October 2010 - Department of Vertebrate Zoology

NEWSLETTER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF
VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
OCTOBER 2010
VOL. 23, NO. 4
The Vertebral Column...
inventory in Birds and Mammals, and around then I
became data manager. Until about the mid-1990's I
had 3-4 people working for me, but it became
impossible to fill temporary slots, so I’ve had no staff
for about 15 years.
STAFF SPOTLIGHT
Craig Ludwig
Can you say a bit about the Collections Inventory?
Scientific Data Manager
Interviewed by Helen Kafka
I started here back in the days of SELGEM, which ran on a Honeywell
mainframe across the Mall. We
entered data on Entrex and VT100
“dumb” terminals. The data were recorded on magnetic tapes that we
submitted to run as batch updates to
the database. Typically an inventory
tech would start with the first
specimen in the first drawer of a case
and type in the data traditionally
found on the label – taxon, collector,
when and where it was collected,
measurements, and sex. Generally,
once a case was inventoried, another
technician would proof a printout
against the specimens.
What is your job as Scientific Data
Manager for the Bird and Mammal
Collections?
My primary responsibility is to
manage our bird and mammal databases in EMu, and with that, the
development of reports, answering
special data requests, and general
computer support for staff members in
Birds and Mammals.
How did you come to this job?
I have a bachelor’s degree in zoology
and a master’s degree in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Michigan, which was a
lot more theoretical and abstract than the work that I
actually do at the Museum. I’ve been here 26 years,
and am one of the “youngsters” in Mammals, at least.
My wife was from this area, and the economy in
Michigan where we met in the 1980's was so bad that
we decided to move back here. I thought the Smithsonian might be a good place to look for a job. I
started in a temporary position in Entomology, with
the Collections Inventory project. In the fall, 1984, I
was hired permanently as an inventory tech with the
Bird and Mammal inventory program. When the data
manager, BETH ANN SABO, moved to a new job in
Oregon, I was promoted to supervisor for the
During the 1990's, JANET GOMON, in the Director’s Office, had a centralized pool of around 4-5 inventory technicians. In 1992, MIKE CARLETON,
supervisory curator at the time for Mammals, submitted a proposal to Janet to inventory the collections in
the Sciurid and Rodent Ranges. I think she felt that if
she put all her staff on this one project, the Museum
might be able to complete an inventory. Over about
four years’ time, her people captured some 60-70,000
specimen records. We’re close to 550,000 records now
in Mammals, although we’re cataloguing close to
600,000. That suggests that over the years, some
50,000 specimens are no longer present in our
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collections. [Ed. note – many of these were exchanged
or discarded over the years; only specimens physically
present were inventoried.]
What about the databases in Birds and the other VZ
units?
In Birds, we’re cataloguing close to 640,000, but when
their inventory is done, I’m guessing there will be
about 580,000 records. We still have about 145,000
skins to database. We fell behind in the 1990's, because Janet Gomon’s people only worked in
Mammals, while those who worked for me before had
split their time between Birds and Mammals.
In recent years I’ve had a volunteer in Birds, HELEN
MELICHAR, who has entered 7,000 to 8,000 records
a year, and that’s the Bird inventory program for now.
To finish up, we’d need 4 or 5 people to do nothing
but database bird specimens for three years. That
would require a chunk of money, but after Mammals
and Herps, Birds is the collection in the museum that’s
closest to a complete inventory. Vertebrate Zoology as
a whole has about 1.9 million records; our best
estimate is that we have another 400,000 records to go.
That sounds daunting, but it’s a comparatively small
percentage.
The idea of imaging specimens and creating interesting, useful websites for the public and the researcher is
the wave of the future, and the people who replace us
in our jobs will certainly be doing a lot of it. I’d guess
that in the next 5 years, we will be imaging all of the
Mammals type collection. BOB FISHER is going
through the types now to verify data and publication
information and I’m entering his notes into the database. We’ve already enhanced 230 records, or 7-8% of
the total. If, as we hope, we get funding for camera
equipment and lighting, we can add decent photos of
our types. Fish’s goal is a new edition of Poole and
Schantz, the official list of USNM mammal types that
was published in 1942. Birds is actively photographing
their synoptic skeleton collection, to put on the web
with the idea that people can use it to identify bird
bones at least to the family level. Right now we have a
summer intern doing the photography, and are putting
grant proposals to develop web tools and add more
photographs.
For me, personally, one of the milestones in
Mammals this year was that I finished enhancing our
last partial fluid record. The fluid re-curation project
took place in the late 1990's. Shortly after we started
it, we discovered that whole fluid collection was to be
moved to MSC. We created about 60,000 partial
records from a card file, and we already had about
40,000 cataloguing records. [Ed. note - this project
was done entirely by Craig and Mammals staff.]
I think Mammals was one of the first units in the
Museum to start database work, around 1968 or 1969.
This was related to the big African Mammal Project
and Smithsonian Venezuelan Project. The decision
was made during this time to go ahead and datacapture all new specimens. We don’t have good
information about that or the history of the inventory
project. The inventory started, perhaps, in the mid1970's. Mike’s 1992 inventory proposal is probably
the best compilation of its history, when we tried to
put together what information we could find.
We’re all so busy that we don’t really document how
things happened over the years.
EDITORIAL STAFF
Chairman
Editor
DEADLINE FOR NEWS
Don Wilson
Joy Gold
VZ staff will submit news items to
Division Contacts by January 14, 2011
DIVISION NEWS CONTACTS
Fishes
Herps
Birds
Mammals
MSC
Library
DEADLINE FOR DIVISION
CONTACTS
Dave Smith
238-1742
Jeff Williams
238-1736
Tom Munroe
633-1293
Steve Gotte
633-0728
Christina Gebhard 633-0789
Helen Kafka
633-1254
Helen Wimer
238-1180
Courtney Shaw
633-1675
All news items to Joy
by January 24 2011
All News items on diskette or e-mail
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neously. There is MANIS for mammals, ORNIS for
birds, Herpnet and Fishnet for Herps and Fishes, I
think within the next 15-20 years, there will be a distributed network of databases from natural history museums worldwide that will be accessible together.
Another big issue is georeferencing. Most of our
terrestrial mammal specimens are so old that they
don’t have latitude and longitude data, whereas Marine
Mammals typically do, especially if they were
collected at sea. As we gather more georeferenced
data, our specimens are more useable with GIS-type
analysis.
Rhabdomys: close up of several African Striped Grass Mice that
Erika Wilbur data-captured as part of the big data-capture project that Craig speaks of in interview. Photo by Helen Kafka.
What are the biggest changes you’ve seen over the
years?
Well, in general there’s been an increase in our reliance on computers and databases to do our jobs, and
for researchers too. It saves us and them a lot of time
to be able to answer information requests from our
database. In the last 10-15 years, thanks to the Internet, a lot of this information has become available to
the public. This year, our database finally has a
download feature so that researchers can extract the
datasets they want without having to go to us first.
