molluscs

Dead Clams Walking – Part II

April 18 2016April 17, 2016

In our previous blog we talked about the nearly extinct genus of freshwater mussels, Epioblasma. Here we present a sobering/depressing gallery of most of its species. Specimens are female individuals.

White Catspaw Maumee River system Probably extinct

Purple Catspaw
Upper Ohio River system
Federally endangered

Southern Combshell Tombigbee River system Federally endangered

Cumberlandian Combshell
Tennessee River system
Federally endangered

Oyster Shell
Tennessee River system
Federally endangered

Leafshell
Ohio River system
Extinct

Northern Riffleshell
Ohio River-Great Lakes
Federally endangered

Southern Combshell
Mobile River system
Federally endangered

Duck River Oystershell
Duck River
Federally endangered

Yellow Blossom
Tennessee River system
Extinct

Acornshell
Tennessee River system
Extinct

Round Combshell
Ohio River system
Extinct

White Catspaw
Maumee River system
Probably extinct

Ahlstedt’s Oystershell
Tennessee River system
Federally endangered

Curtis Pearlymussel
Black River system
Possibly extinct

Forkshell
Ohio River system
Extinct

Sugarspoon
Tennessee River system
Extinct

Snuffbox
Ohio River – Great Lakes
Federally endangered

Southern Acornshell
Coosa River system
Possibly extinct

Tubercled Blossom
Ohio River system
Extinct

Cumberland Leafshell
Tennessee River system
Extinct

Turgid Blossom
Duck River
Extinct

Upland Combshell
Coosa River system
Federally endangered

Tan Riffleshell
Duck River
Federally endangered

About the Author: Dr. G. Thomas Watters is Curator of Molluscs at the Museum of Biological Diversity.

Dead clams walking – Part I

April 11 2016April 7, 2016

Freshwater mussels are the most imperiled animals in North America according to the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Habitat destruction, pollution, dams, and a litany of other problems have driven many to the verge of extinction. Alas, many are already there. Perhaps the poster children of extinct or soon-to-be-extinct mussels are members of the genus Epioblasma. Once widespread in eastern North America, perhaps no other group has been so decimated by the activities of mankind. And “decimated” is an understatement. Technically, “decimated” means to kill every tenth member of something. For Epioblasma, every species is either extinct or endangered to the point of becoming extinct. And we, mankind, did this to them.

Because so many species of Epioblasma are extinct, the habits of very few have ever been studied. But those that have been investigated reveal a unique (if perhaps somewhat shocking) lifestyle. Like most freshwater mussels, members of Epioblasma have a parasitic larval stage, the glochidium, that uses fishes as hosts. Most mussels have evolved some means of efficiently putting their babies on the proper host. This usually entails luring the host to the mussel to be parasitized. But Epioblasma goes one step further – they actually catch the fish and hold onto it until it has been covered with thousands of parasitic larvae. Mama mussel then releases the host. If all goes as planned, several weeks later the larvae will transform on the fish, fall to the bottom and start their life as juvenile mussels. For the few species for which the hosts are known, the victims are darters and sculpins. The fishes have no one but themselves to blame – they are caught by the mussel when they get too nosy and stick their heads in the mussel to investigate.

Below are some images of the federally endangered Northern Riffleshell and its unfortunate host. Members of the Division of Molluscs have been moving this rare species from the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania to Big Darby Creek in Ohio. The Allegheny population is the only reproducing one on earth but it is doing very well, with probably 100s of thousands of individuals. In partnership with the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium and Columbus Metro Parks, we have been relocating this species for nearly seven years with the permission and funding of the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the ODNR Division of Wildlife, and the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission. To date nearly 10,000 individuals have been moved. In order to monitor these mussels, every one has been affixed with a $4 Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tag. All have been released into several of the Metro Parks on Big Darby where they can be protected and monitored. The goal is to start a reproducing population there with the ultimate hope of delisting the species as endangered. This is the largest introduction/augmentation of an endangered species in the history of Ohio.

Next time we will present a gallery of Epioblasma.

