Carnegie Museum of Natural History

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Blogs from our Scientific Researchers

Carnegie Museum of Natural History is home to active research and vast scientific collections. Our scientific researchers regularly contribute to the blog at the museum.

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Mesozoic Monthly: Aspidorhynchus

As we all seek out responsible ways to enjoy our summer months while the world continues to respond to COVID-19, many of us are embracing the therapeutic effects of the great outdoors. One popular activity, especially in and around the Three Rivers, is fishing. Some modern fishes look positively primeval, as if they were hooked straight out of the Age of Dinosaurs and reeled into the present day. For July’s edition of Mesozoic Monthly, our star is Aspidorhynchus, one of the weird and wonderful fishes that inhabited the oceans of the Mesozoic Era.

Let’s start with a quick lesson on fish, for context. There are two main groups of bony fishes. One group, the class Sarcopterygii, are called the lobe-finned fishes because they have fleshy, limb-like fins that they use to paddle through the water like oars. The first vertebrates to go on land were sarcopterygians, and the descendants of these adventurous fish eventually evolved into amphibians, reptiles, and mammals – including us! Despite their prolific limbed descendants, sarcopterygians make up only a small fraction of fishes today. The vast majority of fish belong to the other class: Actinopterygii, or the ray-finned fishes. These fishes have delicate ray-like bones supporting thinly webbed fins instead of the meaty fins of the sarcopterygians. Actinopterygians are so successful that they dominate both freshwater and saltwater ecosystems, thrive in a variety of habitats, and fill various ecological niches. Such diverse lifestyles mean that actinopterygians come in many shapes and sizes. Nemo (a clownfish) is an actinopterygian. So is the barracuda that ate his mother, the catfish in the Monongahela River, and the unfortunate goldfish you won at the carnival as a kid. Most fossil fishes, like Aspidorhynchus for example, are also actinopterygians.

Aspidorhynchus is an extinct member of the order Holostei, nested, in diagrams of relatedness, within the class Actinopterygii. The only members of the Holostei today are gars and bowfins. Superficially, Aspidorhynchus looks like a gar, but it is more closely related to bowfins. Its name means “shield snout,” in reference to its pointy, swordfish-like upper jaw. Unlike swordfish, which lack teeth as adults, this snout was filled with many sharp teeth. The limited flexibility of its skull restricted its diet to tiny fish, two inches (5 centimeters) in diameter at the largest. Aspidorhynchus was not very large itself, its slender body only growing to approximately two feet (60 centimeters) in length. It was covered with ganoid scales, which are hard, diamond-shaped scales made with a shiny compound called ganoin. Only a few types of modern fishes have ganoid scales, including gar, sturgeon, and paddlefish.

Jurassic feeding frenzy: the pterosaur (flying reptile) Rhamphorhynchus and the predatory fish Aspidorhynchus attack a school of smaller fish. Usually, the baitfish were the only casualties here, but once in a while, everybody lost (see below!). Art by RavePaleoArt on DeviantArt, reproduced with permission.

Although species of Aspidorhynchus lived in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, we know that it encountered the same struggles as some modern fish due to several remarkable fossils. Just like swordfish, the pointy snout of Aspidorhynchus frequently got it into trouble by impaling other animals! The abundance of fossil evidence for this was provided by the unique conditions of the habitat preserved in the famous Solnhofen Limestone of Germany. In the Late Jurassic, this area was an isolated series of lagoons that accumulated a bottom layer of anoxic brine, which is extra-salty, low-oxygen water where oxygen-dependent (aerobic) life cannot survive. Despite this, the surface still teemed with life: fishes and marine reptiles dominated the water, small non-avian dinosaurs scurried along the shore, and pterosaurs (flying reptiles) and archaic birds flew overhead. The fish-eating pterosaur Rhamphorhynchus seems to have been a fairly frequent victim of the snout of Aspidorhynchus, with multiple fossils documenting unfortunate collisions in which the fish’s snout pierced and became entangled in the wing membrane of the pterosaur. (For a summary of pterosaur wings, check out the March edition of Mesozoic Monthly, on Nemicolopterus.) It’s obvious from the size of the animals that neither was trying to eat the other, but somehow, they became stuck together. As the two animals struggled to survive, they slowly drifted downward into the anoxic brine, where they suffocated and settled onto the bottom of the lagoon. If any other animals had tried to eat or otherwise disturb the corpses, they would have died in the brine as well, so the fossils of the Solnhofen Limestone are typically pristine and undisturbed by scavengers.