It’s been interesting to me to witness the
professionalization of collection management in
general and the computerization of collections
specifically, and how incredibly useful it has proven
over the years for managing the collections: all the
moves we’ve had to do, estimating cabinetry and
supplies needed to hold those chunks of the collection; has all been made easier by having the collections information available in a database. Whenever
I get an information request for some portion of the
collection in Birds that’s not been databased, it’s
incredibly annoying to have no good way to answer
it. For re-curation of the collections, to be able to use
the database makes it, maybe, 50% faster, or even
more.
Now, we’re serving our collections information into
interdisciplinary portals that are taking collections
data from multiple institutions (at this point,
primarily those in North America) for centralized
websites where people can come in and launch a
qquery against 14 or 15 different databases simulta-
Can georeferencing be automated, or is it still a manual process?
I guess that for about 2/3 to 3/4 of our collection you
could come up with reasonable georeferenced data
using electronic gazetteers and other available tools,
but there will always be problems that require the user
to go back to the field catalogs and notes to figure out
where the collectors might have been. A lot of other
mammal and bird collections that have gotten involved
with MANIS and ORNIS have been able get NSF
grants to hire people to work on georeferencing their
specimens. Many university collections are farther
along in that regard than the big natural history
museums.
Did you know when you were in college that you
would end up in an IT type of career?
No, not at all, and it was just because there was a job
here and somebody needed to do it. I think I had taken
one computer course in college, and I had seen - not
used, but seen -, one of the original Apple computers,
with a floppy-disk operating system and 16K of RAM.
There were about 240,000 specimen records in the
Mammals database when I started, and now we are at
about 550,000 records. It was that big influx of techs
from Janet Gomon that put us over the top.
Do you have any natural-history interests outside your
job?
Yes, my father was interested in birds, and his brother
and father were actively involved in banding birds in
the Great Lakes. As a youngster, I went out with them
on a number of seabird banding projects on islands in
the northern Great Lakes. I’ve always had an interest
in the outdoors, nature, and birds. It was kind of
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natural that I would study biology in college, but I had
no idea that I would end up at a natural history museum. But that’s the way it worked out, and that’s fine.
Over the years I’ve developed a love and appreciation
for our collections and what they represent. It’s kind of
amazing to be involved with them and the resources
they represent to researchers.
Do you have a favorite organism?
I don’t know that I could claim that. I like squirrels
quite well amongst mammals, actually, and for birds,
there are a number that I like; I’ve always found owls
to be pretty interesting. They’re all interesting in their
own ways, and having access to the collections like we
do, to see the diversity of all the different groups is
fascinating. Every time I go into a part of the
collection I haven’t been into, it’s always fun.
VZ LUNCH SEMINARS
Please contact DON WILSON (633-1265 or EMail) to schedule a seminar or suggest speakers for
the upcoming year. All seminars are held in the
Waldo Schmitt rm., W218 from 12:00-1:00 PM .
See E-Mail and elevator for subjects as the date
approaches.
Upcoming Seminars:
Oct 27 – Wednesday—LUCINDA LAWSON, University of Florida - “Patterns and Processes of Diversification in Hyperolius frogs throughout the
Eastern Afromontane Biodiversity Hotspot.”
Nov. 3–Wednesday—KATE RODRIGUEZ Clark, VZ Post-doc - Genetic/demographic
management of Andean bears in captivity.”
Nov. 10 – Wednesday— ROBERT J. BAKER,
Texas Tech University.
Nov. 17 – Wednesday—ROSARIO CASTENEDA
– George Washington University.
Dec. 1 – Wednesday—ERIN KUPREWICZ –
University of Miami - “The effects of large
terrestrial mammals on seed fates, hoarding, and
seedling survival in a Costa Rican rain forest.”
VZ NEWS
AWARDS, AWARDS
The SECRETARY’S RESEARCH PRIZES for 2010 have been announced and six VZ staff have garnered three out of the 10 prizes. These pan‐Institutional prizes recognize ex‐
cellence in recent research by Smithsonian employees and carry a $2,000 award to each prize winner’s discretionary research account. The awards will be celebrated and presented in the upcoming months at the time of the Secretary’s Distinguished Research Lecture. The three research awards in VZ will be pre‐
sented for the following research publica‐
tions: Marra P.P., C.J. DOVE, R. Dolbeer , N.F. DAHLAM, M. HEACKER,, J.F. WHATTON, N.E. Diggs, C. France, G. A. Hen‐
kes,. “Migratory Canada Geese cause crash of US Airways Flight 1549,” Fron­
tiers in Ecology and the Environment 7(6) (2009) . OLSON, S.L. and P. Hearty. “A sustained +21 m sea‐level highstand during MIS 11 (400ka): direct fossil and sedimentary evidence from Bermuda,” Quaternary Science Reviews 28 (2009). PARENTI, L.R. and M.C. Ebach. Comparative Biogeography: Dis­
covering and Classifying Biogeographical Patterns in a Dynamic Earth. Species and Systematics, 2. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL
RECIPIENTS
Jan 12th 2011 – Wednesday -HANNEKE MEIJER,
Division of Birds
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KUDOS
KEVIN de QUEIROZ was offered an appointment as
an Edward P. Bass Distinguished Visiting Environmental Scholar by the Yale Institute for Biospheric
Studies for the Spring of 2011.
DAVE JOHNSON was featured on the covers of two
journals: one in Journal of Morphology received the
REINHARD RIEGER AWARD – The Reinhard
Rieger Award is given in memory of the zoologist
Reinhard Rieger. This annual prize recognizes outstanding research in the field of zoomorphology
the Interior, Kenneth Armitage, University of Kansas, Charles Nadler, Northwestern Medical School,
Chicago, Illinois. Many of us here in Vertebrate Zoology knew and respected Dr. Hoffmann. He gave
his service generously to this museum and to the Institution at large. He will be greatly missed. See July
Backbone, 2010.for more details on Bob’s career.
INFORMATICS
Recently informatics announced the purchase of a
new, high-end server to power the EMu application
in the years to come. The current server will be retired in February. The new server, named Hoffmann,
in honor of the late Dr. Robert Hoffmann, Director
and Curator of Mammals, is a Sun SPARC enterprise
M50000 – one of Sun’s most powerful and flexible
server. A description is available in the October 2010
issue of the NMNH IT Times newsletter! They tell
us that “Hoffmann is a high end machine that is fully
redundant, has an upgrade path, and will provide a
state-of-the-art computing platform for Emu use at
NMNH for the foreseeable future.”
LIBRARY LINES
***************************************
A MEMORIAL CELEBRATION
On October 4th 2010 a Memorial Celebration was held
in Baird Auditorium of the NMNH on the Life and
Scientific Legacy of ROBERT SHAW
HOFFMANN. Dr. Cristián Samper, Director, welcomed the attendees as did James M. Hobbins, former
Executive Assistant to the Secretary who conveyed
messages from Secretaries Emeritus Robert McC. Adams and I.Michael Heyman and Richard Kurin, UnderSecretary for History, Art, and Culture.