A female Northern Riffleshell, Epioblasma torulosa rangiana

A male Northern Riffleshell

A female Riffleshell awaiting a nosy darter

A darter has been caught by the mussel’s shells and held for parasitization

This darter did not survive the ordeal. Note the larval mussels attached to the fish’s opercles and eyes.

PIT tags, about the size of a large grain of rice

PIT tags are glued to the outside of the shell with an underwater epoxy

Release of tagged individuals to a site on Big Darby Creek

Dr. Ieva Roznere (OSU) monitoring the mussels with a PIT tag reader

A pair of recovered individuals

About the Author: Dr. G. Thomas Watters is Curator of Molluscs at the Museum of Biological Diversity.

The Rock Shells

February 26 2016February 26, 2016

Today’s blog is a gallery of some of the most exquisite lowly snails in the world – the rock snails of the family Muricidae. This marine group occurs from the high tide line to nearly abyssal depths and is found the world over. It is believed that they are predators on other molluscs and barnacles, scavengers, and ectoparasites on cnidarians – but we really don’t know very much about them. They can be pests of valuable commercial shellfish beds and some nuisance species have been accidentally moved around the globe. A few Mediterranean species were the source of Royal Tyrian Dye, supporting an industry that dates back millennia. The dye was the product of a compound in the saliva of the snails that turned a deep purple when treated correctly. The dye was so expensive to make that only royalty and clergy could afford to wear it – the purple in Catholic robes and sashes was originally made this way.

The muricids are popular with collectors, with some specimens selling for thousands of dollars. There are perhaps 1,700 species and more are described all the time. Current “hot spots” for new muricid species are New Caledonia, Somalia, and Indonesia.

Trochia cingulata (Linnaeus, 1758)
South Africa

Rapana venosa (Valenciennes, 1846)
Italy (introduced)

Pteropurpura falcata (Sowerby, 1834)
Japan

Murexiella hidalgoi (Crosse, 1869) Florida

Pteropurpura debruini (Lorenz, 1989)
South Africa

Poirieria zelandica (Quoy & Gaimard, 1833)
New Zealand

Chicopinnatus loebbeckei (Kobelt, 1979)
Philippines

Haustellum haustellum (Linnaeus, 1758)
Philippines

Murex ternispina Lamarck, 1822
Philippines

Homalocantha zamboi Burch & Burch, 1960
Philippines

Drupa grossularia Roding, 1798
French Polynesia

Murexiella bojadorensis (Locard, 1897)
Senegal

Mancinella armigera (Link, 1807)
Kiribati

Vokesimurex bellus (Reeve, 1845)
Venezuela

Morula ambrosia (Houart, 1994)
Marshall Islands

Chicoreus setionoi Houart, 2001
Indonesia

Eupleura pectinata (Hinds, 1844) Panama West

Siratus alabaster (Reeve, 1845)
Philippines

Chicoreus strigatus (Reeve, 1849)
Philippines

Chicoreus corrugatus (Sowerby, 1840)
Israel

Chicoreus rossiteri (Crosse, 1872)
Philippines

Chicoreus cervicornis (Lamarck, 1822)
Australia

Chicopinnatus celinamarumai (Kosuge, 1980)
Philippines

Ceratostoma burnetti (Adams & Reeve, 1849)
Korea

Boreotrophon avalonensis (Dall, 1902)
California

Attiliosa nodulifera (Sowerby, 1841)
Philippines

About the Author: Dr. G. Thomas Watters is Curator of Molluscs at the Museum of Biological Diversity.

Liggers, snails and the Everglades

February 22 2016February 22, 2016

Among the most beautiful snails are the Florida Tree Snails of the genus Liguus. Few groups of molluscs have such a storied past. Liguus, or Ligs, are arboreal snails occurring in southern Florida, Cuba, with a single species in western-most Haiti. The number of species involved depends on the people asked and the amount of beer consumed. Most people agree that Cuba, with an abundance of named species, was the ancestral home of the group. It was probably only a short hop for Guantánamo’s snails to the Haitian shore via hurricane-driven foliage. And many, including this writer, believe that Ligs were also the original Cuban refugees to Florida – rafted from Cuba to the Keys and the Gold Coast. And from there, all heck broke loose.

