Curation

A newcomer to the OSUM Fish Division

We have several voucher specimens belonging to the order Salmoniformes, ray-finned fish like salmon, trout, chars, in our holdings, including the Lake Whitefish Coregonus clupeaformis. While common across most of their range, some are considered of special concern or vulnerable in the State of Ohio, for example, the Lake Trout Salvelinus namaycush. Another Coregonus species, the Cisco, is critically imperiled in Ohio, and Bloaters Coregonus hoyi (the hero of Monday’s post) were never found in Lake Erie due to the lake’s shallowness. Bloaters were extirpated from deeper Lake Ontario where the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is now reintroducing them. The specimens from the Tom Simon collection are the first Bloater vouchers (e.g. OSUM 117265) that we have for the OSUM fish collection.

By the way, a voucher specimen is a preserved specimen of an identified taxon permanently stored in our collection and retained as a reference. It has a unique identifier (e.g. OSUM 117265) and can be retrieved and used in scientific studies.

When moving the specimens, we needed many helping hands. Here Kai Raab, husband of OSUM Director Meg Daly, assisted with accession of some of the Tom Simon collection.

Kai pushing a cart full of jars with fish
Coregonus hoyi vouchers, OSUM 117265

All Bloater specimens from the Tom Simon collection were trawled by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) during their surveys and have inflated gas bladders due to being brought from depths quickly.

A Bloater, OSUM 117265, with distended abdomen
Bloater, OSUM 117265, with deflated gas bladder

The Bloater’s specific epithet, C. hoyi, is derived from the name of the man who originally discovered it while dredging in Lake Michigan, Dr. P. R Hoy. Dr. Hoy engaged ichthyologist Dr. James P. Milner to describe the species.

Coregonus is a diverse genus of fish with at least 68 described species. Some are easier to tell apart by morphology than others. Lake Whitefish, Coregonus clupeaformis, are separable from the Cisco and Bloater in the field by observing the mouth position: subterminal versus terminal, respectively. Note the terminal mouth, pointing forward, in the Cisco on the right.

Lake Whitefish Coregonus clupeaformis
Cisco Coregonus artedi

Other species are quite similar in appearance and hard to separate in the field. For example, the Cisco and the Nipigon Cisco C. nipigon, as well as the Bloater and the Kiyi C. kiyi look very similar and occur sympatrically in some water bodies. For these and other species in the genus one must count the gill rakers to separate them. Gill rakers are the bony comb-like structure that serve to sieve food as the fish expels water through its gills while it is eating. The gill rakers are shown under the gill cover in the images below, to the left of the gill filaments that function to transfer oxygen from the water to capillaries. Once the food particles are caught on the rakers the fish can swallow them.

Cisco were found to have gill raker counts from 36 to 50, with a mean of 43 in Lake Saganaga and adjacent Minnesota border lakes. While gill raker counts for the Nipigon Cisco range between 45 to 70 with a higher mean than for the Cisco at 56.

Here are some additional species in the genus Coregonus; some are easy to tell apart by their location of occurrence.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Reference:

Etnier, David A., and Christopher E. Skelton (2003). Analysis of Three Cisco Forms (Coregonus, Samonidae) from Lake Saganaga and Adjacent Lakes near the Minnesota/Ontario Border. Copeia, Vol. 4, 739-749.

 

About the Author: Marc Kibbey is Associate Curator of the Fish Division at the Museum of Biological Diversity.

 

 *** We would like to hear from you – please leave a comment ***

The Bloater: A Complicated Story

You may recall from my last post that I mentioned a fish species from the recent Tom Simon Fish Collection acquisition, the “Bloater” Coregonus hoyi.  This is a species that in the recent past has been considered endangered, indeed it was known to be extirpated from some of the Great Lakes and thought to perhaps be on its way to extinction across the rest of its distribution.  Herein I’ll detail some of the reasons for which the bloater came to be in such peril.  But for now, allow me to follow a rabbitfish trail (ahem):

Perhaps you have wondered why this fish is named so cruelly?  Perhaps, one might think, the name was given in less politically correct days when short shrift was given to a fish’s feelings, but that is simply not the case.  No, the name actually describes the propensity of the species’ swim bladder to expand and make it look fat when it is trawled from the deep, colder waters that it prefers.  So you see it actually does have to do with the poor fish having a tendency to be gassy.