After a slide and musical presentation, colleagues and
friends presented their thoughts and reflected on Dr.
Hoffmann’s life and work. Those who spoke were
Elizabeth Broun, Director, Smithsonian American Art
Museum, Richard Thorington, Curator of Mammals,
NMNH, Andrew Smith, Arizona State University, Steven Kohl, Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of
Page 5
If you have not seen much of COURTNEY SHAW,
Senior Reference Librarian/Vertebrate Zoology Librarian, in the last six months, it is because she was
detailed over to the National Museum of Art/
National Portrait Gallery to help out because of vacancies there. ( You may not know that she has her
ABT in Art History, and Ph.D. in Textiles). NMAA/
NPG has now been allowed to hire a contract position, so she can return to NH. With the coming of the
move of the main branch of the Natural History libraries of SIL in the Fall to the East Court (G, B and
1st floors), she will be returning to participate in the
move and to her desk to that area.
Courtney with the great help of DIANE PITASSY
of the VZ Division has finished with their SIL on
Display, entitled A to Z; Amateurs Helping Zoologists. Amateurs, Naturalists and Professional Scientists. The website is divided in sections including
Zoologists and the Vertebrate Zoology Libraries;
Some History on Early Collections and Zoological
Books; The Literature, Birds, Mammals, Reptiles and
Amphibians, Fish; Related Links and Further Reading; Bibliography; Credits. A further description of it
will be on the SIL blog, and it will go live linked to
the VZ Libraries homepage soon. Diane Pitassy will
be creating blogs, their equivalent about individual
scientists to complement the display.
CENTENNIAL PHOTO
In Celebration of the National Museum of Natural History’s
100th Anniversary
Later in the day
Photo by Don Hurlbert, October 5, 2010: see next page for close up photos of VZ (right side)
CAREER SERVICE AWARDS
Also honored this day were NMNH staff who have given many years of service to the
Museum.
From VZ, for 30 years of service are RICHARD P. VARI and HELEN WIMER;
For 20 years of service are LYNNE R. PARENTI and KEVIN DE QUEIROZ
For 10 years of service is MARCIA A. HEACKER
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CONGRATULATIONS
Richard Vari, second to the left next
to Dr. Samper, Director of NMNH..
Photo by Mike Barnes
Lynne Parenti, 6th from left.
Photo by Mike Barnes
BELOW ON RIGHT AND LEFT: VZ
STAFF PREPARING FOR THE
CENTENNIAL PHOTO
Marcy Heacker, 5th from the left. Photo by Mike
Barnes
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titled Creating Enlightened Citizens, about JMU
alumni ZACK FOLTZ and CAROLE BALDWIN.
Zach was Carole’s summer research intern in 1997 and
was recently hired as station manager for the
Smithsonian’s research station in Belize, C.A. Carole
was the guest editor of the issue.
DIVISION NEWS
FISHES
by Dave Smith, Jeff Williams, and Tom Munroe
Staff Activities BRUCE COLLETTE attended a meeting of the Advisory Committee to the U.S. Section to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic
Tunas in Silver Spring Oct. 18-19.
AI NONAKA gave the first Highlight Tours in
Japanese of the Ocean Hall (31 Jul, 14 & 21 Aug.),
and of the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins (2 &
9 Oct) to a total of approximately 60 Japanese, who
gave her rave reviews and reported that they were able
to fully understand, for the first time, the richness and
significance of these two new exhibit halls. In her
pioneering Docent work, she plans to continue these
tours and perhaps others and makes their scheduling
available to the Japanese community through a wide
variety of hard copy and electronic media.
Two reviewers concluded that the second edition of
the ichthyology textbook "The Diversity of Fishes:
Biology, Evolution and Ecology" by Gene Helfman,
BRUCE COLLETTE, Douglas Facey, and Brian Bowen is "the best current single-volume resource for
teaching students about fishes." The review is by Brian
Sidlauskas of Oregon State University and Prosanta
Chakrabarty of Louisiana State University and was
published in Copeia 2010 (3):527-529.
Travel and Meetings , talks
CAROLE BALDWIN, along with AMY
DRISKELL of the LAB, collected fishes in the Berry
Islands, Bahamas, Aug. 6-15 as part of the western
Atlantic fish diversity/DNA barcoding project.
Neoniphon marianus collected by C. Baldwin and Amy
Driskill
Presentations -
Ai (center) giving a tour in the Oceans Hall
“Species or Populations? Investigations of Genetic
divergence in Western Atlantic Bathygobius.”J.A.
Glass, and C.C. BALDWIN. NMNH, NHRE research
presentations, August 2010.
Publicity The Fall 2010 issue of Madison Magazine, published
by James Madison University, contained an article
“Variation of isotopic signatures among mangrove fish
species: an assessment of the relative importance of
interlinked mangrove seagrass beds as fish feeding
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habitats in subtropical and tropical latitudes.”A.Vaslet,
I Feller, C.C. BALDWIN. The 7th International Conference on Application of Stable isotope Techniques to
Ecological Studies, Fairbanks, Alaska, UKSA 8-13,
August, 2010.
HELEN WIMER co- presented a workshop entitled
“Resin Talk” at the National Society for Histotechnology’s Annual Symposium in Seattle Washington. She
will also be presenting a seminar at the National Institute of Health’s National Institute of Dental and
Craniofacial Research at the end of October on the
differences between Paraffin and Plastic Histology.
BRUCE COLLETTE participated in the initial meeting of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation Stakeholders Committee meeting in San Diego,
Aug. 23-25.
BRUCE COLLETTE chaired the IUCN Tuna and
Billfish Specialist Group Red List workshop for Atlantic tunas and billfishes in Brasilia, Brazil from Sept. 13
-17. They succeeded in their goal of assessing the 5
western Atlantic endemic species, 2 eastern Atlantic
endemics, 8 Atlantic endemics, and the Atlantic populations of 15 wide spread species for which they have
assessments for the eastern tropical Pacific and the
Indo Pacific from previous workshops.
The workshop is part of the Global Marine Species
Assessment and was hosted by the Instituto Chico
Mendes de Conservacao da Biodiversidade (ICMBio)
and received support from IUCN, Conservation International and the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. Eighteen experts participated in the workshop, 9
from Brazil and 9 from the US, Spain, Japan, and Barbados. Many of the 30 species assessed are the basis of
important commercial and recreational fisheries. As
part of the recently expanded cooperation between
IUCN and ICMBio, their assessments will help build
the Brazilian Red List of Threatened Species. Results
from all three regional workshops still need to be combined before global evaluations can be completed for
inclusion on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. A Synthesis Workshop.
AI NONAKA has been invited to the International
Workshop on Deep Sea Fishes at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo from 29 Oct to 5
Nov.
RICH VARI spent a week at the Naturalis Museum,
Leiden, The Netherlands, in a planning session on projects involving freshwater fishes in Suriname.