Delicatus form

The situation is this: the snails live in hammocks, which are islands of trees surrounded by sawgrass and other soggy vegetation. To the tree-hugging snails this intervening area might as well be the ocean. They cannot, by themselves, get from Hammock A to Hammock B unless they are blown there on vegetation during hurricanes or perhaps rafted during floods. It is what happens next that is important. In all likelihood only a very few snails will make it to the next hammock. Should they survive and there are enough individuals to mate (they are hermaphrodites) or they are already pregnant, that next generation, now isolated, will have only a small fraction of the genetic variation of the original populations. The result is an enormous variety in shell coloration where specific patterns only occur in a single hammock or group of hammocks. Fifty-nine patterns have been named.

Barbouri form

In Florida the Ligs occurred in three general areas: the Keys, the Gold Coast, and the Everglades. Collecting them, particularly in the Everglades, could be an adventure. And those adventurers called themselves Liggers. On foot, on horseback, in Model As, some of America’s most famous malacologists ventured into the chigger-infested, cotton-mouth crawling, gater guarded, sawgrass cutting landscape in the early 1900s. Long before GPS or even decent maps, these intrepid collectors produced hand-drawn maps and named and numbered hundreds of hammocks and cataloged the Ligs they found there. Archie Jones, perhaps the most experienced of the Liggers, once remarked that a Ligger needed two qualities: high stamina and low IQ.

Lignumvitae form

These were not just shell collectors. They were conservationists. They quickly realized that many of the hammocks were being destroyed and others would inevitably be lost as well. The Keys were being cut-over for houses. The Gold Coast was being paved in concrete for posh hotels. The hammocks, and their unique snails, would soon be lost forever. But by 1957 snails were being transplanted out of harm’s way into the newly formed Everglades National Park where they would be protected. Most of the 59 “forms” still exist today but perhaps not in their original location. That’s where the Division of Molluscs comes into the picture.

We have one of the largest collections of Florida Liguus in the world, much of it purchased directly from Archie Jones. We were interested in zoogeographic patterns between the color forms. We used the powerful but complicated mapping software ArcIMS to plot the various distributions. But first we had to georeference the hundreds of Liguus hammocks – whose location you may remember was in the form of hand-drawn maps nearly a hundred years old. With the invaluable aid of several students we found and plotted the hammocks. Using a layer for each color form it was possible to compare distributions with each other and other environmental factors such as land type. The effort is available on line through our Division website. It is the first of its kind to map these snails (and the only one as far as I know). Go here and select “Maps:”

http://www.biosci.ohio-state.edu/~molluscs/OSUM2/

Septentrionalis form

Original range

Original range under concrete

Castaneozonatus form

Original range

Besides being beautiful shells the Ligs beg several very interesting ecological and phylogenetic questions. The elephant in the malacological room is: “Are they all the same species, just local variations, the product of a single Cuban introduction?” I suspect not. My pet hypothesis, lacking any data whatsoever, is that our Floridian Ligs are the product of several introductions of several species. “Are they color forms, species, subspecies, or something else?” I suspect something else. I think this is a fantastic opportunity for some student to investigate this complicated problem using emerging phylogenetic methods.

As a parting word, the Olde Tyme Liggers were not averse to a little ad hoc experimentation. “I wonder what would happen if we took this snail from Hammock A and this snail from Hammock B and put them in a snail-less Hammock C? Whaddaya think?” Well, they form hybrid color patterns, all dutifully named after colleagues and wives.

About the Author: Dr. G. Thomas Watters is Curator of Molluscs at the Museum of Biological Diversity.