OSUM 117265 Coregonus hoyi "bloater"

Yes, that bladder does make you look fat! OSUM 117265 Coregonus hoyi 195mm SL 1 of 18 specimens from jar 1 of 3

The rapid ascent from the fairly extreme depths, down to almost 700 feet where the fish resides, and consequent distension of the bladder does cause more than just discomfort for the fish. The complexity of the connection to the gas bladder in the bloaters renders them unable to quickly discharge the air and liable to bursting upon fast ascent from depths.  In many species of fish the swim bladder is directly connected to the gut and the fish can use this connection to directly control the amount of gas in the bladder. This physostomous swim bladder occurs mainly in fish living in shallow waters and swallow air that is passed into the gut and forced into the swim bladder. Not so in the Bloater. Fish in the order Salmoniformes, such as the Bloater, share a character with other advanced fishes: the physoclistous swim bladder. This gas bladder has no direct connection to the alimentary canal but some areas of the membrane separating gut and bladder are very thin and well supplied with capillaries that allow rapid gas exchange. This gas gland secretes oxygen into the swim bladder through the rete mirabile, literally “a wonderful net” of capillaries.

Diagram of the arterial/venous transfer to the gas bladder via the rete mirabile

The Bloater is one of several  “whitefish” species that have become rare and imperiled, some to the point of extinction. Bloaters are invertivores – you guessed right, feed on invertebrates – at all stages of their lives and formerly fed in open water (Many other fish species are invertivores at immature stages and shift their diets to larger prey including vertebrates as adults).  It has been documented that bloaters (and some other fish species) have changed their feeding habits in response to competition from the invasive Alewife Alosa pseudoharengus to feed on benthic invertebrates.  Happily for the bloaters they seem to have benefited, in the long run, from the Alewife invasion.

But there are several other reasons for the drastic declines seen among the bloater populations during the mid-1900’s:  Whitefish provide table fare for many piscivorous people, the fish-eaters among you.  The major upswing of humans in the Midwest region caused concordant increases in demand for food sources, and people began to realize that the Great Lakes could provide fish aplenty to help meet that need.  The lakes and rivers of the Midwest states at one time “teemed with fish”, according to several historians that wrote during that era of expansion and discovery. It seemed that the bounty was inexhaustible, and fishermen quickly capitalized on the surging market, filling their trawl nets to capacity for several decades.

Until, at varying points depending on the species being taken, the catches began to dwindle.  Before long the fishermen began to realize that conservationists were correct in their assessment that the boom wasn’t going to last, and regulations were put in place to husband the resources. However, other influences began to make themselves known, some with alarming results. Compounding the effects of overfishing was the connection of Lake Ontario to Lake Erie via the Welland Canal ca. 1830 that enabled incursion of several invasive fish species:  First to make an impact was the Alewife, a relatively small fish species in the herring family Clupeidae. Alewives compete with coregonids and other fish species for planktonic prey, to the point where diets for some forms shifted from zooplankton to benthic foods, feeding at the lowest level of the water body. Those species that couldn’t adapt their diets disappeared, became smaller or declined in numbers.  The next invader to have a significant impact on bloaters was the Sea Lamprey Petromyzon marinus. Sea Lampreys are piscivorous parasites (or is that parasitic piscivores?) for approximately a year of their several years’ long life cycle.  The invasive lamprey arrived in the Great Lakes in the early 1900’s and by the mid 1900’s had decimated populations of several salmoniform species. It is thought that one reason fish species like Lake Trout, and Lake Whitefish and other coregonids, fared so poorly with the Sea Lampreys is that they tend to inhabit deeper, colder areas of the Great Lakes where the lampreys prefer to feed.  For example, bloaters are most commonly found at a depth of 90 – 680 feet in water temperatures between 34-55 degrees Fahrenheit. Thanks to the monumental efforts of our conservation agencies the Sea Lamprey populations are under reasonably good control to the point where Great Lakes fishes are much safer!