French Polynesia
JEFF WILLIAMS left in late September to join a
collecting trip organized by his French colleagues to
the Gambier Archipelago in southeastern French Polynesia. Not far from Pitcairn Island of “Mutiny on the
Bounty” fame, Gambier is one of the more poorly explored islands in that part of the Pacific. The island is
just about on the Tropic of Capricorn.
As Jeff reports:
“It was a great trip, but was pretty difficult. The water
temperature was cold (between 69-72 degrees) and the
air temp was the same. Not what I call tropical. Unfortunately it is early spring here and that means cool
temps and rain. The weather for most of the trip was
cloudy, rainy, and with strong winds (and the resulting
big swell - 6 to 12 foot seas), making it really hard to
get in out of boats with a couple of hundred pounds of
SCUBA gear on. We did it though and had a pretty
successful trip despite the conditions….We photographed, tissue sampled, tagged and preserved specimens of about 400 species of fishes”
His trip was complicated by an infected toe, which had
to be treated after he got back to Moorea, but he reports that it is now on the mend. (“The joys of fieldwork in remote places!”). He expects to return to
Washington on October 27.
SignificantPublications.
An international team of scientists including DAVE
JOHNSON has answered a question held in the field
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of deep sea ichthyology since the early 20th century.
Using a comprehensive comparative morphological
approach they demonstrated that the gap between the
skull and the vertebral column in dragonfishes arises
by two entirely different mechanisms, one involving
actual loss of vertebrae, the other by simple elongation
of the notochord. Their paper was featured on the
cover of the Journal of Morphology http://
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)10974687 and received the Reinhard Rieger Award, in
which the paper was acknowledged for its beauty and
simplicity and for the groundbreaking nature of their
findings in barbeled dragonfish zoomorphology. For
an illustrated summary of the paper see the Web Page
that can be accessed from two NMNH links at http://
vertebrates.si.edu/fishes/index.html or http://
www.mnh.si.edu/ and is now also featured on Smithsonian Science at http://smithsonianscience.org/ .
See cover on Page 5.
A recent paper in Copeia by ERIC HILTON, DAVE
JOHNSON and BILL SMITH-VANIZ featured
Dave‘s image of a
cleared and
stained larva
of the monotypic IndoPacific genus,
Parastromateus, the
Black Pomfret. The paper described
in detail the
osteology of
this phylogenetically enigmatic fish, confirming its placement
within the perciform family Carangidae (jacks and
pompanos). Based on a comparative study of the dorsal gill arches they suggested that its closest relative
may be the wisely distributed genus Hemicaranx.
Visitors.—
JOEL BOEHM, a graduate student at City University
of New York, visited CAROLE BALDWIN and
DAVID SMITH to work on western Atlantic syngnathids.
LABBISH CHAO, Federal University of Amazonas
in Brazil, came to study sciaenid fishes.
PATRICK CICCOTTO, a graduate student at the
University of Maryland, Baltimore Campus, is working with LYNNE PARENTI helping to sort and identify fishes that she and colleagues collected in Sulawesi in June, 2010.
KASSI COLE, University of Hawaii, came to continue her studies on gobies and to consult with
BRUCE COLLETTE on the chapter he is writing for
her book on fish reproduction.
CARL FERRARIS visited to work with RICH
VARI to continue their studies of African catfishes of
the subfamily Doumeinae.
KATRIINA ILVES, Chaplin Post Doctoral Fellow at
the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, visited CAROLE BALDWIN to discuss collaborative
work on phylogeny and phylogeography of selected
Caribbean fishes.
MANOELA MARINHO, Museu de Zoologia da
Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil, visited the division
for five weeks as part of her doctoral study of the
Neotropical Characiform genus Copella.
ANDREA PAIXAO, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil, spent a week in the division examining our holdings of the South American armored catfish genus,
Loricariichthys.
GIANNINA TREVEJO, Universidade de San Marcos, Lima, Peru, was in the division for a month looking at our material of the armored catfish genus Ancistrus from the western portions of the Amazon basin.
The following interns worked under Lisa Palmer during the summer:
HANNAH AHN, University of Michigan; CRISTA
ALEJANDRE, University of Maryland, College Park;
HEATHER ALTIMUS, Northern Virginia Community College; RACHEL ANDERSON, George Wash-
Page 10
ington University; CAITLYN CONNER, University
of Pittsburgh; LIV ALICE WANSETH GEFVERT,
University of Miami; EMMA JAMES, University of
California (Santa Barbara); KATHRYN E. (KATIE)
JOHNSON,Washington College; KATHERINE
(KATIE) LANG, Maryland Institute College of Art;
CHRISTIANA MANDINA, University of Hawaii;
JORDAN PEMBERTON, Maryland Institute College of Art; KEVIN RIKLIN, Walter Johnson High
School, Bethesda, MD; JENNIFER WILLETT,
George Mason University. KENNETH W. MARKS, Reef Environmental Education Foundation: Dave Smith.
Other visitors and their sponsors:
CRISTIANO RANGEL MOREIRA, Universidade
Federal de São Paulo, Brazil: Rich Vari
CHARLENE MCCORD, Field Museum of Natural
History, Chicago, IL: Jeff Williams.
WALDINEY MELLO, Universidade do Estado do
Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Lynne Parenti.
LAUREN MENASCO-DAVIS, Texas A & M, College Station, TX: Jeff Williams.
RACHEL J. ARNOLD, Graduate Student,School of
Aquatic and Fishery Sciences,University of Washington, Seattle: Jeff Williams HILSA MARIA ANDRADE DA SILVA, Laboratório de Biogeografia e Sistemática Universidade do
Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Jeff
Williams.
JAMES BALHOFF, National Evolutionary Synthesis
Center, Durham, NC: Lynne Parenti.
RACHEL NICHOLS, West Chester University, West
Chester, PA: Jeff Williams.
ADELA ROA-VARON, VIMS, Gloucester Point,
VA: Jeff Williams.
DONALD STEWART, State University of New
York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry,
Syracuse, NY: Jeff Williams.
SARAH THÁZIA VIANA DE FIGUEIRÊDO, Universidade de São PauloInstituto de Biociências, Departamento de Zoologia, Sao Paulo, Brazil: Rich Vari.
RICARDO BETANCUR, George Washington University, Washington, DC: Rich Vari.
JOEL T. BOEHM, The City University of New
York: Carol Baldwin, Jeff Williams.
AMPHIBIANS and REPTILES
FERNANDO R. CARVALHO, Universidade Federal
do Rio Grande do Sul [UFRGS], Brazil: Rich Vari.
CHRISTINA CASTILLO, University of Texas at
Austin: Carole Baldwin.
STACY FARINA, Cornell University: Jeff Williams.
DR. VALERIA GALLO, Laboratório de Biogeografia e Sistemática Universidade do Estado do
Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Jeff Williams.