Digitizing your Mussels

November 23 2015November 22, 2015

Museum accessibility has proceeded by leaps and bounds in a relatively short span of time. When I was working on chitons for my Masters Thesis I routinely made the pilgrimage to the National Museum, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and many others to examine material. Outside of the occasional loan or (God forbid!) an actual letter, there was no other way to get information out of a collection. This quickly changed with the advent of the world-wide web. Coupled with electronic databases, it was now possible for scientists to view catalog data without ever leaving the office. While in some ways this is unfortunate (every systematist should at some point visit these historical collections), the result was millions of records available at the touch of a keyboard. The OSU Division of Molluscs joined this effort early on by placing their freshwater mussel collection catalog online. The freshwater gastropod collection will be next to be uploaded for an estimated total approaching 2 million specimens – the largest freshwater mollusc collection in the world.

But still, these are only records. How do you know the specimen behind the record is correctly identified? What color is it? In what condition is the specimen? Is there some unusual feature that might be of interest? Enter the next phase – the creation and uploading of digital images of the specimens, and associated labels. With the image(s) available online, now a worker can see nearly everything he/she would ever want to know about the specimen – again without ever leaving the office. Sounds great. But to the people who actually curate the collections this is a quantum leap in effort. Specimens must be retrieved, set up for imaging, photographed, incorporated into the database, and uploaded.

The freshwater bivalve collection is in this laborious phase of producing digital images of specimens. With over 90,000 lots to image, this will not be a quick project. To speed up the effort we image not individual specimens, but individual lots. Scale bars are included in the photo to indicate approximate size. Labels are also imaged. These are incorporated into the catalog database so that all information may be viewed online – collection record, locality map, lot image, and label image. In our version, a button on the catalog screen will take the viewer to the images. The upload of this digitized catalog is some ways off, but stay tuned.

Proposed catalog with link to images

Digitized specimens and label

About the Author: Dr. G. Thomas Watters is Curator of Molluscs at the Museum of Biological Diversity.

Christmas Tree Ornament Snails

November 20 2015November 19, 2015

Halotudora gruneri (Pfeiffer, 1846)

As the holidays are upon us, it is comforting to know that even the lowliest creatures celebrate the season.

The Caribbean land snails in the family Annulariidae do a lot of strange things, but among the strangest is their propensity to hang upside down from a thread or threads of hardened mucus like Christmas tree ornaments. Why they do this is a mystery. But as near as we can tell, many of them do it – no matter where they are from: Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Curaçao, Guatemala – their entire zoogeographic range. This suggests that this odd behavior is quite ancient. The thread-spinning trait must have evolved very early on in the history of these snails before they dispersed throughout the Caribbean and Central America.

When do they do it? Well, they seem to do it at night and they will suspend themselves from caves, trees, walls – pretty much anything, including other snails. They secrete a mucus thread or threads from which they hang. To my knowledge no one has actually seen them do it. The previous evening they are crawling around, the next morning they are suspended. From where is the thread produced? Unknown. The snails have an operculum – a trapdoor attached to their foot that seals the shell opening when the animal is withdrawn. The operculum is clamped down on the thread suggesting that the animal does not have to expend energy holding on to the thread.

Why do they do it? No one knows. But the thread is very fragile – the slightest touch will break it, causing the snail to fall to the ground. The most plausible suggestion as to why they bother is that the behavior is an antipredator device. Any would-be predator crawling down the thread would cause the thread to break, thus losing the snail and their potential lunch. The fall apparently does not harm the snail; dented and broken shells are common in some species.

The photos below show some ornamental snails from Guatemala.

Diplopoma osberti (Tristram, 1861)

Gouldipoma coltrorum Watters, 2014

Parachondria rubicundus (Morelet, 1849)

Diplopoma rigidulum (Morelet, 1851)

About the Author: Dr. G. Thomas Watters is Curator of Molluscs at the Museum of Biological Diversity.