Three views of the most famous (and probably the most beautiful) Aspidorhynchus vs. Rhamphorhynchus fossil from the Upper Jurassic Solnhofen Limestone of southern Germany. Avid fisherman Matt Lamanna, the head of Vertebrate Paleontology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH), jokes that the Aspidorhynchus looks angry, as if it’s mad about getting its snout stuck in the Rhamphorhynchus and dooming them both. Sorry Matt, this is just a quirk of preservation – the compression of the Aspidorhynchus skull during fossilization gave it the appearance of having grouchy eyebrows that weren’t there in life. You can learn more about this specimen in a paper by Frey and Tischlinger (2012).And if you want to see real fossils of both of these animals in person (albeit preserved separately), come visit the Solnhofen case in CMNH’s Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibition.

Because Aspidorhynchus lived only during the Mesozoic, there’s no chance that a modern-day angler will ever hook one. But should you find yourself fishing in one of Pennsylvania’s rivers or lakes this summer, and manage to land a gar or bowfin, pause for a moment and reflect on the ancient legacy of these fishes – a heritage that dates to the Age of Dinosaurs.

Lindsay Kastroll is a volunteer and paleontology student working in the Section of Vertebrate Paleontology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum staff, volunteers, and interns are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

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The Bromacker Fossil Project Part VIII: Martensius bromackerensis Honoring a Colleague

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The Bromacker Fossil Project Part VIII: Martensius bromackerensis, Honoring a colleague

New to this series? Read The Bromacker Fossil Project Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, and Part VII. 

Adult, holotype specimen of Martensius bromackerensis. Image digitally assembled by the author from five photographs taken by Diane Scott (Preparator at University of Toronto Mississauga [UTM]), 2010–2013. The specimen was collected in several large blocks.

The formal publication of some of the Bromacker discoveries took more time to complete than others, and our most recently pubished fossil, Martensius bromackerensis, holds the record in that regard. Four nearly complete specimens of Martensius were collected from the Bromacker quarry between 1995–2006. The first, discovered by Thomas Martens and his father Max, came from a jumbled pocket of fossils. Unfortunately, muddy groundwater had penetrated cracks in the subsurface of this portion of the quarry and coated and eroded bone present along these cracks. Despite this damage and the lack of a skull, we could identify the specimen as a caseid synapsid (synapsids, also known as mammal-like reptiles, are a group of amniotes whose later-occurring members gave rise to mammals).

Drawing of 1995 Martensius bromackerensis specimen. Because the specimen was collected in numerous pieces of rock, with parts of some bones exposed on apposing rocks, Scientific Illustrator Kevin Dupuis (UTM) had to first draw the bones exposed on each piece and then assemble all of the drawings digitally. Dotted lines indicate bone impression in the rock. Arrows point to healing scars from two fractures in the last right rib. Additional healing scars can be seen in preceding ribs. This animal apparently survived a serious injury. Modified from Berman et al., 2020.

The next specimen was discovered in 1999 by Georg Sommers (Preparator, Museum der Natur, Gotha), who prepared the fossil. It consists of a vertebral column, ribs, some limb bones, and a few scattered skull elements. Unfortunately, a more complete skull was needed to allow for comparison to other caseids, some of which are based only on skull material. It wasn’t until the discovery of two more specimens in 2004 and 2006 by Stuart Sumida and Dave Berman, respectively, that the long sought-after skull was found. Preparation of these specimens took a long time due to their size and the considerable amount of rock covering the bones in some of the blocks. My promotion to Collection Manager in 2005 left me with considerably less time to prepare fossils. Other preparators were asked to help with the preparation at both Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH, Dan Pickering and Tyler Schlotterbeck) and in Dr. Robert Reisz’s lab at the University of Toronto at Mississauga (Diane Scott and Nicola Wong Ken). Robert was originally slated to lead the study, but other commitments prevented him from working on it, so Dave took over.