 

Reference:

McDonald, M. E., Crowder, L. B., & Brandt, S. B. (1990). Changes in Mysis and Pontoporeia populations in southeastern Lake Michigan: a response to shifts in the fish community. Limnology and Oceanography, 35(1), 220-227.

 

About the Author: Marc Kibbey is Associate Curator of the Fish Division at the Museum of Biological Diversity.

 

 *** We would like to hear from you – please leave a comment ***

Interns on Internship

As we mentioned in our previous post, at the conclusion of the semester we asked our interns to share their impressions of the time they spent with us. We have taken the liberty of using some of their comments (highlighted in italics below) to provide a picture of their experience.

“Insects are often thought of as the least appealing members of the taxonomic Kingdom Animalia. Even though most people recognize that they are, by definition, animals, people don’t like them as much as cuddly cats and dapper dolphins. Admittedly, this applies to myself as well.”

This kind of impression is widespread and can be heard often. By providing a broad view of entomology we hope the interns developed a new perspective and will now write that last sentence in the past tense!

To our delight, all the interns came out of the internship with a better understanding of (and some experience on) the wide range of skills and knowledge needed in curatorial work.

“Multiple tasks were laid before me throughout the semester, slowly building on previous knowledge and skills. … Originally, I had no idea how much time an entomologist may spend simply sitting in front of a computer. A portion of my time was spent databasing specimens, an important task allowing for collections to be easily found and identified. It has been made apparent how important this is when considering that millions of specimens fill the cabinets of the collection.”

“Through performing the … tasks, I was able to increase my knowledge of both the curation profession as well as the study of entomology in general”.

“… the only expectation I really had was that I would leave the internship having gained a lot of insect and museum-related knowledge that I had not had before. … this expectation was fulfilled with flying colors!”.

People have different styles of learning, and “doing” can often be more effective than listening or reading. The interns highlighted the importance of hands-on activities.

“… seeing the physical traits of different orders and families in person helped me to memorize these classifications for the General Entomology course, and gaining experience with pinning and labeling helped me to improve my collection project for the same course.”

“Whereas my entomology class was somewhat hard to grasp at times as a result of its lecture format, I found that hands-on activities (the same kind that are done by REAL curatorial staff in REAL museums) really ingrained a lot of the knowledge into my brain in a more profound way than surface-level memorization ever could.”

It is sometimes interesting to see how people react differently to the same task:

“I was able to further classify/identify the specimens by family using a taxonomic key. This exercise taught me how to use a key and how to look for specific features of insect physiology/morphology.”“Later came the classification by suborder and family, a grueling task using a key much like a personal narrative children’s book only with scientific terms and a lot of microscope adjusting. Though tedious and time consuming, I find it interesting to understand how such small characteristics may differentiate one insect family from another.”

Perhaps the most gratifying, though, was to see that at least a little taste of the fun and excitement that we find working with insects was also experienced by the interns:

“One of my favorite insects that I found while working in the collection was a cuckoo wasp, a very small organism but with brilliant colors that sparkle as if dipped in jewels. Everyway you turn the tiny hymenopteran, the colors seem to shift, ranging from a deep, rich blue to a bright metallic-like green with some splashes of vibrant red or orange. Not only is it beautiful but also to Dr. Musetti’s excitement it is a parasitoid wasp, laying eggs in a host species.”

Ceratochrysis perpulchra, OSUC 96424

Ceratochrysis perpulchra (Cresson), a beautiful cuckoo wasp specimen from the collection. ID# OSUC 96424. This is not the one that Ellen found, but similar. Ellen’s cuckoo wasp is still in the freezer, and will be used for DNA extraction.

Taking on an internship is a pretty serious commitment of time on the part of the student, and we hope that it turned out to be time well invested. We have all learned from the experience, and we will use what we have learned to continue to improve. Even if a professional job as curator is not in the interns’ future, at least we have made a contribution to a future taxpaying citizenry that will understand the whys and wherefores of an insect collection.

