Carnegie Museum of Natural History

One of the Four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh

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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An Introduction to BirdSafe Pittsburgh

It is estimated that 599 million birds die every year in North America after colliding with buildings. BirdSafe Pittsburgh was created in 2014 to research why birds collide with windows and how best to resolve this immense problem. Since then, every Spring and Fall the Downtown area of Pittsburgh, and some surrounding areas, have been monitored for migrating birds that have collided with windows.

Fall first year female magnolia warbler. It was caught after colliding with a window downtown and later released in Schenley Park.

The unfortunate birds found dead are brought back to the museum where they become part of our collection. The birds found alive after a collision are taken to a local rehabilitation center and are eventually released if they survive their injuries. These efforts help us understand what about a building makes it dangerous to a bird and using this information we can mitigate deadly areas with the help of building owners and managers.

Every person’s effort makes a difference, volunteering to walk a predetermined route downtown or monitoring your own home helps us continue to learn and spread the word of this problem. For more information about the project and how you can get involved visit our website: birdsafepgh.org, our facebook page: facebook.com/birdsafepgh/, or contact Jonathan Rice at ricej@carnegiemnh.org.

Jon Rice Urban Bird Conservation Coordinator is 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.

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Tarantula relative found at Powdermill

On March 6th, CMNH herpetologist Dr. Danny Hughes came across a very cool spider at Powdermill while digging holes for a salamander survey, and graciously captured it for us. We were excited to find out that it was a folding-door spider in the family Antrodiaetidae and genus Antrodiaetus!  It is related to tarantulas and belongs to the same group of primitive spiders called mygalomorphs. They are uncommonly encountered, partly because they spend most of their lives in underground, silk-lined burrows. The entrance to the burrow is camouflaged with debris so that when unsuspecting prey walk by, the spider can just reach up and out of the opening, grab its meal, and retreat (see this YouTube video for an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5owIY63g3E).

While the large fangs of these spiders may seem intimidating, they are not aggressive and are not of medical concern to humans because their venom is not very potent. In the ventral image, note the two pairs of yellow patches on the underside of the abdomen. These are respiratory structures known as book lungs. Nearly all spiders have a pair of book lungs, but only the primitive groups have two pairs.

Most folks are familiar with tarantulas which are found more in warmer climates, but these lesser-known mygalomorphs can be found right here in western PA. In fact, Powdermill is home to another family of mygalomorphs, the purseweb spiders (in the family Atypidae) which look similar, but they build silken tubes that run up along the base of a tree or rock above ground. We will be keeping our eyes peeled for this other cool family of spiders so we can photograph and show them off in another post. Stay tuned!

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.

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How to Wear Your Shell: Snail vs. Monoplacophoran

Do you wear your baseball cap with the brim in front or in the back? For some headgear, the orientation matters, for example, a football helmet worn in non-standard orientation might hinder your ability to see.

In most snails (gastropods), the shell coils over the tail. In some other mollusks, the shell coils over the head.

Torsion is a feature of all snails. Torsion is a 180° twisting of the head-foot with respect to the shell and internal organs, early in development. Torsion results in the anus being over the head (snails are real poop heads!). Why snails are torted remains a biological mystery, but a common hypothesis is that torsion also brings the gills and sensory organs to the front, and the anus just came along for the ride.

Snails have muscles that attach their bodies to the inside of their shells. Snails tighten these muscles to pull the body into the shell. A consequence of torsion is that the muscle scars (where muscles attach to the shell) are asymmetrical.

Monoplacophorans are a class of mollusks like snails except they do not undergo torsion. The lack of torsion means the shell coils over the head (in those having coiled shells). Furthermore, the muscle scars on their shells are symmetrical. Few monoplacophorans survive today, but they were more plentiful millions of years ago.

When I see snails in the funny pages in the newspaper, I notice that the cartoonists drew the shells in the standard orientation about half the time (50%, or random chance). When you see a cartoon snail with its shell in a non-standard orientation, you might wonder if it is really a monoplacophoran?

Next time you put on your baseball cap, think about how snails wear their shells, and remember the famous baseball snail: Slicky Mantle – he was quite a slugger – you should see him slide into home plate!

Cartoon mollusks with shell oriented as gastropod (left) and monoplacophoran (right). Illustration by Geoff Weber.

Timothy A. Pearce, PhD, is the head of the mollusks section 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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I love this interspecies friendship!

I confess I am not big on social media, but occasionally I see something that I can’t stop watching. This short clip caught on a wildlife camera in San Jose, California shows a coyote leading a badger though a culvert under a highway. And I am not alone in appreciation as this post has gone viral with millions of views! Simply put, this duo is absurdly cute. I can’t stop watching. While it is well established scientifically that coyotes and badgers hunt together, this video conveys so much more. The way the coyote leaps playfully, tail wagging, beckoning his short-legged little friend to follow conveys friendship. It conveys two buddies out for an adventure. 