Besides preparation, the scientific study and publication of the specimens required illustrations and photographs, most of which were done by Diane, Nicola, and Kevin. Andrew McAfee (Scientific Illustrator, CMNH) made skeletal and flesh reconstructions of the animal, as well as an illustration of two Martensius in their ancient habitat (see The Bromacker Fossil Project Part III for a link to this illustration). All of this effort was worth it, however, because besides adding to the diversity of the Bromacker vertebrate fauna, Martensius has an unusual life history.

Juvenile specimen of Martensius bromackerensis. Image digitally assembled by the author from two photographs (skull and body) taken by Diane Scott in 2013. The skull, shown in ventral aspect, is incomplete and eroded on its dorsal surface.

Caseid synapsids are a diverse, long-lived group known from the Late Pennsylvanian–Middle Permian epochs (~300–259 million years ago) of Europe, Russia, and the USA, and, with one exception, all are adapted to eating plants (herbivorous). The most advanced caseids (such as the enormous Cotylorhynchus romeri) have ridiculously small skulls when compared to those of carnivores, spatulate (spoon-shaped) teeth tipped with small tubercles (cuspules) for cropping vegetation, and huge, barrel-shaped ribcages to support a large gut for fermenting cellulose-rich plants. The exception is the earliest known (Late Pennsylvanian epoch, ~300 million years ago) caseid, Eocasea martini, represented by a single, incomplete juvenile specimen from Kansas. The teeth of Eocasea are small and conical, which indicate that it most likely ate insects. Because it’s skull and ribcage are of normal size, in contrast to juveniles of Martenius, Eocasea probably ate insects throughout its life.

Reconstruction of the skull of Martensius bromackerensis (left) from the Early Permian (~290 million years ago) Bromacker quarry, Germany, and the more advanced caseid Ennatosaurus tecton (skull, middle and skull fragment with cuspule-tipped teeth, right), from the Middle Permian (~263 million years ago) of Russia. Skull reconstruction of Martensius made by Diane Scott and modified from Berman et al., 2020. Ennatosaurus skull reconstruction and jaw fragment drawing modified from Maddin et al., 2008.

Martensius has a modestly expanded ribcage and a small skull, suggesting that it was herbivorous. Furthermore, the feet of Martensius, like those of other caseids in which the feet are known, are large, with massive, elongated, strongly recurved claws. Martensius also has a well-supported hip region that may have enabled it to rise on its hind legs to reach and tear down overhead branches to feed upon.

The upper and lower teeth of the adult Martensius differ from those of more advanced caseids in being triangular and lacking cuspules. The upper jaw teeth of the juvenile resemble those of the adult, but the lower jaw teeth are more numerous—31 in the juvenile compared to 25 in the adult—and surprisingly, they resemble those of Eocasea. Dave concluded that juveniles of Martensius had teeth adapted for eating insects, which were replaced by an adult dentition that would’ve been good for cropping plants and piercing insects. Remarkably, the juvenile Martensius apparently died while in the process of replacing its juvenile dentition with that of adults.

So why have different juvenile and adult dentitions? Modern animals that eat fibrous plant matter have micro-organisms called fermentative endosymbionts in their large guts, which break down difficult-to-digest plant matter via fermentation. It is assumed that early fossil plant-eaters with broad ribcages also had large guts housing fermentative endosymbionts. Prior to the discovery of Martensius, other scientists hypothesized that early herbivores acquired endosymbionts by eating herbivorous insects that already had these microbes in their guts. In Martensius, the introduction of endosymbionts apparently occurred during the juvenile, insectivorous stage of life, which set the stage for adults to add plants to their diet.

