Volunteer

Tetrapod Collection: What Happens in a Collection?

A collection is nothing without people who use it. Our collection sees constant use by students, artists, researchers, experts and more. We conduct tours, workshops, and projects within the collection, all involving people who desire to learn more about some animals and find these in our collections. None of this would be possible without a community around us, who want to learn and appreciate all the collection has to offer.

Help us maintain our specimens and check out our campaign! We are raising money for a new mobile cabinet for our endangered and extinct species. Please spread the word about our campaign and and donate today!

Enjoy photos of visitors to the tetrapods collection:

How can museum collections help us understand bird migration?

Millions of birds migrate south every fall. You may have noticed some recent changes in your backyard bird community. Most of our summer residents have left by now, Tree Swallows and Eastern Bluebirds will be back next spring. Some birds will not succeed on their long journeys, because we have put up many obstacles for them to overcome, such as buildings with clear, shiny windows. Birds try to fly right through them. Thousands of volunteers like you pick up these window-killed birds and take them to their local natural history museum. We prepare them into specimen skins and preserve them for future research.

Window-killed birds collected in downtown Columbus in spring 2013

Window-killed birds collected in downtown Columbus in spring 2013

Over the years these specimens paint a picture of certain routes particular species take, the timing of their migration etc. We have learned that not all individuals of a species migrate at the same time, often young birds migrate later than adults, females differently from males.

To find out when to expect migrating birds in your area visit the Black Swamp Bird Observatory. We can learn so much from our museum bird skins and studies will help us make migration safer for today’s birds.

Sometimes birds get blown off track on their long journey and end up in an unusual location. With so many bird watchers today, these birds usually stir quite a bird watching frenzy. In the past some of them have ended up in our collection like this Magnificent Frigatebird that Milton Trautman collected in Morrow county, Ohio on October 2nd in 1967, almost 50 years ago.

Natural history museum across the country help with these efforts. Read about this student’s project “What can we learn from 30+ years of bird migration data?” at the Field Museum in Chicago.

Before you get involved you may want to read this testimony from volunteers at the Field Museum who collected and prepared many of the specimens for the above study.

Watch this video:

video

Brown Bats and Red Bats and Myotis Oh my!

An evening walk, in search of the Ohio State University’s only flying mammal, the bat.

 

BioPresence and the Museum of Biological Diversity’s Tetrapod Collection presents an evening with Count Dracula’s counterpart and the only flying mammal found in the world, the bat. Come learn more and follow around some of Ohio’s most unique and fascinating mammals. With the use of a bat detector we will be recording what species we are finding and documenting as much of the local campus bat life as possible.

 

All are welcome: Bat Walk will occur Tuesday August 25th 2015 at 8:15PM and meeting location to be announced closer to event.

Observations from the Freshman-Brought to you by Raymond

If I said that I had planned to work at The Ohio State University’s Museum of Biological Diversity from the beginning of my college career, I’d be lying. If I said that I was aware of the museum’s existence before last October, I’d still be lying (I know. I’m just the worst).

If I were to spin a yarn about how I first got started at the museum, it would begin last semester when I was frantically searching for an undergraduate research position. As a zoology major entering my third year of college, I thought to myself, I should probably start getting zoology work related experiences to put on my resume and undergraduate research seemed the most appealing. The problem is that Sasquatch is easier to find than a professor doing zoology-related research and who is looking for an undergraduate to participate. So after much searching, emailing, crying, etc… I asked the undergraduate research office where I could go to find said professors looking for undergraduate workers. They replied that most of researchers could be found, or have an office at the University’s Museum of Biological Diversity.

Upon hearing this, my initial thought was, “We have a Museum of Biological Diversity?” My second thought was, “We have a Museum of Biological Diversity and I’m just hearing about this now?”  I took a bus out to Carmack Corner, walked up a dirt road and found this place on the very edge of the University’s land. When I first discovered the museum, I was so incredibly intrigued and excited about what could be inside. Upon further investigation however, I was incredibly disappointed to see it wasn’t an “actual” museum but more akin to the warehouse from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

A picture of OSU's Museum of Biological Diversity. A very plain looking brick building.

There is the building in all its glory. When I say that this museum is out of the way, I mean it is really at the far western end of campus.

It wasn’t until the beginning of this semester that I had heard about the museum’s annual open house. I had been told that this is the one day of the year that the museum resembles the general public’s view of what an actual museum rather than a warehouse, so I decided to attend. The open house was a wonderful experience for a zoology major, such as myself. After entering the building, I was soon surrounded by specimens of exotic and colorful birds and skeletons from a wide variety of different animals. After seeing all this awesome stuff, I thought to myself, “Gosh wouldn’t it be just swell to work/intern/volunteer here?” So I had met with the curator, Dr. Angelika Nelson, and began to volunteer my time labeling and organizing specimens in the museum’s Tetrapod collection.

So it’s been a little over a month since I started at the museum (I refer to myself as a freshman for a reason) and now I have a chance to really look back and reflect on what I’ve done so far. All that I’ve really done (again, I’ve only been here a month) is print labels, organize loans, do some geo-referencing and maybe (if I should be so lucky) count how many 100-year old hummingbirds we have in our collection. Make no mistake; museum work is not for everybody. At times it can seem like long, tedious and mind-numbingly boring work.

But I love every minute of it.

I’m sure that if the average person were to come to the museum and try to do what it is that we do there, they’d either recoil in disgust or fall asleep from boredom. And that’s fine, it’s not everybody’s cup of tea. For me however, working at the museum is one of the greatest jobs I’ve ever had. Animals, in general, just wholly fascinate me and I grew up watching the old Animal Planet. When I printed labels for specimen cabinets, I got to look at some of the most exotic and unique bird species I’ve ever seen. Not to mention that I got to touch three of the endangered bird species the Tetrapod collection possess: an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, a Passenger Pigeon and a Carolina Parakeet (I can die happy now). Working there is basically nirvana for a guy like me.

A head on picture of the Tetrapod Collection's Ivory Billed Woodpeckers.

Not going to lie… These are the most exciting specimens I have seen so far.

While working at the museum is incredibly fascinating and fun, I’d be lying (again) if I said there was only one reason why I love it there. Going into the museum and doing all this science-related work makes me feel like I’m getting closer to actually being a zoologist. For anyone who is a zoology major at OSU, I don’t need to tell you how difficult the major program is. I spent the first two years of college trying my absolute hardest just to get through the math requirements (don’t even get me started on that ungodly chemistry program). So working here (along with actually doing major courses) makes me feel as though I’m becoming a “big kid” in my field.

I’ve often said that the greatest decision that I ever made was joining the Boy Scouts. However, I think I may have topped myself by choosing to work at this museum. I love the work that I do in the Tetrapod collection and it helps me feel as though I’m actually doing something worthwhile with my time. If you’ve enjoyed reading about my experiences, then you’re in luck. My latest responsibility for the museum is to write more of these blog posts, so the fun never has to end. Until next time dear reader.

Raymond is one of our newest volunteers in the Tetrapod Collection who will be interning with us this coming fall. His current projects here included working with our amphibian and reptile collection.