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.

July 13, 2020 by wpengine

Bird Banding with a Crew of One

This year, spring migration was different. Cold weather early in the season (one night during peak migration saw a low of 23 degrees and was accompanied by snow) seemed to delay the arrival of many species. The paucity of insects resulting from the low temperatures seemed to drive many birds like Baltimore Orioles to find food at feeders, which delighted socially distancing observers. Then, when warm winds from the south brought the bulk of migrants north, there were a few days of really great birding until those birds either settled into local breeding territories or continued to trickle north.

One gauge of “really great birding” is seeing more than 20 species of warblers in one day, and this eye-pleasing event happened at Powdermill more than once this spring!

Just as spring migration was a bit different for the birds, it was quite different for those who study birds. Across the continent, field seasons were cancelled and research projects redesigned or postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. For the first time in nearly 60 years, Powdermill’s bird banding program was unable to be run as normal. A banding operation of this magnitude requires many staff and volunteers working as a team to safely and efficiently extract, band, and process birds each day. Because bird banders’ priorities place bird safety and well-being along with human health ahead of dataset continuity, the difficult decision was made to cancel the banding season.

Despite the pandemic, there were many bright spots this spring. Although a lot of research was put on hold, projects that could be run solo or by people in the same germ pool were given approval to proceed. As part of my dissertation work, I conducted a research project that is a collaboration between Powdermill and the University of Toledo to investigate the distance migratory songbirds fly between stopover locations. This project uses a novel method, sampling subcutaneous fat deposits to infer the geographic location of previous stopover areas using the data generated by stable-hydrogen isotope analysis. This first phase of the larger project was a success: I sampled 39 individuals of two species! I had mixed emotions about operating the mist nets at Powdermill alone. It was certainly lonely, but it was also peaceful and rewarding. Because the focus was on banding only a few study species, I released all other birds that I caught at the net. This meant that there were a few extra moments to marvel at the beauty of spring birds in their fresh and brightly colored breeding plumage, and to reflect on the incredible migratory journeys these relatively tiny birds make each year. There were even a few surprises in the nets, including a Prairie Warbler that stayed in the Powdermill banding area for a few weeks, and Powdermill’ s fifth ever capture of a Least Bittern, a secretive marsh bird that many yearn to see! Despite the pandemic and shutdown, spring banding with a crew of one was successful and productive.

Annie Lindsay is the Bird Banding Program Manager at Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Powdermill Nature Reserve. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

Behind the Scenes with the Baron de Bayet and L. W. Stilwell Collection, Part 4: Buying and Selling Fossils in the 19th Century

Figure 1: Letter from Stilwell to Bayet, June 29, 1897 (Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Section of Invertebrate Paleontology)

In this, our fourth and final installment, we will look at the Stilwell-Bayet letters. Because letter writing was the central form of communication in the late 19^th century, this correspondence documents past collecting practices. Although the Carnegie Museum’s Bayet archive retains only Stilwell’s part of the correspondence, the letters provide insight into their business relationship.

Procuring Fossils Was Time Consuming and Expensive

In June of 1897 (Figure 1), Lucien W. Stilwell wrote, “In reply, I am glad you are pleased with the Fossils. As to their getting there a little late, I did all on my part and cannot be made to suffer in any way for lateness. Had you ordered earlier and hand [sic] not correspondence been necessary previous to my shipment, I would have sent them earlier.” Shipping was labor intensive and costly in the late 1800’s. Additionally, the risk of breakage was high. The trip from South Dakota to Brussels required multiple carriers and involved wagons, trains and ships. From start to finish the trip could take months. One Stilwell receipt dated January 12, 1889, shows the cost of shipping two boxes from New York to Brussels at $5.05, or about $141 today. Keep in mind, this figure does not include the cost of shipping from the Dakota Territories to New York.