Up close and personal: insects and molluscs

October 16 2015October 16, 2015

Here’s one question I get frequently from visitors: “Why, oh, why, isn’t the Museum of Biological Diversity open to everyone every day?” That’s a very good question! Here’s an answer. Unlike institutions such as the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, the Field Museum, the Carnegie Museum, or our neighbor the Cleveland Museum among others, our museum largely grew out of a background of higher education and research. We have a different structure and a different mission than these other very fine institutions. The most visible outcome of these differences is the fact that we don’t have large display areas and exhibits. We also do not have staff dedicated to public outreach. But it’s good to keep in mind that the MBD collections vary in the kinds of services they provide to the community. Each is unique in it’s own way.

My little corner of the MBD is the Triplehorn Insect Collection. We are a research facility and most of our specimens are only accessible to professional scientists and scientists in training (graduate students, postdoctoral associates, etc.) This policy gets me in trouble with a lot of people who love insects and would like to come in to “see” (many times that means “touch”) the collection. So, before anyone else gets hot under the collar about that, let’s try to understand what that policy means.

Dried insect specimens are as fragile as they are colorful and beautiful. The more they are handled and exposed to light and humidity, the faster and more likely they are to get damaged. The insect specimens in the Triplehorn collection are the result of more than 100 years of careful collecting and curation, many of them were collected in forests and meadows and prairies that do not exist anymore. These specimens are, literally, irreplaceable, and it is our responsibility to keep them intact for many more long years.

Aquatic beetles. Part of the holdings of the Triplehorn Insect Collection.

Because of that, we restrict access to the specimens to only the people who must use them for scientific study, professionals who have lots of experience with museum specimens and therefore are less likely to damage our precious charges. As the curator of the collection, it is my responsibility to protect and preserve the specimens for the long run. To do that I have to enforce the “restricted access” policy.

Now, the fact that we are a research collection does not mean we don’t welcome visitors. Quite the contrary! We are committed to sharing our knowledge and love of biodiversity with everyone interested. While we don’t have exhibits per se, we frequently and happily provide tours of the collection to people from the local community. Or even not so local: our audience is wide and varied, from k-12 to university classes, to family or neighborhood groups, to homeschool groups, to citizen scientists and individuals interested in local and global insect diversity.

: OSU student group visit.

: OSU student group visit.

: Art Department class visit.

: Art Department class visit.

: OSU Entomology class visit.

: OSU Entomology class visit.

Up to now we have been scheduling visits as requests come in and our time allows, but starting this month we in the insect collection will be teaming up with our colleagues in the Mollusc Division of the MBD to offer guided tours of the two collections to the general public on set dates. This initiative comes as a response to the increased interest in the collections, demonstrated by the increase in visit requests.

Tours will still be arranged in advance, but by specifying which days are open for tours we hope to make the whole process a bit easier and more predictable. The set dates might not work for all visitors, but by working together and establishing a structure for tour activities, we hope to continue serving the community without drastically increasing the work-load of our already overworked staff.

: School visit.

: School visit.

: School visit.

: School visit.

The next available dates for insect collection/mollusc collection joint tours are Friday, October 23rd and Friday, November 6th, from 1pm to 4pm. Total estimated tour time for the two collections is between 45 min to 1 hour/group. Group size limit is 20 adults. For more information or to schedule a guided tour, please contact Tom Watters or Luciana Musetti.

About the Author: Dr. Luciana Musetti is an entomologist and Curator of the C.A. Triplehorn Insect Collection.

A classy group of land snails

October 12 2015October 8, 2015

In addition to freshwater molluscs, we also work with terrestrial snails. Our research is concentrated on the Caribbean snail family Annulariidae (ca. 700 species). A few examples are shown below.

