed in a small, medium, large, or XL archival cloth bag, which is tied at the top to keep it on (below, left). The last step is to hang the skull up on a hook – by the wire loop, not the tied cloth, of course. Racks like the one pictured below are being filled this week, and are organized by genus and species, so researchers can readily locate the specimens they need in the future.
This is one of those stories that you won’t find anywhere but the California Academy of Sciences…this week, a small team of volunteers started the process of sewing 150 or so custom-fit bags to protect the Ornithology & Mammalogy department’s collection of antlers and skulls.
Below, from left to right, here’s how one begins crafting an “antler bag” (whether you’re sewing something for a child, your home, or an elk, it’s a remarkably similar process):
1. Record the skull’s dimensions.
2. Cut a first draft of the pattern from butcher paper. Hold it up to the skull to see how the bag will fit, and adjust as needed. The elk (Cervus elaphus) skull pictured in the second photo is from 1913, and is one of the largest in the collection.
3. Using the final pattern, cut the pieces from archival muslin fabric, which will protect the specimens while in storage.
The sewing is taking place as we speak…more to come once the bags are ready to “wear.” Meanwhile, check out this incredible story about how some creative sewing helped our penguin Pierre re-grow his feathers.
This week, the final room of the Ichthyology collection is being packed and loaded up to move into the department’s new collection rooms at the new California Academy of Sciences. For transport, the small jars are packed closely together in re-usable orange crates, while larger jars (below, right) are stabilized with packing peanuts that are also re-usable.
More than 200,000 jars of unicornfishes, lanternbellies, fangtooths, needlefishes, and numerous other species sit on the earthquake-proof shelves – totaling 2 million specimens. The alcohol-filled jars must all be carefully secured because the specimens are a valuable resource to researchers from around the world.
The Ornithology and Mammalogy department was the very first group to move into the Academy’s new home in Golden Gate Park. Thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation, the department was able to purchase a new set of state-of-the-art cabinets for specimen storage.
Rather than tossing the old cabinets in a landfill, collections manager Moe Flannery quickly found new homes for them. She donated most of them to other organizations in need of storage solutions, reducing waste and providing inspiration to others wondering, “what in the world should I do with this (insert your obscure/unwieldy object of choice)?”
The Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology (left) was thrilled to receive the Academy’s donation of 180 cabinets (a lifetime supply!). They have since painted the metallic cabinets white to match their others.
The Academy’s largest research department, Entomology, has been playing a complex game of leapfrog with their research specimens and cabinets. They have 14.5 million insects and arachnids in the collection - housed primarily in 450 9-foot-tall white cabinets (below, left). The catch is that all those cabinets had to be emptied before going into moving trucks, which posed quite a logistical challenge.
32,000 wooden drawers full of pinned specimens (above, center) take up a lot of room - you can’t just set them all aside while you move all the cabinets. So, instead they’ve been doing it in waves: move some cabinets, move some insects, cabinets, insects, cabinets, insects…
Over the course of about 4 weeks, the wooden drawers were transferred from their white cabinets to metallic transport carts (above, right), and trucked over to Golden Gate Park in batches. And every other day, another 48 white cabinets were moved over. That way, when each batch of metallic transport carts wheeled into the new building, there were empty cabinets waiting to be filled up.
As of today, the bulk of the pinned specimens are safe and sound in their new home, while the butterflies, moths, and a sampling of beetles are patiently awaiting their turn to move.