“The past ten weeks have been quite the eye opening experience for me. Science is tedious work that I am happy to tackle. I have learned things I did not know I was interested in, as well as things I may not want to spend the rest of my life doing. Not only has this internship helped me to understand what it takes to have a collection, but I also have a compelling experience that may help me stand out from the others when searching for a career in entomology.”

”Overall, I feel that this internship has been very beneficial to me as both a student and a person. It provided me with a better background in entomology, it showed me the importance of curatorial work, and it gave me workplace experience that will benefit me in future careers both inside and outside of entomology.”

”I was able to get a complete picture of what entomology is like in the museum world, which, to me, is the overarching purpose of the (internship) program itself.”

Snapshots of the interns’ lab notebooks:

2016 Interns:

  • Ellen Dunkle
  • Alexandria Ent
  • Hannah McKenzie

About the Authors: Dr. Natalia Munteanu Molotievskiy is an Entomologist and Guest Scholar, Dr. Luciana Musetti is an Entomologist and Curator, & Dr. Norman Johnson is Professor of Entomology and Director of the Triplehorn Insect Collection.

What We Learned From Our Insect Curation Internship

triplehorn-scarletbandLast semester we of the Triplehorn Insect Collection offered our first Insect Curation Internship. I was pleasantly surprised with the interest generated by it. There were over 380 visits to the internship announcement and 207 visits to my post “Internship, Volunteering or Job?” on this blog.  Fifty one (51) undergraduate students (of those 49 were women!) and 2 graduate students inquired about the internship. Of the 12 students interviewed we accepted 3 for the Fall 2016 internship. I also received requests for information from a few colleagues who are planning to offer similar internship activities in their collections and/or institutions. Here’s a summary of what we did.

Our overall goal was to provide OSU students, both graduate and undergraduate, with a structured, mentored, hands-on experience on collection curation techniques and the preparation of research quality insect specimens. Activities were planned specifically for the internship. Our requirements were simple: patience, attention to detail, good organizational skills and a minimum commitment of 5 hours/week for 10 weeks.

Interns received handouts containing our broad goals and specific objectives for the internship, and were asked to write down their own goals and expectations for the internship. At the end of the semester we did a two-way evaluation of the internship, from the perspective of the mentors and from the perspective of the interns. They also submitted a report of their activities and were asked to comment on what they thought of the internship.

From theory to practice

Interns received training on basic preparation standards and techniques used in insect collections, from sorting bulk samples to mounting and adding a label to the specimen, to entering the specimen information in the collection database. They worked on identification of the most common orders of insects and had the opportunity to take high resolution images of dry specimens. Weekly discussions involved broad topics of interest such as the importance of biological collections, why and how to deposit scientific vouchers in collections, challenges of long term preservation of collections, etc. Interns received handouts and/or electronic links to reading material related to our topics of discussion. Each intern kept a lab notebook with records of all their internship activities, with date, brief description of the activity, time spent on the activity, plus any difficulties they encountered, questions, etc. Those records served as the basis for their internship report, due on the closing day.

Challenges to offering an internship

Time:  A great deal of time went into the planning of the internship. We defined goals, developed activities, prepared handouts and tool kits. During the semester, we worked closely with the interns, individually and in groups, mentoring and evaluating their progress as we went along.

Space & Equipment:  We do not have much idle space or equipment in the collection. Work space allocation to accommodate both our working staff and our interns was one of our major concerns (and cause of stress) in the planning of the internship.

Credit where it’s due

Our three interns, Ellen Dunkle, Hannah McKenzie, and Alexandria Ent, were very diligent and focused. They set the bar high for future interns. I also want to acknowledge the terrific work done by our guest scholar, Dr. Natalia Munteanu Molotievskiy, who instructed the interns on general insect taxonomy and on recognition of Coleoptera families.