Negotiating Was as Wild as the West

Deal making was a delicate dance. Stilwell wanted to maximize profit. Bayet wanted the best price. In March 1889 Stilwell states “I do not know what new animal you spoke of. I sent the new ammonite. As to shipping and getting them away across the ocean, before we agree on price, that is a rather indefinite way and might be an expensive thing. I can say now, that if people do not want to give what I ask for these heads [Cenozoic mammal heads], I do not care to collect them for when I base my prices on the cost of finding and cleaning them and the cash expense and place them as reasonable as anyone can afford to do the work then I would cease to collect them.”

Let the Buyer Beware

Sometimes, lines were crossed. In addition to invertebrates, Stilwell sold Bayet Cenozoic mammal fossils from the Badlands. Stilwell references a mammal skull in the quote above. In 2004, Spencer Lucas of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, wrote a paper titled “O.C. Marsh and the Eocene Brontothere Teleodus: A Paleontological Hoax. In it he describes negotiations between paleontologist O.C. Marsh and Lucien W. Stilwell. Lucas concludes that Stilwell, or someone in his employ, added extra teeth to a brontotherium skull in order to induce Marsh into paying a higher price. At that time, Marsh did not notice that the teeth were doctored. According to Lucas, Marsh was determined to have the skull at the lowest possible price. He convinced Stilwell that the skull was not a new species and Stilwell eventually sold him the skull for a reduced figure. The altered teeth were not discovered until 1982 by Lucas and Schoch. Lucas concluded in 2004 that, “The Teleodus avus hoax is yet another example of the authenticity problems inherent to the commercial purchase of fossils as well as the great capacity all paleontologists have for seeing what they want to see in a fossil, not what actually is there.”

Albert Kollar notes that to his knowledge there is no indication that any of Bayet’s invertebrate specimens were fabricated or distorted.

The Stilwell-Bayet Correspondence is a fascinating look at collecting and negotiating in the “Wild West” a century ago. Preparation of fossils for shipping was time consuming and risky. Rarity and preservation quality often dictated price and it was a “buyer beware” marketplace. The items in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History collections give a glimpse into the mores, history and values of a past business climate. Stories, such as this one, also provide an opportunity to think about the future. One wonders what collecting adventures, conducted by museum scientists today, will resonate with future generations and what conclusions they may draw.

Joann Wilson is an Interpreter for the Department of Education and a volunteer with the Section of Invertebrate Paleontology and Albert Kollar is Collections Manager for the Section of Invertebrate Paleontology. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

Fourth of July and the Firefly

drawing of firefly that says World Firefly Day July 4-5, 2020

Although many fireworks shows are cancelled this Fourth of July, this is a great opportunity to get out over the holiday weekend and enjoy nature’s very own light show during World Firefly Day, on July 4^th and 5^th!

Fireflies, AKA lightning bugs, are neither flies nor bugs. They are actually a type of beetle with soft wings and the ability to bioluminesce (light up).

There’s a good chance you will see (or have already started seeing) firefly light displays this summer. There are six genera of fireflies that you are likely to encounter in Pennsylvania. Three are diurnal and don’t light up as adults (Ellychnia, Pyropyga, and Lucidota). Their light organs are absent or reduced in the adult stage. The remaining three genera are nocturnal and use light displays as adults. One is Pyractomena, which is a spring-active firefly that has already finished displaying for the year. That leaves Photinus and Photuris as the hosts of nature’s fireworks this Fourth of July. If you pay close attention to the flash patterns you’re seeing in your yard or get a chance to see one up close, you’ll probably be able to tell which one it is!

Photinus fireflies (top) are flattened in appearance and their heads are usually concealed from above, whereas Photuris fireflies (bottom) are hump-backed and you can often see their heads from above.

firefly on a leaf during the day — Creative Commons © David Cappaert, Bugwood.org

firefly on gray fabric — Photo credit: Andrea Kautz

Flash patterns vary by species, as do the timing and location of the display. Some species display low to the ground, while others display high in trees. Some are active at dusk, and others after dark. The most common firefly in the eastern U.S. is Photinus pyralis which has a lazy J-shaped flash pattern. Other flash patterns you may have seen are single or multiple rapid blinks. The displays you see are male fireflies advertising to females, who respond inconspicuously with their own flash pattern from a lower perched position. Some “femme fatales” in the genus Photuris will actually hunt by flashing in response to males of other species to lure them in, and then eat them!