DANIEL GONÇALVES DE FRIETAS, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Brazil: Tom Munroe
JESSICA GLASS, Yale University: Carole Baldwin MAO-YING LEE, Biodiversity Research Center,
Academica Sinica National Taiwan Ocean University,
Taipei, Taiwan: Tom Munroe.
HSIU-CHIN LIN, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville: Jeff Williams.
by Steve Gotte
Trips and Meetings Florida
KEVIN DE QUEIROZ was at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL (October 3-5), where he was
invited to present a seminar by the Biology Graduate
Students Association (title: Branches in the lines of
descent:
Charles Darwin and the
evolution of
the species
concept).
Anolis sagrei
(Cuban brown
anole),Orlando,
FL Oct. ,2010.
Page 11
Photo by Kevin de Queiroz
Kevin with
“Speciation “ cake at
reception following
his lecture at the Universiy of Central Florida, 3 October, 2010.
Photo by Allyson
Fenwick
Bob Reynolds, Steve Gotte, Dan Mulcahy and
Jeremy Jacobs at Julie Rays house, El Copé,
Panama. Photo by Julie Ray.
Gopherus
polphemus
(gopher
tortoise)
Orlando(UCF
campus) 5 Oct
2010.
Photo by Kevin
de Queiroz
Rhode Island
ROY MCDIARMID (USGS) was a participant/
discussant at the ASIH Graduate Student Workshop
titled How to Teach a Successful Field Course, held at
the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists,
Providence, Rhode Island, 11 July 2010.
Panama
BOB REYNOLDS (USGS), JEREMY JACOBS (SI
Herps), STEVE GOTTE (USGS) and DAN MULCAHY (SI post doc) traveled to El Copé, Panama 26
July to 3 August. The crew took tissues from and preserved over a hundred frozen snakes (nearly 30 species) for our collections. The specimens were salvaged by JULIE RAY, the director of the La Mica
field station, during the course of her own field work
on snake ecology. They also had time to do a little collecting in the vicinity of El Copé while there, and Dan
went down a week early to collect lizard and snake
tissues in the Darien.
Dipsas sp. From General Omar Torrios-National
Park, El Copé, Panama. Photo by Jeremy Jacobs
Juvenile Epicrates cenchira, from the vicinity
of El Copé, Panama. Photo by Jeremy Jacobs.
Argentina
RON and MIRIAM HEYER are in Argentina visiting Museums that they had planned on visiting last
year when Ron broke his ankle.
Page 12
California
GEORGE and PAT ZUG will visit the California
Academy of Sciences in early November. This trip
will focus almost entirely on Burmese herps. George
and his CAS collaborators have begun to work on a
book – Amphibians and Reptiles of Burma. This first
edition, aside from a few chapters on geology, geography, biogeography, herpetological history, will be a
checklist and key to all taxa found in Myanmar. A
goal of their NSF-sponsored studies was a series of
species maps, and such a set is likely to comprise one
component of the appendix. They are still very early in
the assembly and writing, nonetheless they have set a
mid-2012 deadline for completion of the first draft.
Research STEVE GOTTE, JEREMY JACOBS and
GEORGE ZUG have just completed their study of
short-tailed pythons and concluded that specimen collected by Jeremy and George in 2002 is a new species.
Aside from a few morphological and coloration differences, their specimen comes from a locality nearly
1000 km north of the northern most record in peninsular Thailand.
KEVIN DE QUEIROZ is one of the scientists interviewed in the recently released film EVO: Ten Questions Everyone Should Ask About Evolution
(Hummingbird Films, John Feldman, Producer). See:
http://www.hummingbirdfilms.com/evo.html.
KEVIN DE QUEIROZ was quoted in an article
about former RTP student and Congo explorer Kate
Jackson: Tachibana, C. 2010. Congo Calling. The
Scientist 24(10):21. See: http://www.thescientist.com/2010/10/1/21/1/.
KEVIN DE QUEIROZ found out somewhat late that
he was quoted in an article about species concepts:
Conniff, R. 2010. Unclassified. Discover Magazine,
June 2010: 52-57. See: http://discover.coverleaf.com/
discovermagazine/201006/?pg=7#pg7 (this is just the
table of contents; you have to pay to get the article).
Visitors -
Media interactions –
The Division hosted more than 28 visitors from 7
states (CA, CO, DC, MD, NC, VA, and WA), Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Guatemala and the United
Kingdom for a total of over 84 researcher-days, since
the last Backbone. In addition several local researchers and students visit the division on a regular basis.
The discovery of a new species of Enyalioides published late last year, on which KEVIN DE QUEIROZ
was an author, was written up in Noticias y Eventos,
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (Original
paper: O. Torres Carvajal, K. de Queiroz, and R.
Etheridge. 2009. A new species of iguanid lizard
(Hoplocercinae: Enyalioides) from southern Ecuador
with a key to eastern Ecuadorian Enyalioides.
ZooKeys (27):59-71.) See: http://www.puce.edu.ec/
archivos/noticia.php?codigo=1860. The article seems
to have been picked up by several other sources:
Ecoticias.com, 8 Oct 2010; Noticias Jesuitas del Ecuador, July 2010; ElComercio.com, 26 May 2010;
Hoy.com.ec, 7 Oct 2010; and others.
Pacific lizards. ALI HAMILTON, a research
scholar at UCLA, visited GEORGE ZUG’s lab
from 23 September through 16 October, having
the ‘good fortune’ to exit during the water main
rupture since he was in the lab when the rupture
was discovered. Ali did her doctorate research at
LSU under CHRIS AUSTIN, graduating December 2008. She focused on the molecular phylogeny of the green treeskinks (Emoia samoensis
species group) of the Southwest Pacific and spent
four summers in Vanuatu. She was incredibly successful in gaining access to many of the smaller,
out of way islands, and those visits yielded
Page 13
numerous new species of the samoensis group.
She reported the phylogenetic relationships in her
dissertation and some in our collaboration on the
Cook Islands’ species. Her visit here was to begin
the morphological study of new and old species
for a series of descriptions on the new species.
Once those are done, George and Ali plan to summarize the systematics of all Vanuatuan Emoia.
The descriptions will double the diversity of
Vanuatuan Emoia.
Snakes of Sumatra,” and much to George’s
surprise the USNM houses a significant and
diverse collection of Sumatran snakes. Those
snakes were the obvious draw to work here, in
addition to his revisionary studies of
Xenochrophis piscator group (checkered keelbacks), Dendrelaphis (vine racers), and
Trimersurus (green treevipers).
Elegant bronzeback—Dendrelaphis pictus. A lizard eating
arboreal snake, widespread in Southeast Asia. Photo by G.
Zug
Vanuatu skink—Emoia nigromarginata. An arboreal skink
inhabiting low bushes and viney tangles. Photo by G. Zug
Students, RAs, Fellows -
Asian snakes.