Sorting funOur goal is to repeat the internship offering in 2017 as we already have students interested. Watch for the announcement some time during spring and come learn how to build a top notch insect collection with us.

 

About the Author: Dr. Luciana Musetti is an Entomologist, Parasitoid Wasp Specialist, Curator of the Triplehorn Insect Collection. Find me @osuc_curator on Instagram and on Twitter

Historical record of our museum documented by Carol Stein

Once upon a time there was an amazing naturalist by the name of Carol B. Stein. She was a remarkable woman whose accomplishments were too numerous to be outlined in a single blog post. We’ll be sharing more about Dr. Stein in future posts, from images of her admirable field journals to an explanation of how she began to digitize the freshwater mussel collection LONG before anyone else even recognized that it would become standard… but that story isn’t quite ready for mass perusal.
Today, instead, we’re going to learn a little bit about the history of the Museum of Biological Diversity from a scrapbook gifted to us by Dr. Stein upon her passing in 2010. She put together a binder in 1970 and filled it with a historical record of the museum as it existed at the time. I’ve included a somewhat amended version of it here.
Back then the collections, now housed at 1315 Kinnear Rd, were in the basement of Sullivant Hall, now home to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.
Carol Stein’s original document focused on showing panoramic views of every storage area and office of the museum and was a bit too mollusc-centric to be interesting viewing for our non-malacologist readers. I’ve attempted to highlight any images of the storage areas that are artistically beautiful photographs or those that describe the nature of the inner workings of the museum at the time of the photos.
This post and the following one on Friday are going to be an exploration of the inside of a museum 46 years ago. There are many parts that are shockingly similar to what you can see today such as the constant challenge of space management and the barely tempered chaotic nature of collecting. Of particular interest, the more disparate aspects of then and now, visible in images showing the old public exhibits at the museum. The bird display is quite ambitious, well-executed, and rather terrible for the specimens. Now those specimens live primarily in drawers, protected from the more preventable ravages of time.
One of the bird specimen displays

One of the bird specimen displays

These images tell the story of one of most challenging aspects of a museum: Maintaining an ever-shifting balance between accessibility and preservation. In order for a collection to seem inviting and available to museum patrons it must be regularly (or even constantly) subjected to the evils of dust, light, and air. For biological specimens this leads to rapid deterioration. The solution of course, is to have all specimens sealed away at all times. Unfortunately a complete and utter lack of visible collections makes for an uninspiring and less-than-educational museum experience. The struggle, then, lies in determining a happy medium between a museum’s archival role and its role as a public resource. It’s no small task, especially when paired with a chronic shortage of time, money, and space.
First, below, a look at the operations-side of a museum. On Friday look forward to images of the exhibits no longer present in modern iterations of the museum.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 
sara-klipsAbout the Author: Sara Klips, the mussel fairy, still acting as historian.

Successful Fundraiser allows specimens to be rolled into safety

Have you ever wondered how natural history museums store some of their priceless and unique specimens?  Though all museum specimens could be considered priceless and unique, some specimens may be the last representation of their species, known as extinct species. Other specimens are the very first of their species to be described, known as type specimens. Both of these groups of specimens are truly unique  in collections, some museums may never have any of these rare specimens. Our Tetrapod Collection does possess irreplaceable specimens of extinct species and  in October we ran a campaign to raise funds to better store and preserve such exclusive specimens.

We dedicated the month of October to tetrapods and filled it with social media posts about wintering strategies of various animals, thoughts on natural history, photo galleries, and videos illustrating what our collection means to the students, staff, and faculty of The Ohio State University. With the help of Devon Olding Videography, we made several short films highlighting our extinct species, storage of specimens, how we make specimens. Stephanie gave public outreach talks for Columbus Audubon and at the Ohio Avian Research Conference highlighting the importance of natural history collections.

Some specimens of extinct bird species in their current cabinet

Some specimens of extinct bird species in their current cabinet

A special thank you goes out to our students who worked on blog posts, helped with social media posts for Instagram and Twitter, and assisted with the design of our handouts to publicize the event.