Speaking of hunting, firefly larvae (below) are predators that live in moist soils, feeding on slugs and snails, which is a great method of pest control! Adults of some species are predators, but others drink nectar from flowers or simply do not eat at all.

The light-producing behavior has its origins in the larvae, which use the glow as a warning to predators that they are toxic. Other animals use bright colors to achieve this, but this wouldn’t be effective for nocturnal species in darkness. Adult fireflies light up to warn predators, but also to communicate with members of their own species, specifically potential mates. The distress signal is different from the mating signal, which you may notice if you capture a firefly in your hand and it starts to blink repeatedly.

We hope you get a chance to celebrate both the Fourth of July and World Firefly Day this year by witnessing some natural firework displays in your own back yard! We encourage you to share your experiences on the Fireflyers International Network Facebook page.

Andrea Kautz is a Research Entomologist at Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Powdermill Nature Reserve. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

Mesozoic Monthly: Protostega

June 20^th was the first day of summer! The weather here in Pittsburgh is already beautiful. It’s enough to make one dream of a socially distant beach! Summer, of course, is sea turtle nesting season: during the next several weeks, female sea turtles all across our planet’s Northern Hemisphere will return to the beach where they hatched, drag themselves onto land, and lay their eggs in the sand. It would have been an incredible sight to see Protostega gigas, one of the largest sea turtles of all time, hauling itself onto the beach to lay its eggs! For June’s Mesozoic Monthly, we’re going to “dive in” to the paleontology of this giant reptile.

Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s spectacular skeleton of Protostega gigas is a composite made from the fossilized bones of two different individuals. Come see it on display in our Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibition when the museum reopens at the end of this month. But don’t forget to purchase your timed ticket in advance!

All turtles, including sea turtles like Protostega and tortoises like the Galápagos giant tortoise, belong to the group Testudines. This group originated during the Triassic Period, the first of the three time periods of the Mesozoic Era (aka the Age of Dinosaurs). Turtles split from other reptiles to form their own group before crocodiles and dinosaurs evolved! This means that turtles are not descended from dinosaurs, no matter how primordial some tortoises may look. Turtles differ from other reptiles in many ways, the most noticeable being their iconic shells.

A turtle shell is formed of two main parts: the carapace, or top shell, and the plastron, or bottom shell. The shell is made of bone fused directly to the spine and ribcage, so a turtle cannot crawl out of its shell without leaving its skeleton behind! Another major difference between turtles and other modern reptiles involves skull anatomy. Turtles have anapsid skulls: the bony case that protects their brain lacks any external openings behind their eyes (known as temporal openings). All other extant reptiles plus birds are diapsids, meaning their skulls have two holes behind their eyes. Mammals differ from both conditions because we have only one temporal opening, making us synapsids. Traditionally, the anapsid condition of turtle skulls has been taken to indicate that they are the most primitive of living reptiles. More recently, however, many paleontologists and biologists have uncovered evidence that turtles are in fact diapsids whose evolutionary course led, for some reason, to a secondary closure of their temporal openings. According to these scientists, the closest relatives of turtles among today’s diapsids are either lepidosaurs (lizards, snakes, and kin) or archosaurs (crocodilians and birds).

A bird’s (or pterosaur’s!) eye view of Protostega gigas (left) swimming past two long-necked elasmosaurid plesiosaurs in shallow waters of North America’s Western Interior Seaway roughly 85 million years ago. (This scene is set in what’s now Kansas!) Art by Julio Lacerda; see more of his beautiful work here.

