Collected on this day in 1907
On January 20, this specimen was found in Montserrat, in the Caribbean, by John A. Shafer, who became the museum’s first curator of the herbarium in 1897. Known as “devil weed,” Chromolaena odorata is in the sunflower family (Asteraceae). It is native to the Caribbean, Mexico, and subtropical United States, and it has become a problematic invader in tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and the Pacific.
Botanists at Carnegie Museum of Natural History share pieces of the herbarium’s historical hidden collection on the dates they were discovered or collected. Check back for more!
Baltimore Orioles in Pittsburgh
These taxidermy mounts of Baltimore Orioles (Icterus galbula) in Bird Hall show the differences in coloring between males and females, or sexual dimorphism.
These birds are known for their brightly colored plumage and their sock-shaped nests that hang from branches, which are on display just below.
Baltimore Orioles’ whistling songs are one of the first heard in spring in eastern North American forests.
They prefer dark-colored, ripe fruit. They eat by piercing fruit with their beaks, which reflexively open to allow them to easily access what is inside.
H Is for Hawk
It’s not an untouched wilderness like a mountaintop, but a ramshackle wildness in which people and the land have conspired to strangeness.”
― Helen Macdonald, “H Is for Hawk”
“H is for Hawk” author and naturalist Helen Macdonald will speak at Carnegie Music Hall on January 30. This Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures talk is sponsored by Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
Profile of Dippy on BBC
Pittsburgh isn’t the only city that loves Diplodocus carnegii. A cast of our museum’s most famous dinosaur in London also has an enthusiastic following!
Listen to a recent BBC profile, which features interviews with Carnegie Museum staff, about the tour of the United Kingdom that London’s Diplodocus, also known as Dippy, will take this year.
Gifted to King Edward VII in 1905, a 70-foot-long cast of a fossilised dinosaur skeleton discovered in America has been on display at London’s Natural History Museum for more than a century.
It’s become the country’s most recognisable museum exhibit — seen by an estimated 90 million people.
Now it’s being replaced by the real skeleton of a giant blue whale…Dippy’s 292 plaster cast bones are setting off instead on a nationwide tour.
On Profile this week, Mark Coles examines how Dippy the replica Diplodocus has become a national treasure.
Strange Times on WESA
Curious about the Strange Times performance series happening across all four Carnegie Museums this year?
Read about the series and the concept of the Anthropocene in a recent WESA piece—“‘Anthropocene’ Performance Series Interrogates Humankind’s Impact On Earth.”
For more information on Strange Times: Earth in the Age of the Human, visit nexus.carnegiemuseums.org, and see a full list of events.