GERNOT VOGEL is a free-lance herpetologist
[his label of choice] with the Society of Southeast
Asian Herpetology. Gernot’s research interest is
almost exclusively snakes, and about a decade
ago, he embarked on a series of species-group
type studies of tropical Asian colubrids, natricids,
and viperids.
He has visited all the major European collections
but has had only one brief visit to a USA collection. GEORGE ZUG has encouraged him to visit
our herp collection for a number of years and with
the assistance of the Smithsonian Visiting Scholars program, he was able to spend early October
with us, working mostly at the MSC. He and a
French colleague are revising their 1996 “The
ROSARIO CASTAÑEDA (GWU Ph.D. student)
filed her dissertation on the phylogeny and ecomorphology of the Dactyloa clade of Anolis lizards. Congratulations, Dr. Castañeda!!!
SAYANTAN BISWAS (GWU Ph.D. student) is doing the final revisions on his dissertation on the diversification of the Western Ghats herpetofauna.
ALEXANDRA HERRERA MARTÍNEZ (GWU
Ph.D. student) returned from Tucumán, Argentina and
continues studying for her written and oral exams.
DAN MULCAHY (SI postdoctoral fellow) completed
his postdoctoral fellowship and moved to Las Cruces,
New Mexico.
Page 14
JOE JEHL continued field work on physiology and
migration of birds in hypersaline environments in the
western United States, and studies of raptor and loon
migration on the eastern ridges.
BIRDS
by Christina Gebhard
General News MARCY HEACKER gave a talk on Sept. 25 on bird
strikes and the work of the Feather ID Lab at the
Potomac Valley Audubon Society’s 3rd annual Fall
Birding Festival in Berkeley Springs, WV. This festival was a busy weekend of birding in the Morgan
county area, classes in bird watching and identification
with evening talks by Marcy Heacker and naturalist
Dr. Scott Shalaway.
The Bird Division was the setting for a Director’s
Circle event October 6th featuring HANS SUES
(Paleontology) talking on the connection between
Theodore Roosevelt and the Natural History Museum.
To accommodate the gathering of 46 guests Hans lectured on one worktable with a backdrop of bird specimens received from Roosevelt ranging from his childhood collection to specimens from the Smithsonian
African Expedition of 1909-1910. On a second worktable JAMES DEAN (VZ Birds), KYNDALL
HILDEBRANDT (VZ Mammals), and ELLEN ALERS (SI Archives) presented talks covering archival
documents from Roosevelt, Roosevelt’s mammal
specimens and a general overview of the bird collection. CLAUDIA ANGLE (USGS) and LINDA
GORDON (VZ Mammals) provided valuable set assistance.
Travel STORRS OLSON returned mid-October from Nova
Scotia having had to endure a few summer days with
temperatures as high as 80-83 F. He was able to keep
up with returning proofs for several papers in press,
peer-reviewing numerous other MSS, incorporating
data from large paper files for computer drafts of two
large MSS on extremely different topics, transcribing
all his Hawaiian field journals into electronic format
(part of a much larger project), preparing skins of all
the neighbors' window-killed birds and a few others,
as well as making inroads on various forms of undesirable vegetation. Nearly 4 months in the north woods
made for culture shock on return---noise, as from leaf
blowers and traffic, being the worst. But access to the
collections, library, and real supermarkets less than a
2.5 hr drive will help compensate.
Visitors/Interns The Feather lab hosted a number of interns:
NICHOLAS RICHTER, an Entomologist with US
Food & Drug Administration, Irvine CA, learned microscopic feather identification techniques.
The Feather Lab hosted a tour for FAA civil aviation
officials and visitors from the Nigerian Aviation
Safety Commission.
ASHLEY WICH, a summer intern from Wheaton
College, MA assisted with feather identifications on
Anthropological artifacts.
In September 2010 Feather Lab was featured in story
about birdstrikes - SmartPlanet.com
http://www.smartplanet.com/people/blog/pure-genius/
smithsonian-tracks-bird-strikes-for-military-airlineindustry/4552/?tag=content;col1
CLARK SAGE, summer intern in the Anthropology
Summer Institute program identified feathers on Lakota artifacts in the USNM collections.
Page 15
LIANA ACEVEDO, a senior at Woodson High
School, Fairfax VA, volunteered on various projects
with the Feather Lab, USGS (CLAUDIA ANGLE)
and CHRIS MILENSKY.
MAMMALS
by Helen Kafka
Trips and travel DON WILSON led a trip to Uganda and Rwanda for
Smithsonian Journeys. The safari focused on primates,
and had successful treks to see Chimpanzees, Golden
Monkeys, and two different troops of Mountain Gorillas, one in each country.
Liana Acevedo. Photo by Carla Dove
KEVIN KERR, Ph.D. Guelph University, arrived for
a one-year post-doctoral fellowship. Kevin will be
involved in several molecular projects in the Feather
Lab including, adding species to the DNA barcode
database; DNA sexing of birds involved in birdstrikes,
and genetic analysis of the Northern Fulmer species
group. Please stop in to say Hi to Kevin in birds.
Don Wilson with gorilla in background
Silverback male Gorilla
Kevin Kerr. Photo by Carla Dove
The Division of Birds hosted 163 visitors since the last
edition of the Backbone. Six of our visitors arrived
from the following countries: Brazil, Canada, Chile,
Japan, South Korea and Panama. The remaining visitors were domestic from the following states: CA, CO,
DC ,FL, HI, ID, IA, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MT,
OH, VA and Virgin Islands.
Page 16
Golden Monkey
JESUS MALDONADO was invited to give the opening keynote presentation for the joint 1st Latin American Mammalogy Congress and the 10th Mexican
Mammalogy Congress, Guanajuato, Mexico, September 20-25th, 2010. The presentation was given in
Spanish and was entitled: “La Sorprendente Historia
Evolutiva de los Cervidos y Procyonidos Neotropicales: Moleculas vs. Morfologial.”
Jesus was also invited to give a lecture on noninvasive genetic techniques in a Conservation Genetics
pre-conference workshop that took place on September 19-20 at the Universidad de Guanjuato, Mexico.
Scaly-Tailed Flying Squirrels (Anomaluridae) from material Al Gardner brought back from Tulane Photo by Helen
Kafka
HONORED
JIM MEAD was pleased to hear that the membership
of the Society for Marine Mammalogy had elected him
an honorary member. That membership status is lifetime and carries with it all the privileges of membership, without dues. There are 16 honorary members in
the Society, of whom 2 are emeritus curators of the
Smithsonian, Jim and CLAYTON RAY. The Society
was formed in 1981, when Jim was elected president
elect. He became president in 1983. The Society is an
international body and currently has 1,054 members.
COLLECTIONS Specimens received from Tulane University
Thanks to AL Gardner-
contains several taxa that are not well-represented in
our collections. Al made a trip to Tulane in August to
take his daughter back to college, then stayed on for a
frantic day and a half of packing to prepare the specimens for transport to the NMNH in his vehicle. He is
planning a second trip soon to retrieve other portions
of these collections. Al remembers cataloguing some
of the primates during his time as assistant professor at
Tulane. The Division of Mammals is grateful to Tulane for donating the specimens to the NMNH - and
hats off to Al for his efforts to obtain them and working with his own two hands to bring them here.