Flesh (top) and skeletal (bottom) reconstructions of Martensius bromackerensis. Illustrations by Andrew McAfee and modified from Berman et al., 2020.

The generic name Martensius honors Thomas Martens for his discovery of vertebrate fossils at the Bromacker quarry and his perseverance in maintaining a highly successful, long-term field operation resulting in the discovery and publication of the exceptionally preserved Bromacker fossils. Bromackerensis refers to the Bromacker quarry, the only locality from which this species is known.

Stay tuned for my next post, which will feature some terrestrial dissorophoid amphibians.

For those of you who would like to learn more about Martensius, here’s a link to the 2020 Annals of Carnegie Museum publication in which it was described.

Amy Henrici is Collection Manager in the Section of Vertebrate Paleontology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

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The Bromacker Fossil Project Part IX: The Dissorophoid Amphibians Tambachia, Rotaryus, and Georgenthalia, Capable Travelers

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Collected on this Day in 1966: Santa Clauses

Christmas in July…”Santa Claus” floating in the air.

(Or I guess, technically Boxing Day in July, if that’s a thing.)

thistle seed fluff "Santa Claus" in hand

Make a wish!

Have you ever seen fluff floating by in the air, especially in late July, early August? Kids love chasing the fluff around, often referring to them as “Santas” or “Santa Clauses.”  You catch it, make a wish, and let them go again, floating away.

dried thistle specimen on herbarium sheet

These are seeds!  Most likely thistle seeds, like this specimen here.  Or other seeds that have similar “fluff”-like structures.  The botanical term for this “fluff” is pappus.  Pappus is a modified part of flowers in many species in the sunflower family, Asteraceae (think dandelion).  These structures help the seed disperse in the wind, floating away in the breeze, carrying the seed far away.  If you’ve tried to catch them, you know they float away in the air very easily. The seeds are small, and often times have already disconnected from the pappus when you catch them.

thistle

Check out the “Santa Claus” pappus on this specimen of bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare), collected on July 26, 1966 by Leroy Henry near Woodbine (Butler county), Pennsylvania.  Leroy Henry was a botany curator at the Carnegie Museum.  All species in the genus Cirsium are known as “thistles.”  They have distinctive spiny leaves and stems, with even more distinctive purple flower heads. There are native thistles, but many are introduced. Thistles are common in disturbed areas, and in and around agricultural fields across the country.  Bull thistle is native in Europe and Western Asia, but widely introduced across the world, including North America.  It is the national flower of Scotland, but the species is considered invasive in many places.

Keep an eye out for thistles, and “Santa Clauses.”  Don’t forget to make a wish.

Find this bull thistle specimens here.

Check back for more! Botanists at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History share digital specimens from the herbarium on dates they were collected. They are in the midst of a three-year project to digitize nearly 190,000 plant specimens collected in the region, making images and other data publicly available online. This effort is part of the Mid-Atlantic Megalopolis Project (mamdigitization.org), a network of thirteen herbaria spanning the densely populated urban corridor from Washington, D.C. to New York City to achieve a greater understanding of our urban areas, including the unique industrial and environmental history of the greater Pittsburgh region. This project is made possible by the National Science Foundation under grant no. 1801022.

Mason Heberling is Assistant Curator of Botany at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

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The Bromacker Fossil Project Part VII: Eudibamus cursoris, the Original Two-legged Runner

New to this series? Read The Bromacker Fossil Project Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, and Part VI. 
Holotype specimen of Eudibamus cursoris, the most complete bolosaurid reptile known. Photo by the author, 2013.

Stuart Sumida discovered some small bones in the Bromacker quarry in 1993, the same year that the holotype skeleton of Diadectes absitus was found. Dave Berman told me that when Stuart showed them to him, he couldn’t see anything because they were so small. Upon closer examination, Dave, Stuart, and Thomas Martens identified them as those of the captorhinomorph reptile Thuringothyris mahlendorffae. Thomas’ wife Stefani, whose maiden name is Mahlendorff, discovered the first specimen in the Bromacker in 1982, and Thomas and a colleague named it in her honor in a 1991 publication.