Flier advertising Roll it out to safety campaignAt the end of our campaign, we exceeded our goal of $5,500! With the raised funds we will purchase a new cabinet on wheels, trays, and acid free tray liners to ensure that our extinct species will last for hundreds more years. Very different than a cabinet found in your kitchen, a museum-quality heavy-duty metal cabinet is made to last and protect the specimens from hazards such as pests or water. Additional funds will go towards a new display cabinet to allow us to show-off our species of the month during tours.

We want to thank all of you who helped share our posts and videos and a special thank you to those who donated to the campaign. We hope you had fun learning about tetrapods, The Ohio State University’s Tetrapod Collection in particular and what our collection means to our students, faculty and staff – more about this in Friday’s post.

 

Stephanie Malinich, collection manager TetrapodsAbout the Author: Stephanie Malinich is collection manager of the OSU tetrapods collection.

Interview with long-time volunteer in the Borror lab

Sandy Gaunt was the curator of the Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics until 2002 when she retired and decided to start volunteering in the lab.

Sandy Gaunt digitizing in the Borror lab

Sandy Gaunt digitizing in the Borror lab (photo A Nelson)

As an adjunct Assistant Professor of our department, Sandy did research on the syringeal structure in various bird species and has published her findings in numerous scientific journals.

In her role as a volunteer digitizer in the lab, Sandy has digitized many recordings. She was pivotal in the NSF-funded digitization project of Don Borror’s over 14,000! recordings. Lately she has digitized recordings by Arthur Borror, Don’s son. Of this collection, Sandy has to date digitized 173 cuts of 113 bird species in three different countries, Belize, Canada and USA from Arthur Borror’s collection.

Listen for yourself as Sandy tells about her favorite bird species, some bizarre recordings, some challenges and what she enjoys about working in the Borror lab:

 

Here are some photos and sounds of the species that Sandy mentions:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Sandy does not only donate her time to our lab, she also makes a monetary donation each year to support student workers in the lab. We are extremely grateful for having Sandy in these capacities.

 

Interview by Angelika Nelson, curator of the Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics with Sandy Gaunt, long-time volunteer in the lab.

Interview with student employee in the Borror lab

Kira Edic, a Forestry, Fisheries & Wildlife major, has been a student employee in the Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics since May 2016.

Kira's digitizing station in the Borror lab

Kira’s digitizing station in the Borror lab

Kira has helped digitize recordings made by Arthur Borror, son of Don Borror, who founded the acoustics lab. To date Kira has digitized 167 cuts of 117 bird species in three different countries, Canada, Ecuador and USA, from 1995 through 1997.

Kira Edic, undergraduate student in BLBListen for yourself to find out what Kira’s favorite and most bizarre bird has been, what some of the challenges are of working in our lab, and what she enjoys most about her work:

 

Kira’s favorite bird is the Screaming Piha Lipaugus vociferans.

Screaming Piha Lipaugus vociferans (photo by Matthew Sabatine, ML34429301)
The bird screaming (photo by Bridget Spencer, ML30078871)

To make this recording, Arthur Borror traveled to Ecuador and stayed at the Sacha Lodge, South America’s best Primary Rainforest Amazon sanctuary. The bird itself is rather plain looking but it makes up for it with its loud, shrill call. Listen for yourself (BLB46823):

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

The bizarre sound, Kira mentions, was made by a black lion tamarin Leontopithecus chrysopygus,

photo of black-lion tamarin (Wikipedia; CC BY-SA 4.0)

a critically endangered member of the lion tamarins.

Listen to the recording Kira added to the collection (BLB46605):

 

Kira also mentions antbirds, a large family of songbirds (passerines) that occurs across subtropical and tropical Central and South America, from Mexico to Argentina. More than 200 species are known within this family Thamnophilidae. They are generally small birds with mostly somber plumage coloration. They get their name from a peculiar behavior: These birds follow foraging army ants that regularly swarm across forest floors in Central America and feast on the hordes of fleeing insects that these ants flush into the surrounding foliage.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Interview by Angelika Nelson, curator of the Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics with Kira Edic, undergraduate student employee in the lab.