Xenopoma aguayoi Torre & Bartsch, 1941 – Cuba

Parachondria fascia (Wood, 1828) – Jamaica

Cistulops raveni (Crosse, 1872) – Curaçao

Annularia pisum (Adams, 1849) – Jamaica

Abbottella domingoensis Bartsch, 1946 – Hispaniola

Chondropomium elegans Watters & Duffy, 2010 – Hispaniola

Chondropomium swifti (Shuttleworth, 1854) – Hispaniola

Chondrothyra atristoma (Henderson & Bartsch, 1938) – Cuba

Annularia rosenbergi Bank & Menkhorst, 2008 – Jamaica

Turrithyra hendersoni (Torre, 1909) – Cuba

Crossepoma vermiculatum (Bartsch, 1946) – Hispaniola

Parachondria rubicundus (Morelet, 1849) – Guatemala

Licina auffenbergi Watters, 2013 – Hispaniola

Chondropomium lynx Watters, 2012 – Hispaniola

Weinlandipoma gonavense (Weinland, 1880) – Hispaniola

Wetmorepoma morsecodex (Watters, 2012) – Hispaniola

Chondropoma crystallinum Watters, 2012 – Hispaniola

Chondropoma manielense Bartsch, 1946 – Hispaniola

About the author: Dr. G. Thomas Watters is the Curator of Molluscs

Hawai’ian Tree Snails – an old and unlikely Ohio connection

October 9 2015October 7, 2015

Hawai’i is (or was) home to a great diversity of tree snails in the families Achatinellidae and Amastridae. It seemed as if every valley on every island had its own suite of species. Many were quite common. But that was then. Now they have been decimated by the introduction, accidental or otherwise, of invasive hogs and other animals brought by European settlers. Some species, even an entire genus, have become extinct.

Wesley Newcomb

Wesley Newcomb (1808-1892) was a physician, social activist, and conchologist. Born in New York, he moved from Albany to California in 1849, then to Hawai’i in 1850 due, in part, to his wife’s ill health. There he practiced medicine, served on the Board of Health, became active in the Hawaiian Temperance Movement, and collected a lot of shells. In 1855 he returned to Albany. His collection was purchased by Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University, for $15,000, and it resides there still. An avid shell collector, Newcomb traveled to Europe, the West Indies, and Central and South America. He described over 100 species, including many Hawai’ian Achatinellidae and Amastridae.

The Division of Molluscs has a modest collection of Hawai’ian Achatinellidae and Amastridae originating from Newcomb. The collection was either purchased by or traded with Henry Moores in the mid-1800’s. (Henry Moores, 1812-1896, assembled one of the most diverse shell collections of his time. The Ohio State University purchased this collection, 3,500 specimens for $1,750, about 1890). Card stock used for labels cut from postcards date from the 1850s. The collection has an accompanying list of specimens, some notes, and a short letter to Moores. The curious, printed handwriting matches that of Newcomb’s labels now at the Paleontological Research Institute at Ithaca, New York, and there is no doubt that they are Newcomb’s specimens. Specimens have as many as six labels, with different numbers, in the same vials. However, according to Newcomb’s accompanying list, he inserted “card” labels with a number that matched the number on the list. These card labels, often small squares, have numbers written by Newcomb’s hand and can easily be discerned from the later labels added to the specimens. Some specimens are numbered in ink or pencil, but these numbers were added by Moores. The specimens were apparently sent to Moores after Newcomb’s return to the mainland.

Portion of letter to Moores

Some aspects of the collection are interesting from a personal view of Newcomb. Many of the specimens were dirty and bear on the small card labels the advice “wash them” (we have carefully done so in a sonic cleaner). The list arrived before the shells as Newcomb tells Moores to “Wait for the Waggon! (Express)” And one label bears the opinionated observation: “‘guernea‘ W.H.P. [crossed out, then added:] A. perversa? Swains. ‘guernea‘ of some fool.” Newcomb’s “fool” was apparently contemporary fellow Hawai’ian conchologist, William Harper Pease.

Below are some of Newcomb’s own specimens now in the Division of Molluscs.

About the Author: Dr. G. Thomas Watters is the Curator of Molluscs.

Welcome to the OSU Bio Museum blog

August 25 2015October 7, 2015

Today I have the pleasure to welcome you to OSU Bio Museum, a blog about biodiversity, research and museum work at the Ohio State Museum of Biological Diversity. This endeavor is the successor to our newsletter. That effort lived in both the physical and digital worlds, but to keep up with the times and changing needs, the blog is a wholly digital enterprise. The purpose remains the same, though: to share with the community the happenings, news, and successes (and sometimes failures) of the Museum. Our plan is to have weekly postings during the academic semester, with the post authors rotating among the different units in the Museum. We will also feature a Media Gallery every week. My objective in this inaugural post is to briefly describe what those units are and how the Museum is organized and functions.