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🐾 Our wildlife cameras spotted this coyote and badger traveling together through a culvert (tunnel) under a highway in the South Bay. We believe this is the first observation of its kind documenting these two together. Studies have shown that a badger and coyote hunting together can be beneficial for both species, as they pursue favorite prey such as ground squirrels. Maybe that’s where they’re headed? See what else our wildlife cameras have spotted with the link in our profile or at openspacetrust.org/blog/wildlife. Video: @peninsulaopenspacetrust / @pathways_for_wildlife . . . #Coyote #Badger #Wildlife #BayAreaWildlife #WildlifeCameras #WidlifeMovement #CuteAnimals #Animals #CoyoteAndBadger

A post shared by POST – Open Space For All (@peninsulaopenspacetrust) on

There are so many examples of non-human animals, individuals of the same species and of different species, interacting in complex ways that reveal their unique personalities, friendships, kindness, and dare I say, love. Traits or expressions we tend to confer only to humans for fear of anthropomorphizing, a big no-no in science. (For example, see this national geographic blog about this coyote-badger video). And yet I would argue that the most apt description of these behaviors is to describe them with the same words we would use to describe them in humans. Our brains are similar. These arguments are well developed by ecologist Carl Safina, in his best-selling book Beyond Words, and summarized here in this powerful TEDX talk.

A recent study about African grey parrots also captured the surprise of scientists. African grey parrots were very helpful in sharing tokens to other parrots so that parrot could exchange the token for food. The helping parrots did this without any direct reward for themselves. This type of helping behavior, most simply described as generosity or kindness, is surprising to scientists and many expressed doubt that it is real. Why? Other creatures are our close kin. We share the same nervous systems. It makes sense that we also share feelings and thoughts, emotional and social lives too. I think this is obvious to anyone who has a pet. For this badger and coyote pair, why shouldn’t we all, scientists alike, call it a friendship? Which raises another question: if we start calling these behaviors friendship, without fear of anthropomorphizing, might this help us to better empathize with our fellow animal kin and take better care of them and the Earth?  

I wonder.

Nicole Heller is Curator of the Anthropocene for Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences working at the museum.

This video was captured by Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), a land trust nonprofit where Heller worked as the Director of Conservation Science prior to joining the museum. POST is doing terrific conservation work to make the busy San Francisco Bay Area safe for wildlife to move around, find habitat, and successfully reproduce in the face of daily human traffic and long-term urban growth and climate change.

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Collected on this Leap Day in 1984

Unnamed, but not forgotten!

Today, we celebrate the 9th birthday of this specimen collected 36 years ago.

This specimen was collected on leap day, February 29, 1984 in Brazil by Keiichi Mizoguchi.

Fun fact: In the Carnegie Museum herbarium, there are 85 specimens collected on leap day, collected between 1872 until 1990.  That’s a lot of leap years!

Aside from it being collected on leap day, the specimen label might seem even more unique.  Where most herbarium specimen labels have the species name, this one is blank.  A big blank spot. The collector did not identify this specimen, nor has anyone else in the past 36 years (yet).  This is an “indetermined” or unidentified specimen.  It is filed in the sunflower family (Asteraceae) based on its flowers, but it is otherwise not identified.

We can’t forget about these unidentified specimens.  Especially those collected on leap day!

Specimens in the herbarium are arranged by plant family, then genus, then geography (where it was collected), and in nearly every genus, at the bottom of all these folders is a black colored folder labelled “undetermined” (also called “indet.”) that includes those specimens that have not yet been identified to species.  Of the over 525,000 specimens in the Carnegie Museum herbarium, about 2% (= 10,588 specimens), are not (yet) identified to species.

This specimen is most likely a member of a species already known to science, but an expert has not yet identified this particular specimen. However, many undetermined specimens may be undescribed (that is, new to science).  The name and description of new species (alpha taxonomy) is a major purpose of herbaria. A study in 2010 estimated that of the estimated 70,0000 species yet to be described, over HALF are lying in herbaria right now! They also found that only 16% of new species descriptions were done within 5 years of specimen collection, and 25% of new species descriptions involved specimens that were more than 50 years old!

Study abstract here: http://www.pnas.org/content/107/51/22169.abstract

Taxonomy (branch of science on classification of organisms) is always changing.  Species names are changed, what was once thought to be one plant species or family is split into many, and what was thought to be several species is lumped into one. And with further information or upon review by experts in particular plant groups, specimens are determined to be a different species than what the original collector called it. Annotation labels are added to specimens all the time – these labels revise the species listed on the original label. A typical annotation label includes the revised species name and details, the name of the person making the annotation, and the date.

Some specimens can have many annotations, which nicely demonstrates the community culture of science as a process with constant revision as we learn more about the world around us.

Find this specimen here. Check back, maybe it’ll have a species name on it by next leap year!