Reptiles, mammals, and birds all belong to a group called Amniota, and the key defining feature of amniotes is a protective layer around their eggs that allows this vulnerable life stage to survive on land. Having eggs that did not have to be laid in water meant that animals could move to less-wet habitats, a significant step in evolution! Unfortunately for sea turtles, which spend most of their lives at sea, this means they must return to land to lay their eggs. An amniotic egg would “drown” in water because the embryo still needs access to air. As a sea turtle, Protostega would have faced these same reproductive challenges, plus one more: it was huge!The largest modern turtle, the leatherback sea turtle, can grow over seven feet (2.1 meters) long; Protostega dwarfs it at 9.8 feet (3 meters)! If you’ve ever seen video of a sea turtle crawling onto the beach to nest, you know that it’s an awkward process. Imagine seeing a turtle that weighs at least a ton try to do the same! Although surely clumsy on land, Protostega was a graceful swimmer, using its four rigid flippers like wings to “fly” through the water.

Protostega lived in the Western Interior Seaway, an inland sea that stretched across much of North America during the Cretaceous Period (the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era). The seaway was warm, shallow, and teeming with all kinds of aquatic life: the perfect habitat for an omnivorous sea turtle. Because sea turtles are ectothermic (sometimes erroneously called “cold-blooded”), they cannot regulate their own body temperature. Instead, Protostega relied on warm water temperatures and sunlight hitting its back to keep warm. Although we don’t have a fossil record of the coloration of Protostega, we know that today’s large sea turtles are counter-shaded, with heat-absorbing, dark-colored backs and pale undersides. In an ocean environment where both predator and prey shift positions in the water column, this combination aids concealment. From below, a light-colored underside blends with light-saturated water. From above, a dark back blends with dark water. Camouflage in the water was an important feature when living alongside so many sizable predators. Protostega fossils have been found with bite marks from the large shark Cretoxyrhina mantelli, and it almost certainly was also on the menu for the mighty mosasaurs as well. Fortunately for us, we humans can enjoy the ocean knowing that few creatures are interested in eating us!

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.

Behind the Scenes with the Baron de Bayet and L. W. Stilwell Collection Part 3: The Wild West Formed Million of Years Ago

photo of Badlands National Park — Figure 1: Badlands National Park today, National Park Service photo, 2014. This view of the Badlands topography illustrates the erosion that took place over the last 2 million years.

The Lakota called the Badlands “Mako Sica” or “land bad.” The early French-Canadian trappers referred to it as “les mauvais terres pour traverse” or “bad lands to travel through.” Seventy-five million years ago, this area was a lush underwater seaway filled with creatures such as mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, diving birds, fish, baculites, and ammonites (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Taxa that swam in the Western Interior Seaway from *Dinosaurs in Their Time* exhibit at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Photo by Patty Dineen.

The Stilwell fossils of Cretaceous age (Figure 3) were deposited in a black mud that accumulated on the sea floor from 82 to 70 million years ago (Figure 4). The Pierre Shale is part of the extensive Western Interior Seaway of North America (Figure 5). Museum visitors can view a changing geographic representation of the seaway on a wall-mounted flat screen monitor within the Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibit. The seaway extended from the Gulf of Mexico, Florida, and southern Gulf Coast, north through Texas, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, and the Canadian Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. This vast waterway terminated in the Artic region of Canada. At the time of the Pierre Sea, the ice sheet-free greenhouse to hothouse paleoclimate was much warmer than it is today, creating the highest sea levels in earth’s history. Sea level rises and falls were primarily controlled by the presence or melting of glaciers in the polar regions, the shifting of the continents, and the uplifting of proto-Rocky Mountains by plate tectonics.

Figure 3: Western Interior Seaway fossils on display at Carnegie Museum’s *Dinosaurs in Their Time* exhibit. Stilwell fossils are highlighted in blue.

Figure 4: Outcrop photo of Pierre shale.

Figure 5: Western Interior Seaway approximately 75 million years ago. Red dot locates Deadwood, South Dakota today.