The Museum, let’s call it the MBD for short, coalesced in its present form in 1992 when the University moved the bulk of the biological collections from the Columbus campus to a newly renovated building on West Campus, at our current address of 1315 Kinnear Road.

Museum of Biological Diversity on 1315 Kinnear Road

For more than 20 years the MBD has been a bit of a strange beast in that it has been a voluntary association among the collections rather than a real, defined administrative unit. Originally, most of the collections were administered by the Departments of Botany, Zoology, and Entomology. Two or three reorganizations later the primary department is Evolution, Ecology & Organismal Biology (EEOB for short) in the College of Arts & Sciences, and a smaller component associated with the Department of Entomology in the College of Food, Agriculture & Environmental Sciences (CFAES). The Entomology connection is a new one as of September 1, 2015, a reflection of a change in my formal appointment to 75% EEOB and 25% Entomology.

The overall mission of the MBD, just as the University as a whole, is teaching, research, and service. Inside the building we have, of course, the collections themselves, but also office and lab space for faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, emeriti and undergraduate students. The most glaring absence, though, is space dedicated to public exhibits. We compensate for that in two ways, our annual Museum Open House and guided tours of the facility. The tours are organized on an appointment basis only and have encompassed a wide range of groups, from elementary school kids and scout groups to University President’s Club members. Anyone interested in scheduling a guided tour of the Museum should contact us, or contact one of the collections directly to make arrangements. It’s my personal aspiration that in the future it may be possible to develop exhibit space for the public in the building, but that’s still just a gleam in my eye!

If you have not done so yet, please visit the Museum website and follow our Facebook page.

So far I’ve referred to the units of the MBD without much explanation. What are they? Well, there are seven main collections: the Triplehorn Insect Collection (which I direct, but for which Dr. Luciana Musetti is the real driving force); the Acarology Laboratory (led by Dr. Hans Klompen), the Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics (led by Dr. Doug Nelson), the Herbarium (Dr. John Freudenstein), the Division of Molluscs (Dr. Tom Watters), the Division of Tetrapods (Ms. Stephanie Malinich), and the Division of Fishes (Dr. Meg Daly). The naming system, as I write this, must seem very confusing – what’s a collection vs. a division? The names are historical artifacts that, perhaps, made some sense at one time, but now they’re all basically equivalent. As you’ll see in my descriptions below and in future posts, there is a lot of variation among collections in their size, staffing, history and aspirations. So let’s go through the seven units:

Charles A. Triplehorn Insect Collection. The insect collection contains about 4 million prepared specimens, nearly 3,000 primary types, and one of the world’s largest leafhopper collections. The collection formally began in 1934 by Prof. Josef N. Knull, and has strong holdings in beetles (Coleoptera), Hemiptera (true bugs and hoppers), Hymenoptera (ants, bees, wasps), Odonata (dragon- and damselflies) and Orthoptera (grasshoppers and crickets). Originally the specimens largely came from the United States, but we have expanded significantly since then. Recent collecting trips have been made to Brazil, South Africa, Australia, and Malaysia (Sarawak). Ongoing research is focused on the systematics of parasitic wasps and the development of information technologies to share specimen data and images globally.

To know more about the Triplehorn collection, visit the website and follow the collection’s lively social media presence, which include the Pinning Block blog, a Facebook page, a Flickr image site & a Twitter feed.

Acarology Laboratory. Initiated by George W. Wharton in 1951, the Acarology collection is considered one of the best and most extensive insect and mite collections in North America. Over 150,000 identified and considerably more than one million unidentified specimens are included, preserved either in alcohol or on microscope slides. The geographic range is worldwide. The collection gets extensive use during the annual Acarology Summer Program, the foremost training workshop in systematic acarology in the world.