The fossil was exposed in several pieces of rock, which Thomas shipped to Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) along with the large block of rock containing Diadectes. I didn’t prepare the specimen until several years later, as other projects, including the Diadectes, overshadowed it. Once I began working on it, though, Dave and I realized that it was not Thuringothyris. Indeed, we had no idea what type of animal it was, and our puzzlement grew as I exposed more of it. The identity wasn’t revealed until I had uncovered some very unusual, tiny teeth, which under the high magnification of the preparation microscope appeared to have a bulbous cusp towering over a basin. They looked vaguely familiar to me, but because I couldn’t immediately put a name on them, I rushed to get Dave from his office. Once Dave saw the teeth, he realized that the specimen was a new genus and species in the rare, enigmatic reptile group Bolosauridae.

Tiny teeth of a bolosaurid reptile, Bolosaurus striatus, in lateral (side; left) and occlusal (chewing surface; right) views. The specimen is in the CMNH Vertebrate Paleontology collection. Photos by Spencer Lucas (Research Associate, CMNH).

Until the discovery of Eudibamus cursoris, bolosaurids were represented in the fossil record by two genera, Bolosaurus and Belebey, which were based mainly on poorly preserved skull and fragmentary jaw fossils from Texas and Russia, respectively. Even though bolosaurids had been known since 1878, their relationship to other reptiles was not well understood. The nearly complete anatomy of Eudibamus allowed our team to determine that bolosaurids are the oldest member of the ancient group of reptiles called Parareptilia. This group has no living relatives, except possibly for turtles, a hypothesis that is highly debated by scientists.

Eudibamus cursoris fossil
Closeup of front and hind legs of Eudibamus. The hind leg, folded upon itself, is considerably longer than the front leg. Photo by the author, 2013.

When our study of the fossil began, we realized that Eudibamus was very different than other reptiles from that time. Proportions of the limbs and positions of the articulation surfaces on the upper and lower hind leg bones indicated that, in terms of posture, Eudibamus resembled a bow-legged human with a bad back instead of a typical sprawling reptile on four legs. It could stand and locomote on its hind legs in an upright posture (bipedal) with its legs held close together and in the same plane (parasagittal).

Dave was in constant phone communication with team member Dr. Robert Reisz (Professor, University of Toronto at Mississauga). One day Robert called Dave to ask if all the tail had been exposed, because he learned that modern lizards that are able to run bipedally have a long tail to help maintain their balance. The specimen was in Dave’s office and he immediately uncovered more of the tail and then let me finish the task. The tail was indeed very long and extended close to the edge of the block, which I had previously reduced in size. Additionally, we determined that the third, fourth, and fifth toes of the hind foot also were greatly elongated through lengthening of some of the individual toe bones, and that the first and second toes were extremely shortened by the reduction in size of individual toe bones. We hypothesized that when Eudibamus ran bipedally, it would rise on its toes, so that only the tips of the third, fourth, and fifth toes would contact the ground.

Drawing of the hind leg of Eudibamus cursoris (left) and the roughly contemporaneous reptile Captorhinus (right). Leg drawings are scaled to the same torso length of the whole animal. Illustrations of the animals are not to scale. Hind leg drawings are modified from Berman et al., 2000 and animal illustrations are from Wikimedia Commons.

Eudibamus occurred at least 60 million years before other bipedal, parasagittally-running reptiles appeared in the fossil record. This is reflected in its scientific name, which is derived from the Greek “eu,” meaning original or primitive, and “dibamos,” meaning on two legs. “Cursoris” is Latin, meaning runner. Examples of other reptiles using this locomotion mode are the dinosaurs Allosaurus fragilis and Tyrannosaurus rex, which you can view in CMNH’s Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibition.

