Any town with a museum could be a town to call home

2 December 2009. Edmonton, AB, Canada.

I spent a good part of the day photographing mammal skulls in the University of Alberta Museum of Zoology ("UAMZ").

[this is not a skull, but a pangolin Manis fetus specimen preserved in a jar; note the body armor already developing on the fetus]

I was there to collect data on modern carnivores of the North American ecological communities, from the smallest living carnivore least weasel Mustela nivalis to one of the largest bears, Ursus arctos. The data from these modern carnivores serve as a basis for understanding the cranial shape of fossil canids that dominated the landscape millions of years ago (particularly during the Miocene).

[busily working in the mammal range]

Besides the excellent large mammal collection, I was comforted to see the bird and fish collections as well...the museum houses a locally sampled vertebrate collection, tucked into a corner of the 10th to 12th floors of the Biological Sciences building on campus. It was such a quiet place to work (after acclimating yourself to the hum of the cold room) that one could almost forget the ongoing construction of the new biology wing and the bitter cold outside.

[a very large grizzly Ursus arctos skull being photographed for morphometric analysis]

A museum is a museum...I returned home with a camera's worth of photos for analysis, and a renewed sense of appreciation for halls of bones and pickled lizards throughout the world. Museums are invaluable time capsules of biological and cultural change on this planet we call home.

[part of the wet fish collection at UAMZ]

[the small pelt room that smelled of my LACM home]

A heart-felt salute to the museums of the world!

~Jack

A day at the provincial museum

22 November 2009. Edmonton, AB, Canada.

We finally made it to the Royal Alberta Museum across the river from the University of Alberta on Sunday, four months after settling down in this northern town.

I was quite pleased with the natural history exhibits at the museum; albeit a small museum by metropolitan standards, the RAM had the essential outreach and interactive programs that could educate visitors about the local wildlife history. In a oiltown such as this one, a nature program like this is more than one could ask for.

[the front entrance emblem of the Royal Alberta Museum, standing along the road on a chilly November morning.]

[the outreach classroom "Field Station" where presentations on local wildlife by outreach instructors are held.]

[a well-made (and gory) exhibit station on the process of decomposition and cycling of nutrients in nature.]

[one of the several panels showing the local freshwater fishes of the North Saskatchewan River; clockwise from top right: northern pike Esox lucius, burbot Lota lota, Iowa darter Etheostoma exile, spoonhead sculpin Cottus ricei, walleye Stizostedion vitreum, sauger Stizostedion canadense, trout-perch Percopsis omiscomaycus, and brook stickback Culaea inconstans.]

[a diorama of a family of coyotes Canis latrans living in the sand dunes of the Alberta plains.]

[a diorama of the pronghorn, Antilocapra americana, grazing on the prairies.]

I must also say that the taxidermy was beautifully done, and just as pretty as our own mounts in the North American Mammal Halls.

[a giant extinct beaver, Castoroides ohioensis of the Plio-Pleistocene Epochs. The skeleton is about the size of a large dog.]

Our day concluded with a Charles Darwin skit put on by their very own museum staff; the scene was set in 1859 with the publication of the Origin of Species and Darwin's apprehension regarding feedback of his work from the scientific and religious communities.

Just like Vitamin-D, a healthy dose of natural history learning from time to time is good for everyone.

~Jack

New article on jaw mechanics published

6 November 2009. Edmonton, AB, Canada.

A new study on the mandibular biomechanics of the extinct hyena-like Dinocrocuta gigantea has been published online (advance of print) in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. The authors are Zhijie Jack Tseng from the University of Southern California and Dr. Wendy Binder from Loyola Marymount University; both are associates of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

This new paper is complementary to an earlier one on the cranium of Dinocrocuta published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.

Main findings combining data from both studies suggest that the cranium of Dinocrocuta matches that of modern spotted hyena Crocuta in its performance even at a sub-adult stage. However, the same is not true for the jaws; the sub-adult Dinocrocuta dentary is structurally weaker compared to a sub-adult Crocuta, and may present evidence of differential ontogenetic trajectories in the two carnivorans.

Enjoy!

~Jack