Fast forward to the Wild West of the 1890’s, and dealers such as Stilwell found and sold fossils to museums and private collectors. Knowledge of Badlands fossils spread as far as Europe, and by 1889 Bayet wanted some for his own collection.

Next, in our final post of this series, we will delve into the Stilwell-Bayet correspondence in search of clues about how fossils were bought and sold over a century ago.

Joann Wilson is an Interpreter for the Department of Education and a volunteer with the Section of Invertebrate Paleontology. Albert Kollar is Collections Manager for the Section of Invertebrate Paleontology. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

The Bromacker Project Part VI: Seymouria sanjuanensis, the Tambach Lovers

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

Seymouria sanjuanensis fossils — Two exquisitely preserved, nearly complete adult skeletons of *Seymouria sanjuanensis* that were discovered in the Bromacker quarry in 1997. Photo by Dave Berman.

At lunchtime on the last day of the 1997 field season, Thomas Martens discovered the two exquiste specimens shown above, the only fossils found that year. Thomas had uncovered a piece of the hip region with some attached vertebrae that resembled, once again, those of the ancient amphibian Seymouria. Because our work time was limited, we estimated the length of the specimen and rushed to extract it from the quarry. When we flipped the block over, a few pieces of rock fell out, revealing a series of vertebrae of a second individual in the block. We were thrilled to learn that Thomas had discovered two specimens of Seymouria. We put the rock pieces back in place and quickly finished plastering the block. There was just enough time for Dave, Stuart Sumida, and I to return to our hotel, clean up, quickly pack, and meet Thomas, his family, and his fossil preparator Georg Sommer for a celebratory dinner. What a great way to end the field season.

Working in tight quarters to quickly extract the *Seymouria* specimens discovered at lunchtime on the last day of the field season. Clockwise from right: Georg Sommer, Dave Berman, and the author. Photo by Stuart Sumida, 1997.

Seymouria had already been known from the Bromacker quarry. Thomas had discovered and identified two skulls in 1985, fossils he brought with him when he came to Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) in 1993 to study for six months with Dave Berman under a CMNH-financed fellowship. Both skulls were of juvenile individuals. Of the two known species of Seymouria, Dave and Thomas were excited to discover that the Bromacker skulls were nearly identical to those of Seymouria sanjuanensis. The 1997 lunchtime discovery of the two complete adult specimens confirmed the identification of the Bromacker Seymouria as S. sanjuanensis.

The first discovered species of Seymouria was Seymouria baylorensis, from near Seymour, Baylor County, Texas, from which its name was derived. Seymouria sanjuanensis was first found in San Juan County, Utah, by Dave Berman and the field team he was leading as a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dave’s advisor, Dr. Peter Vaughn, named it Seymouria sanjuanensis in reference to the county of discovery. Another discovery of five specimens of this species preserved together was made by Dave in New Mexico in 1982.

Comparison of the skulls of *Seymouria baylorensis* (top) and *S. sanjuanensis* (bottom). The individual bones of the skull are color coded. Skulls scaled to same size. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Seymouria baylorensis is geologically younger than S. sanjuanensis and has a more robust skull, larger and fewer teeth of variable size, and a subrectangular postorbital bone compared to the chevron-shaped postorbital of S. sanjuanensis.

Seymouria is considered a terrestrial amphibian that only returned to water to breed. Its strongly built skeleton provided the support needed to move on land. With its numerous, slender, pointed teeth, S. sanjuanensis most likely ate insects and small land-living vertebrates. We know that the Bromacker Seymouria didn’t consume fish, because not a single fish fossil, scrap of fish fossil, or fish coprolite (fossil poop) has ever been found at the Bromacker quarry. Study of the rock deposits preserving the fossils at the Bromacker indicate a lack of permanent water, which would explain the absence of fish.

Growth series of skulls of *Seymouria sanjuanensis* from the Bromacker Quarry showing (left to right) early juvenile, late juvenile, and adult growth stages. Photos by the author, 2006.