So, what was the advantage of being able to run bipedally instead of running on all four legs? Lengthening the hind leg and foot would greatly increase stride length, especially if only the tips of the toes contacted the ground, which is an efficient way to increase speed. Eliminating arm to ground contact while running removes forelimbs from the path of the long-striding hind legs. The bulbous teeth and jaw structure of Eudibamusindicate that it was herbivorous. It seems likely, then, that Eudibamus used its ability to sprint to avoid becoming a tasty meal for a pursuing predator.

Eudibamus cursoris illustration
Peter Mildner (exhibit preparator at the Museum der Natur, Gotha) made a surprise visit to the Bromacker one afternoon to show us a model of Eudibamus cursoris he’d made. This image shows the model in the present day Bromacker quarry, part of the region it inhabited 290 million years ago. Photo by the author, 2006.

One of our laments is that a fossil trackway preserving Eudibamus walking quadrupedally and then switching to a bipedal gait has yet to be found.

Next time you are at CMNH, make sure you see the cast of the fossil skeleton and a model of Eudibamus that are exhibited in the Fossil Frontiers display case in CMNH’s Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibition. Stay tuned for my next post, which will feature the herbivorous mammal-like reptile Martensius bromackerensis.

For those of you who would like to learn more about Eudibamus, here is a link to the 2000 Science publication in which it was described: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/290/5493/969.

Amy Henrici is Collection Manager in the Section of Vertebrate Paleontology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

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The Bromacker Fossil Project Part VIII: Martensius bromackerensis, Honoring a Colleague

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Meet Amanda Martin, New Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Section of Amphibians and Reptiles

photo of woman holding a turtle

Hello everyone, my name is Amanda Martin and I’m a new post-doctoral researcher in the Amphibians and Reptiles section. I received both my Ph.D. and M.S. in Biological Sciences from Bowling Green State University, and my B.S. in Psychology and Interdisciplinary Studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

My herpetological career all started after watching Anaconda, the movie, when I was about six years old. I did not like the depiction of this wonderful creature, and since then I have been passionate about conserving and reducing other’s fear of snakes. During graduate school, I discovered that I really enjoy other amphibians and reptiles, especially the abundant red-backed salamanders which I found under logs almost every day during my research surveys. Even though I love studying snakes, I spent most of my time working with eastern box turtles using radio telemetry. One of my favorite aspects of working with these turtles is that they are easy to catch! I did, however, have some ninja turtles that liked to hide from my volunteer research assistants. Finding amphibians and reptiles can be quite challenging. I love this kind of treasure hunt because it is incredibly rewarding when you do find them!

Check out my website for more information about my previous research at: https://amandkm.wixsite.com/martin

Conservation in Action: Exploration of Changes in Land Cover over Time

In northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan lies a dynamic and diverse landscape, the Oak Openings Region which has been the focus of large ongoing conservation by the Green Ribbon Initiative. Over ten years ago, a land cover map was created to facilitate the enhancement and restoration of critical natural areas. Since then, local conservation partners have been changing the landscape to increase the area of natural habitats, such as upland prairie and savanna. But to see whether these efforts worked or not, they needed a new map to see these changes on the landscape. We, Martin and Root 2020, worked together with our local partners to build an updated map for region and explored these changes in land cover over a 10-year period.

We used satellite imagery and trained our model with confirmed ground sites for 14 different land cover types, including five communities of concern (swamp forest, floodplain forest, deciduous forest, upland savanna/prairie, and wet prairie). We then examined change over time by comparing total area or number of patches per land cover between the 2016 map and the 2006 map. We found that natural land covered 33% and human-modified land covered 67% of the total region. Over 10 years, natural classes increased, and cultural classes decreased in total area by 5.8%, although not all types of natural habitat increased (e.g., forest habitat decreased) and much of the natural habitat was found in small isolated pieces rather than large blocks of similar habitat. Many of these changes are likely a result of natural recovery and disturbance, and conservation efforts by the Green Ribbon Initiative. This large-scale view for conservation is needed to create conservation initiatives for different species and their natural habitats and illustrates the challenges that land managers face in restoring natural lands as humans continue to modify their surroundings.