“Lexington” moves to Lexington
by Linda Gordon
The Tulane University Museum of Natural History
recently decided to transfer its mammal holdings, consisting of 4,000+ specimens, to other institutions.
Through the efforts of AL GARDNER, (USGS,) the
Division of Mammals has received several hundred
specimens from Tulane. One part consists of a collection made in West Africa by CLYDE JONES in the
late 1960’s, encompassing a variety of bats, primates,
pangolins, and scaly-tailed flying squirrels
(Anomaluridae,) Another portion is a collection of bats
and rodents from Colombia, also made in the 1960’s,
from MAURICE THOMAS and ANDREW A.
ARATA. The West African material, in particular,
The mounted skeleton of the racehorse “Lexington”
was recently loaned to the International Museum of
the Horse at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington,
KY, a Smithsonian Affiliate. He arrived on 31 Aug
2010, in time for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian
Games which are being held in October. He is featured
on the museum’s website.
The thoroughbred Lexington (17 March 1850 - 1 Jul
1875) was considered the best racehorse of his time,
winning 6 of the 7 races in which he was entered. He
was retired in 1855 because of poor eyesight and was
sent to Woodburn Stud in Spring Station, KY, where
Page 17
he became the leading sire in North America. His
offspring won the most prestigious races of the 19th
century. He was part of the first group of horses inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall
of Fame in 1955. After his death, Lexington’s body
was buried in front of his stables, but later (in 1878)
his owner was convinced to donate Lexington’s bones
to the Smithsonian Institution.
Lexington’s skeleton was on display in the Osteology
Hall for many years. The stopwatch was developed to
time Lexington on the racetrack. Consequently, in
1999, his skeleton was loaned to the National Museum
of American History for incorporation in the exhibit
“On Time,” where it remained on exhibit until the museum closed for renovation a few years
Charles Bessant and Cathy Hawks working on Lex’s skull.
Photo by Dave Schmidt.
Rick Yamada of SurroundArt re-worked Lexington’s
storage crate for travel, adding a base with built-in
shock absorbers to allow the skeleton to move along
with the transport vehicle. Fed Ex’s “Custom Critical”
service was employed to deliver Lexington to Lexington, KY overnight (no stops!) by a father/daughter
team of drivers.
On display in Lexington, Kentucky. Photo by Rich Yamada
In addition to the team of conservators, Linda was assisted at various points by DAVE SCHMIDT and
HELEN KAFKA. The project is greatly indebted to
two fine employees of the Registrar’s Office at
NMAH, ED RYAN and CAROL SLATICK, and by
the sure guidance of HAROLD CLOSTER and
ALMA DOUGLAS of the Smithsonian Affiliations
office.
New Faces in Mammals-Preparing the skeleton for shipment and exhibit presented some challenges. LINDA GORDON assemMammals welcomed two new members to its collecbled a team of experts in their fields to assist in readytions management staff in September. They bring
ing it for loan and transport. The skeleton received a
knowledge, energy and enthusiasm with them as they
thorough examination and condition report, cleaning,
begin work in our collections, and we are delighted to
and repairs. The armature which attached the skull to
have them on board.
the rest of the skeleton appeared to actually be damaging the cranium. So, in addition to contracting with
KYNDALL HILDEBRANDT began working in the
conservators Cathy Hawks and Elspeth Kursh, we
mammals collection at the University of Alaska Mucalled on expert bracket-maker Charles Bessant to adseum (UAM) during her senior year in high school and
vise us on whether a new way of supporting the skull
has been actively involved in museum collections
was needed. As it turned out, the original bracket resince. One of the “perks” of working for the UAM
quired only a simple adaptation.
Page 18
mammal collection was the opportunity to spend several field seasons exploring Alaska and Madagascar.
She received her bachelor in biological sciences at the
University of Alaska Fairbanks and is currently finishing up her masters degree through the UAF. Her thesis
uses both molecular and morphological techniques to
was the Collections Manager for Mammalogy. While
at the American Museum, Darrin oversaw the construction of several new storage facilities and the revitalization of nearly half the AMNH’s mammal holdings. He was also active in the field, collecting specimens from such diverse locals as French Guiana, Peru,
examine species limits and speciation in the Glacier
Bay water shrew, Sorex alaskanus and the Malagasy mole-tenrec, Oryzorictes hova. She has also collaborated on a wide range of projects ranging from the
phylogeography of the short tailed tenrec, Microgale
brevicaudata, to the phylogenetic position of African
primate kipunji, Rungwecebus kipunji, to the effects of
Darrin Lunde. Photo by J. Gold
Central African Republic, Uganda, Vietnam, and Laos.
He is quick to stress the need for active fieldwork if a
museum is to remain competitive, and is equally adamant about writing up his expedition results. Darrin
has published more than two dozen peer-reviewed research papers, and authored several chapters for A
Guide to the Mammals of China (Princeton University
Press).
Kyndall Hildebrandt Photo by J. Gold
differential dispersal on phylogeographic structure
among Madagascar's oryzorictine tenrecs.
Kyndall is thrilled to have this opportunity to work in
the largest mammal collection in the world and with
such a great staff. She commented, “Everyone is extremely friendly and helpful. Every day I meet someone new and learn something new. This is an exciting
place to be part of.”
DARRIN LUNDE comes to us from the American
Museum of Natural History where for twenty years he
In his free time Darrin likes to write popular books.
He is currently finishing a full-length biography, Theodore Roosevelt the Naturalist, which will be published
by Harmony Books (an imprint of Random House).
His previous titles include two children’s’ books about
mammals—Meet the Meerkat and Hello, Bumblebee
Bat, the latter of which was a 2008 Theodore Seuss
Geisel Honor book. Keep an eye out for his next three
children’s books, all of which will be published by
Charlesbridge Publishing: Hello, Baby Beluga (Spring
Page 19
2011), After the Kill (Fall 2011), and Monkey Colors
(Spring 2012).
After spending twenty years establishing a firm legacy
for himself at the American Museum, not to mention a
comfortable lifestyle in New York City; why did Darrin give it all up to start anew at the Smithsonian? “It
is the challenge” he says. “The National Museum of
Natural History is so pregnant with possibility… Here
there is still room to flourish, and it is here that I hope
to once again feel the thrill of making history.” Let’s
hope he finds success in fulfilling his dreams.
Darrin lives with his wife Sakiko and their three children—Sakura, Asahi and Midori—in Rockville Maryland.
Damage from rain leak averted-During a rainstorm on the morning of October 14,
MARY SANGREY, who had been displaced by a
flood in her own office to Room 388, discovered a
water leak from the ceiling over Mammals cases in the
marsupial and type collections. Mary immediately
alerted personnel in Mammals and Facilities Management.