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 the 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 Connemara Marble: A Cross-Atlantic Connection Between Ireland and Pittsburgh

Fig. 1: Irish Dippy

Each March in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, the full-size dinosaur replica of Dippy (Diplodocus carnegii) that stands guard outside the Carnegie Complex along Forbes Avenue in Oakland, is draped in an iconic Irish scarf (Fig. 1). Inside the classic halls of the Carnegie Complex is a green marble from County Galway, western Ireland. It is called Connemara Marble and is ubiquitous in the museum’s architectural floor designs. Before visiting Ireland for the first time in 2015, my only reference to the green Isle was watching a classic John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara movie, titled, The Quiet Man circa 1952. Much of the movie was filmed amongst the Connemara landscapes and many of the films iconic locations survive to this very day, such as the famous Quiet Man Bridge (Fig. 2).  Moreover, researchers from the Carnegie Museum, National University of Ireland Galway, Connemara Marble Industries Ltd., Moycullen and Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, are investigating the significance of this Irish green marble in the architectural design of the Carnegie Institute Extension built by Alden & Harlow in 1907 (Fig. 3), Kollar et al., 2017; Feely et al., 2019, and Kollar et al., in review.

Fig. 2: Quiet Man bridge

Fig. 3: Connemara Map

The Streamstown Quarry in Western Ireland

A cross-Atlantic research connection between Ireland and Pittsburgh was initiated in the winter of 2015, when I visited Martin Feely at the National University of Ireland, Galway, an expert on the geology of the Connemara Marble, and Ambrose Joyce, owner of the Streamstown quarry. The objective was to determine the provenance and geology of the Carnegie’s Connemara Marble quarry and to compare the varieties of colored marbles used in the Carnegie’s floor tiles against other buildings with Connemara Marble from the Streamstown quarry (Fig. 4).  The Connemara Marble can be found in the twelve public spaces, corridors, and private rooms, including the Hall of Sculptures, Grand Staircase, Green Room, President’s Office, and entrance corridors to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. A unique use of Connemara Marble is as inlays in the design of the Thistle, the Scottish National flower in the Music Hall Foyer walls.  

Fig. 4: Connemara Marble at the Carnegie Museum 

The best way to get to the Streamstown Quarry is by car. The 50-mile drive, along the N59 from Galway to Clifden takes about an hour and 15 minutes through quaint villages and along scenic winding roadways. Understandably, it rained that day as it commonly does in County Galway, circa 45 inches per year. In comparison, Pittsburgh receives about 36 inches of rain per year. Like Pittsburgh, Galway has lush green landscapes because of the annual rainfall.  Visible from the road are mountainous outcrops and lakes e.g. the Twelve Bens quartzite mountains formed over millions of years ago. Their present topography resulted from ice-sculpting during the last glacial maximum. The peat bogs in the low-lying regions formed 5,000 years ago. The history of the Streamstown quarry (Fig. 5) was always best recounted by the patriarch of the family Ambrose Joyce Sr., who sadly passed away in 2015 (Fig. 6 a, b). The entrance to the quarry is hidden from the main road and access is through a gate and then along a minor road shared by other land owners – access to the quarry is strictly by permission only, from Ambrose Joyce. The quarry and its buildings are surrounded by stockpiles of large marble blocks (Fig. 7). I walked around the quarry with Ambrose Joyce Jr. to see the old equipment and hear about the marble quarrying operations dating back to its late 19th century active period (Fig. 8). Then we viewed the modern quarry (Fig. 9) as Martin Feely explained the geology of the 650 Ma. pre-Cambrian limestone that would become green marble during the Ordovician Period some 470 million years ago.

Fig. 5: Streamstown Quarry

Fig. 6 a: Ambrose Joyce, Sr. 

Fig. 6 b: Ambrose Joyce, Sr. and Albert Kollar

Fig. 7: Streamstown Quarry setting

Fig. 8: Streamstown Quarry history

Fig. 9: Albert Kollar, Martin Feely, Ambrose Joyce Jr.

We returned to Galway via the Connemara Marble Industries Ltd., Moycullen, County Galway to meet with the Joyce family (Fig. 10). At the Connemara Marble Industries Ltd., Moycullen marble souvenirs and jewelry are produced for the tourist trade using the marble extracted from Streamstown quarry (Fig. 11, 12, 13).  Today, the ongoing global demand for Connemara Marble, for use in interior decoration projects, is supplied by the Italian company Antonlini. They source the marble from another Connemara marble quarry located several miles to the east of the Streamstown quarry.

Fig. 11: Christmas ornaments

Fig. 12: Coaster and Cube Shamrock

Fig. 13: Kennedy, Joyce, and rosary shamrock

Global Heritage Stone Resource

In 2019, the Connemara Marble was proposed as a Global Heritage Stone Resource with a citation to the Connemara Marble used in the Carnegie Museum (Wyle Jackson et al. 2020)  This Irish Heritage Stone was a much sought-after green marble for use in architecture, buildings and sculptures in Ireland, England, and the United States from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century including the Carnegie’s Hall of Sculpture (Fig. 14 a) and the Founder’s Room (Fig. 14 b) floor designs.

Figs. 14 a and b: Floor tiles

Have a Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

Albert D. Kollar is the Collection Manager in the Section of Invertebrate 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.