Scientists use these types of land cover maps to better understand the interaction between species and their habitats. One aspect of this interaction is the creation of habitat suitability models, where you identify potential new habitat locations for species using occurrence data (where you find an individual) and environmental layers (land cover, elevation, distance to streams or roads, etc.). We did this for 15 target species focused on the 5 major communities of concern for Oak Openings Region using this land cover map. As Dr. Martin starts her new work with Dr. Sheridan in the amphibian and reptile section, they will be exploring this type of research utilizing the museum’s vast collection!

Link to article: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-020-01316-2

Journal: Environmental Management

Title: Examining Land Use Changes to Evaluate the Effects of Land Management in a Complex, Dynamic Landscape

Abstract: Anthropogenic alterations to landscapes have increased as the human population continues to rise, leading to detrimental changes in natural habitats. Ecological restoration assists in recovery by altering habitats to improve conditions and foster biodiversity. We examined land cover changes over time within a complex, dynamic region in the Midwest to assess the long-term effects of conservation. We used Landsat 8 bands for a 15-class land cover map of Oak Openings Region using supervised classification. We validated our map and achieved an overall accuracy of 71.2% from correctly classified points out of total visited points. Change over 10 years, from 2006 to 2016, was explored by comparing class statistics from FRAGSTATS between our map and original land cover map. We found that natural land, i.e., forest and early successional, covered 33%, with 10% permanently protected, while human-modified land, i.e., agricultural and developed, covered 67% of the region. Over 10 years, natural classes increased, and cultural classes decreased by 5.8%. There were decreases for the three forest communities and increases for the two early successional communities. These changes are likely the result of natural recovery and disturbance, and conservation efforts by the Green Ribbon Initiative. Changes in habitat also came with distribution changes, e.g., increased fragmentation for some classes, which was readily visible. Our useful method measured functionality by emphasizing changes in composition and configuration. Our approach provides a tool for assessing cumulative regional-scale effects from site-level management and conservation. This large-scale view for conservation is needed to effectively mitigate future changes.

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Meet Lisa Haney, new Postdoctoral Assistant Curator of Egypt on the Nile

photo of woman's face with Egyptian statue face

Hello! I am Lisa Haney, the new Postdoctoral Assistant Curator of Egypt on the Nile. I received my PhD in Egyptology from the University of Pennsylvania, my MA in Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian Studies and a concentration in Museum Studies from New York University, and my BA in Antiquities from Missouri State University. I am so excited to be here for the re-installation of the Walton Hall of Ancient Egypt and to share my love of all things Egypt with the people of Pittsburgh!

As a scholar, my work has focused largely on the archaeology and material culture of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom (ca. 2030 – 1650 BCE), a period that is well represented in the museum’s collection. My research utilizes archaeological evidence, ancient Egyptian texts and written records, astronomical sources, and material culture to examine the political landscape of Egypt’s 12th Dynasty and to assess how the kings of that period chose to have themselves represented and why. I have worked as an archaeologist and an epigrapher in Egypt and Oman, and I love traveling to new parts of the world to experience and learn about local cultures both ancient and modern.

I worked for two seasons as a part of the combined University of Pennsylvania-Yale-Institute of Fine Arts, New York University Expedition to Abydos under the direction of Dr. Josef Wegner, at the funerary complex of the 12th Dynasty pharaoh Senwosret III at South Abydos. Senwosret III is a pretty exciting guy and he also happens to be the owner of the Carnegie Boat – the large funerary boat from the site of Dahshur on view in the Walton Hall.  Unlike most other kings, Senwosret III had two funerary complexes – one at Dahshur and one at Abydos. His reign is a particularly interesting period of time in terms of modern Egyptology as well, because both of his funerary complexes are actively under investigation and every year we learn more and more about him and his reign.

My family and I just moved from Kansas City in May and I’m excited to get to know Pittsburgh and find out where the good BBQ is at!