specimen

Variety in a museum collection

While working in the collection or giving tours, I often find myself quoting Disney’s The Little Mermaid:

“Look at this stuff!
Isn’t it neat!
Wouldn’t you think my collection’s complete?”

We have thousands of specimens, many of them multiples of the same species.  You may wonder what the value of having hundreds of examples of the same species is. What can we learn from multiple American Robins (Turdus migratorius) or Northern Cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) that can’t be learned from just one?

To help answer this question let’s think of the collection as a library. And each species is a single book on a shelf. Each specimen represents an individual page within that book telling it’s own story of the what, when, who, where and why it lived it’s life. As a species begins to change over time we can show that process through the multiple individuals of a species in our collections. Our collections may never be complete but as you examine trays of species you learn the story of what makes that species unique.

Now when you look at the examples of our multiple specimen species trays, try to see if you can see how we get generic descriptions or illustrations of species. Also look at how different each individual looks when compared to others on the tray.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Stephanie Malinich, collection manager Tetrapods

About the Author: Stephanie Malinich is Tetrapod Collection Manager at the Museum of Biological Diversity and research assistant in Dr. Andreas Chavez’ lab.

 

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

The pigeon family

Earlier this week we talked about the role museums play in bringing back extinct species, like the Passenger Pigeon. But how did the Passenger Pigeon get to be part of the pigeon family?

The word pigeon tends to evoke a vision of a motley looking gray-brown plump bird bobbing around a feeder. And while some pigeons can be rather dull looking by exploring the tetrapod collection’s trays of Columbidae, the family for pigeons, you will see that some species are brightly colored, some are big or small, and some have unique feather patterns. Look for why all these different species are put in the same family. Keep an eye out for bill size and shape, which helps define the diet of a species. Examine the overall body shape of the pigeons, this can inform you how they nest, fly or move on the ground. Last, inspect the feet of the pigeons, feet can inform you about diet and movement of a species.

Comment below if you find other characteristics that these specimens have in common and allow us to place them in the same family!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

About the author: Stephanie Malinich is the collection manager of the OSU tetrapods at the Museum of Biological Diversity.

One of these skulls is not like the others

When we receive queries for identification of skulls or specimens, we turn to our large specimen collection to find those that look similar and may help in the identification process. Among other osteological features we can look at the proportions of the skull, along with the size, number and spacing of the teeth. All these features of a recently received picture of a specimen in question led me to suspect that the specimen is foreign to the Great Lakes, and based on the very small size of the specimen I suspected that it may be a Round Goby. Following I will show you some of the specimens I looked at to bolster my conclusion.

Let’s start with a picture of a Round Goby from our collection:

skull of OSUM104702 Neogobius melanostomus Round Goby

OSUM104702 Neogobius melanostomus, Round Goby

Note the width of the skull, and the abundance and spacing of the teeth on this specimen.

The species that I considered to have the skull that would most closely match the proportions of the putative goby skull was the Central Mottled Sculpin.

head of OSUM37269 Cottus bairdii Mottled Sculpin

OSUM37269 Cottus bairdii, Mottled Sculpin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But here you can see that the head of the Mottled Sculpin is actually wider than, and the teeth proportionally not as large as those of the Round Goby (there are several other skeletal differences but those sufficed for this diagnosis).

There are several native fish that are carnivorous and have caniniform or cardiform (small, numerous and closely spaced) teeth that I mused over, but as you can see almost all of those have much narrower skulls and/or have shorter, fewer and more widely spaced teeth than the skull in question.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Note: The Sauger, very close in appearance to the Walleye, was once abundant in Lake Erie but is now caught very seldom in the lake and its tributaries.

As you can see there is nothing quite like the Round Goby among our native species, and we should no doubt be thankful for that!

head of OSUM104702 Neogobius melanostomus Round Goby

OSUM104702 Neogobius melanostomus, Round Goby

Let us hope that the situation remains the same, and in the meantime, if you find a good use for these little monsters feel free to apply it and let us know your ideas.

 

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