 

Hoosier Fish

Shown below are photos portraying our work to bring the Tom Simon Collection to Columbus.  We are so thankful to Beth Simon, Tom’s wife of 37 years, for honoring Tom’s wishes to gift the collection to the museum.  Beth was a great source of encouragement (including lots of pizza, subs, cookies and drinks and a great attitude) and brought her daugher Lia and son Zachary to assist in the move.  Tom Simon’s family exhibits the qualities that Tom himself exemplified, a true testimony to his character.  May the arrows from Tom’s quiver always fly true.

The old church that Ichthyologist Tom Simon refurbished and transformed to his laboratory

The old church near Bloomington, Indiana that Ichthyologist Tom Simon refurbished and updated to function as his laboratory and fish repository

 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Marc Kibbey surveys all that he is now “master” of.  The truck was loaded so heavily on the third trip that Marc and Logan had to dig 1 foot under the lift gate to be able to fold it up.  On one of the steep hills along Indiana Route 46 the truck could only muster 25mph on the nighttime drive back, no doubt making the long line of drivers behind a bit testy.

 

Load up! Indiana DNR NonGame Fish Biologist Brant Fisher, Indiana University and Tom Simon student Logan Shank fill up the truck

Load up! Indiana DNR NonGame Fish Biologist Brant Fisher, Indiana University and Tom Simon student Logan Shank fill up the truck.

 

Truck full-o'-fish

Truck full-o’-fish

 

Bloaters, one of several fish species new to our collection (and one of many reasons i'm excited about this gift)!

Bloaters, one of several rare fish species new to our collection (and one of many reasons i’m excited about this gift)!

 

These three carts hold what is numerically the biggest portion of the acquisition, approximately 7 million fish larvae

These three carts hold what is numerically the biggest portion of the acquisition, approximately 7 million fish larvae!  These vouchers were used to help develop a six volume series, “Reproductive Biology and Early Life History of Fishes in the Ohio River Drainage“, co-written by Tom Simon.

 

Logan Shank (aka The Modest Viking), Tom Simon's student ( right of Brant Fisher) is a gentle giant who worked tirelessly on our small crew on the Indiana side.

Logan Shank (aka The Modest Viking), Tom Simon’s student ( right of Brant Fisher) is a gentle giant who worked tirelessly on our small crew on the Indiana side.

Fish Slingers on the Dock

Fish Slingers on the Dock.  Thanks you guys, and to all the rest that helped us in Indiana and at the Museum of Biological Diversity!

A time of giving – 10 million specimens

The Fish collection has undergone a dramatic growth spurt, more than doubling in size, through the gift of a collection of fishes held by Dr. Tom Simon. Our colleague served as an expert in fish and crayfish biodiversity for Indiana and taught courses on larval fish biology at OSU’s Stone Lab. The transfer of specimens was planned with Tom upon his retirement, but happened more quickly because of his sad, sudden passing.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The relocation of the collection was spearheaded by Division of Fishes Curator Marc Kibbey, who served as logistics coordinator  and chief box mover for our three trips to the Bloomington facility where the material had been stored. Like so much of what we do, this move depended on the help of our students, volunteers, and colleagues, who showed up over several weekends to help us move thousands of boxes of specimens.

boxes organized for pick up

The students and friends helping in Bloomington organized boxes in advance of our arrival.

The Simon collection includes a synoptic collection of Indiana fish diversity plus extensive holdings of larval freshwater fish from across the US. It also contains historical collections that had been “orphaned” when institutions closed or experts retired. Unpacking and integrating the more than 10 million specimens we have acquired through this gift will occupy us for years to come. The tasks of accessioning, rehousing, and databasing the specimens are leavened by the opportunity to see so many fish, and to find some real gems within the collection.

 

About the Author: OSU Professor Meg Daly

Dr. Meg Daly is the Director of the OSU Museum of Biological Diversity, Professor in the department of Evolution, Ecology & Organismal Biology and manages the Lab of Marine Invertebrate Diversity.