More information about the Acarology Lab can be found on their website. They also maintain the Acarology Summer Program website.

Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics. The Borror lab is one of the leading collections of animal sound recordings in the United States. The Laboratory is named for Dr. Donald J. Borror, and entomologist and ornithologist who was a pioneer in the field of bioacoustics. He contributed many recordings including the first sound specimen in the archive, a recording of a blue jay in 1948. Today, the sound collection contains over 42,000 recordings, the majority of which are birds. Donald Borror also contributed many recordings of insects. Mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and even fish are part of the collection. The recordings are widely used for research, education, conservation, and public and commercial media.

Visit the Borror Lab website for more information and make sure to check their audio CDs.

Herbarium. The OSU Herbarium was founded in 1891 by Dr. William A. Kellerman,well-known botanical explorer of Central America, pioneer mycologist (that’s fungi!), and the University’s first professor of botany. It serves as a source of botanical data and as a base of operations for a wide variety of taxonomic, evolutionary, phytogeographical, and biochemical research programs; preserves specimens as vouchers to document present and past research studies or vegetation patters; serves as a reference point for the precise identification of plants, algae, protists, fungi and lichens; and serves the public by identifying plant specimens, providing morphological, systematic, and other information about plant species, and answering questions about plants, their properties and uses. The Herbarium currently holds over 550,000 specimens, including over 420 type specimens.

For more information about the Herbarium visit their website.

Molluscs. The Mollusc Division is really a collection of collections, containing over 1 million specimens in 140,000 lots. Over the years a number of private and institutional collections have been organized into the collection here today. The earliest large accession was that of Henry Moores (1812-1896) and was worldwide, both fossil and recent. Moores assembled one of the most diverse collections of labeled shells of that period. The University purchased this collection around 1890, added several private collections to it, and cataloged the material as part of the holdings of the first organization of the Ohio State University Museum in 1891. This collection and others were given to the Ohio State Museum on Campus in 1925, maintained and enlarged for nearly half a century, then returned to the administration of the University in 1970.

The Division of Molluscs has an interesting blog, Shell-fire and Clam-nation, and a website.

Tetrapods. The Division of Tetrapods (amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals) is a repository of Ohio and North American species and some worldwide research expeditions. The collections were established shortly after the founding of The Ohio State University in 1870 and grew through the collecting efforts of OSU faculty. Specimens date as far back as 1837 and include many now-protected species as well as extinct species such as the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Carolina Parakeet, and Passenger Pigeon. The collection houses more than 170 amphibian, 200 reptile, almost 2,000 bird and 250 mammal species.

To learn more about the OSU Tetrapod collection, visit their website and their blog, Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds and Mammals.

Fish. The Fish Division began with the collections of D. Albert Tuttle, OSU’s first zoologist. Officially recognized in 1895, the fish collection grew and moved from the Botany and Zoology Building to OSU’s Biological Station at Cedar Point, to the Ohio State Historical Society, to the Franz Theodore Stone Laboratory on Gilbraltar Island, to Sullivant Hall, and finally (whew!) to its current location as part of the Museum of Biological Diversity. The collection is primarily used as a resource for systematics research, laboratory teaching, and public education. It is also a resource for state and federal scientists who use it as a basis for comparative studies, document the geographic ranges of fish, and conduct ecological assessments and environmental impact statements.

Visit the Fish Division website for more information about their activities.

We hope you enjoy the blog and please send us your feedback!

About the Author: Dr. Norman F. Johnson is a Professor with appointments in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology & the Department of Entomology at The Ohio State University. He is also the Director of the Triplehorn Insect Collection. Norman studies the systematics and evolution of parasitoid wasps in the family Platygastridae (Hymenoptera).

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Dead Clams Walking – Part II

Dead clams walking – Part I

The Rock Shells

Liggers, snails and the Everglades

Digitizing your Mussels

Christmas Tree Ornament Snails

Up close and personal: insects and molluscs

A classy group of land snails

Hawai’ian Tree Snails – an old and unlikely Ohio connection

Welcome to the OSU Bio Museum blog

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