Staff covering cases : Bob Fisher and Helen Kafka, foreground, Neal Woodman and Darrin Lunde, on top of cases.
Photo by Mary Sangrey
On the scene first were NEAL WOODMAN and
MIKE CARLETON, soon joined by others. “We
quickly draped the cases in plastic, and the custodial
staff provided barrels to collect the dripping water and
a wet/dry vac to collect the water off the floor. Mary
stayed on the situation for much of the morning, going
up into the attic herself to find the source of the leak,
reporting it to facilities management staff, and keeping
us apprised of what was being done as we frantically
worked to protect the collections from the dripping
water. Fortunately, no water entered any of the cases.
We are hoping that repairs to leaking storm-drain
pipes in the attic above have fixed the problem.”
Visitors-From July through September, Mammals hosted a total
of 49 visitors, of whom 39 were from the United
States and the remaining 10 from Brazil, Canada,
Finland, Japan, and the United Kingdom, at the unusually even distribution of 2 visitors from each country.
Postdoctoral fellows-KRIS HELGEN welcomes a new SI postdoctoral fellow, HILLARY YOUNG. Hillary graduated earlier
this year from Stanford University (PhD, Biological
Sciences), and earlier received degrees from Yale
(Master’s in Environmental Management, 2004) and
Princeton (B.A., Ecology and Evolutionary Biology).
Hillary started her fellowship and in October and came
to NMNH, MSC, and NZP fincluding meetings with
many VZ scientists and a VZ seminar. For the next 5
months, Hillary will be based at Mpala Research Centre in Kenya. She will be back at NMNH in the Division of Mammals in March and April. In her own
words:
“I am interested in understanding how apparently
small human perturbations of ecosystems, through
species additions and deletions, can cause cascading
changes throughout foodwebs. I recently completed
my PhD research with Rodolfo Dirzo at Stanford Uni-
Page 20
versity. My primary field research was in the Line
island chain, and explored the reverberating effects of
the proliferation of one plant species on ecosystem
subsidies, island productivity, food web structure, and
patterns of diversity.”
“Currently, I am working with Kris Helgen as well as
other collaborators on a project examining the effect of
declines in large mammals in Africa. Declines in native large wildlife populations have been a great
source concern to ecologists and conservationists for
many years. However, we still have a very incomplete
understanding of the indirect effects of wildlife reductions and subsequent or orientation during the first
week of the month, land-use alteration and particularly
how such changes may affect human well-being is a
prerequisite to deciding where and how to address this
problem. In this new & collaborative project, we are
uniting ecology with epidemiology and models of land
use change, to explore how loss of large mammals and
associated land-use change can trigger an increase in
disease risk via indirect trophic effects of defaunation
on host communities of small mammals and their ectoparasites.”
Please visit Hillary’s new SI website to learn more
about her research, http://vertebrates.si.edu/mammals/
mammals_staff_pages/young_hillary.html
KRIS HELGEN also has been pleased to host SI predoctoral fellow MIGUEL PINTO, who arrived in the
Division of Mammals in August and is staying until
the end of November.
Miguel is from Quito, Ecuador. He is a PhD student at
City University of New York. He conducted his undergraduate studies at the Pontificia Universidad Católica
del Ecuador, and his masters at Texas Tech University.
Miguel first came to the Division in 2004 as an RTP
student. His research interests comprise the interface
between biogeography, systematics, population genetics and phenotypic evolution of mammals and their
parasites. Miguel has published 17 papers in journals
including Journal of Mammalogy, Journal of Parasitology, Emerging Infectious Diseases and Molecular
Biology and Evolution.
At the Smithsonian, Miguel has been making use of a
wide array of resources and expertise. Sharing his time
between NMNH and the Conservation Genetics lab at
NZP, Miguel is working in several topics including his
Fellowship project: “Surveillance and discovery of
pathogens in preserved mammalian tissues”, and additional ones: “A multilocus phylogeny of the order Paucituberculata”, and a monograph on “A collection of
mammals from Otonga, a Ecuadorian cloud forest”.
PUBLICATIONS
Albuquerque, N. R. and R. W. McDiarmid. 2010. Redescription of Leptophis cupreus (Cope) (Serpentes,
Colubridae), a rare South American colubrine snake.
Papéis Avulsos de Zoologia, Museo de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo 50(23): 375-384.
Aplin, K.P., K.M. Helgen, and D.P. Lunde, 2010. A
review of Peroryctes broadbenti, the giant bandicoot of
Papua New Guinea. American Museum Novitates, 3696:
1-41.
Austin, C.C., E.N. Rittmeyer, S.J. Richards and G.R.
Zug. 2010. Molecular phylogeny, historical biogeography and body size evolution in Pacific crocodile skinks
Hillary Young
Page 21
Tribolonotus (Squamata; Scincidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and. Evolution, 57: 227-236.
Balmer, O., C. Ciofi, D.A. Galbraith, I.R. Swingland,
G.R. Zug and A. Caccone. 2010. Population genetic
structure of Aldabra giant tortoises. Journal of Heredity,
doi:10.1093/jhered/esq096.
Barrio-Amorós, C.L., J. Mesa, C. Brewer-Carías, and R.
W. McDiarmid. 2010. A new Pristimantis (Anura, Terrarana, Strabomantidae) from Churi-tepui in the Chimanta massif, Venezuelan Guayana. Zootaxa 2483: 3544.
Bowers, K.W., and D. E. Wilson. 2009. (Review of )
El Desierto en una Vitrina: Museos e historia natural en
la Argentina, 1810-1890. Pesquisas Iberoamericanas
sobre Ciencia y Technica, Mexico. Museum History
Journal, 2:211-214.
Boyer, A.G., H.F. James, S.L. Olson and J.A. GrantMackie. 2010. Long-term ecological change in a conservation hotspot: the fossil avifauna of Mé Auré Cave,
New Caledonia. Biodiversity and Conservation, 19(11):
3207-3224.
Fernández, M., D. Cole, W. R. Heyer, S. Reichle and
R.O. de Sá. 2009. Predicting Leptodactylus (Amphibia,
Anura, Leptodactylidae) distributions: Broad-ranging
versus ptchily distributed species using a presence-only
environmental niche modeling technique. South American Journal of Herpetology 4(2): 103-116.
Frost, D.R., R.W. McDiarmid, and J.R. Mendelson,
III. 2009. Response to the point of view of Gregory B.
Pauly, David M. Hillis, and David C. Cannatella, by the
Anuran Subcommittee of the SSAR/HL/ASIH Scientific
and Standard English Names List. Herpetologica, 65(2),
2009, 136–153.
Gibson, D. D., and R. C. Banks. 2010. Revised type
locality of the Whiskered Auklet Aethia pygmaea (Aves:
Alcidae). Proceedings of the Biological Society of
Washington, 123:193-195.
González, S, J., M. Barbanti Duarte, and J. E.
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Preparation for the Cenntenial Photo: more closeups
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