Conditions for breeding must have been favorable in the Tambach Basin, the ancient basin where sediments preserving the Bromacker fossils accumulated, because several juvenile specimens of Seymouria are known. The smallest is a skull measuring about ¾ of an inch long. In a study led by our colleague Josef Klembara (Comenius University, Slovak Republic), we determined that the smallest individual was post-metamorphic—in other words, no longer a tadpole—based on the presence of certain ossified bones in the skull. In tadpoles, these skull elements are cartilaginous; that is, they haven’t yet turned to bone.

The discovery in Germany of the same species of Seymouria previously known only from New Mexico and Utah has important implications in terms of paleobiogeography (the study of the distribution of species in space and time). At the time S. sanjuanensis was alive, the continents were merged to form the supercontinent Pangaea. The presence of S. sanjuanensis across Pangaea, north of a roughly east-west trending mountain range, indicates that climatic or physical barriers (e.g., deserts, inland seas, mountain ranges) didn’t prevent its dispersal.

Map showing the arrangements of the continents in the Early Permian. The locality where *Seymouria* occurs in present-day New Mexico, Texas, and Utah and the Bromacker locality in present-day Germany are indicated. Map modified from Scotese, 1987.

The two Seymouria specimens preserved together were a big hit in the local region in Germany. Museum der Natur (MNG) exhibit preparator Peter Mildner nicknamed them the “Tambacher Liebespaar” (“Tambach Lovers”) after a painting entitled “Gothaer Liebespaar” (“Gotha Lovers”) on exhibit in the Herzogliches Museum of the Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein (also the parent organization of MNG). This name caught on and is fondly used by our German friends and colleagues. Peter even made a fleshed-out model of the two Seymouria specimens in their death pose. The proprietor of the hotel in which we stayed hung a copy of the model of the Tambach Lovers and a framed collage of newspaper articles featuring the Bromacker on a wall in one of the hotel rooms, which she named the “Präparation Suite” (i.e. “Preparation Suite” in reference to the preparation of fossils). I often stayed in this room.

The painting entitled “Gothaer Liebespaar” (“Gotha Lovers”), which is on display at Herzogliches Museum of the Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein, Gotha, Germany. Image from Wikimedia Commons and provided by Thomas Martens.

Tambach Lovers postcard — Postcard showing the Tambach Lovers. The postcard was made for and sold by the Museum der Natur, Gotha. Photo of the postcard by the author, 2020.

Stuart Sumida (left) and Heike Scheffel, proprietor of the Hotel Wanderslaben where we stayed (right), with the model of the Tambach Lovers in the “Präparation Suite.” The framed collage to the right of the model holds newspaper articles featuring the Bromacker project. Photo by the author, 2003.

A cast of the Tambach Lovers specimen and a model of Seymouria sanjuanensis are exhibited in the Fossil Frontiers display case in CMNH’s Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibition. Be sure to look for them once the museum re-opens. And stay tuned for my next post, which will feature the unusual bipedal reptile Eudibamus cursoris.

For those of you who would like to learn more about Seymouria sanjuanensis, here is a link to the publication describing the 1997 specimens: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1671/0272-4634(2000)020%5B0253%3AROSSSF%5D2.0.CO%3B2.

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.

Keep Reading

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

Bird Banding with a Crew of One

Related Content

Carnegie Museum of Natural History Blog Citation Information

Share this post!

Behind the Scenes with the Baron de Bayet and L. W. Stilwell Collection, Part 4: Buying and Selling Fossils in the 19th Century

Related Content

Fourth of July and the Firefly

Related Content

Mesozoic Monthly: Protostega

Related Content

Behind the Scenes with the Baron de Bayet and L. W. Stilwell Collection Part 3: The Wild West Formed Million of Years Ago

Related Content

The Bromacker Project Part VI: Seymouria sanjuanensis, the Tambach Lovers

Keep Reading

About

Get Involved

Bring a Group

Powdermill

More Information