Gina was our tour guide. A recent Columbia phd grad student in vertebrate paleontology. She gave us an exceptionally thorough and extensive tour. I had worked in the molecular systematics department obtaining and analyzing DNA sequences of insects to study evolution and met her in the lab. She told me to bring some friends for a tour on a Saturday, and so I took her up on her offer. We started in her office. Along the way we passed the world’s premier synapsid collection. synapsids are the life forms believed to be the ancestral link between reptiles and mammals. They lined the dusty shelves. Her office used to be the haunt of Frick. Frick was a robber baron from the turn of the century who took up vertebrate paleontology as a hobby. In his circular turret in the museum, the Tyrannosaurus rex was once displayed. That’s why there is a pulley along the staircase in the hallway outside his old room. Apparently, Frick had a falling out with the president of the museum, and moved his collections to Long Island. When he died, however, he bequeathed a generous endowment and his collection to the department.
Gina showed us her field of study, hedgehogs. Hedgehogs are interesting because they have existed for 80 million years, (predating the dinosaurs), and still exist today, it is thought mammals evolved from reptiles. Evidence of that connection is seen in the few animals that still lay eggs like the platypus and exhibits. During the age of dinosaurs, the mammals were small… after dinosaur’s extinction, mammals radiated around the world and underwent large changes in complexity and structure. How did placental development evolve? Why did mammals all of a sudden increase in size? are questions that are being settled today.
To try to answer these questions, she has been tracing the development of hedgehogs by looking st their fossil structures, using cat scans, morphological data from fossils, etc… as we left her office, she took out her pet monitor (lizard). It had been found on a Long Island driveway… a long journey for the african reptile related to the Komodo dragon. “It’s easy to maintain because it bathes in the water dish in the cage. The only problem is that when It bites into you, the only way to dislodge it is to put your hand and the monitor underwater till he lets go of the air.”
She led us into the vertebrate paleontology building. AMNH is comprised of 17 different buildings/departments connected by the longest hallway in North America outside the pentagon. The vertebrate paleontology elevator has its own elevator. The elevator requires special keys to operate, thus restricting the movement between floors. Inside the elevator, beside the buttons are tags of the contents of each floor (8 dinosaur fossils, 7 labs, 6 mammoths, 5 rhinos and bovids 4 horses, 3 fossil fish and so on)
Our first stop was the lab. In the lab were many microscopes, metal works facilities for molds, specimens being worked on. In one corner, a fossil preparatory, Marilyn, was busy working on a baby pterosaur uncovered in a lake in South America. She worked painstakingly, removing a grain of sand at a time, Jeff asked “how can you remove a grain at a time” she replied, “it’s like moving mountains when uncovering the fossil. Ken and Ben posed with the brush by the microscope. Marilyn’s heart jumped as she saw us jokers clowning with her pterosaur which she had already spent 100 hours working on. Then she let out a nervous relieved smile. Gina asked if we knew what pterosaurs were…. “pterosaurs are like pterodactyls right?” said Jeff. Then Marilyn confirmed, “yes they are the group that included pterodactyls. Their fourth finger is extended, while their wrist and other fingers remain halfway in like an elbow. An adult wing could easily span 6 feet for a pterosaur.”
We left her cubby and walked around. On Amy’s desk were fossils from Mongolia. Dinosaur bones there are very well preserved because dinosaurs were felled in violent sandstorms. The sand buried them so fast that oxygen never had a chance to work on decaying their matter. In some cases, the skin was still preserved. She showed us a cast being worked on… a dinosaur’s feet and eggs were in the cat, thus showing the dinosaur in the act of egg laying.
To make a cast, one pours plaster on the site of the bones. Then, the area (many cubic feet of sediment) under the pollster is lifted to an estimated depth, and a plaster coat is applied to all sides of the sediment. To cast is to enclose the area in an egg of plaster. When the cast is brought back to the museum, the plaster is removed, and the sediment is removed grain by grain…
In some cases, the bones (ie of fossil fish) are protected with an epoxy and are put into an acid bath. The acid will eat away at the sediment, and leave only the bones which are protected. It’s like an etching of a fossil fish.
How do people find fossils and why are some areas better than others?” I asked.
“there are fossils everywhere.even in Manhattan! The badlands in south Dakota is exceptionally rich in fossils because there is no damage to the fossils from burrowing tree roots.. (there are no trees). To find a fossil, one first quarries for rocks, then cracks them open. The rock fractures at their weakest point -- the plane of the fossil."
We marveled at the collections of fossils. Gina told us the unglamorous sided of fossil preparation. "You're out there... the sun is blazing, there is not a tree in sight. you dig up buckets of sand, and filter them through mesh. then you painstakingly look for teeth, cause often times, that is all that is preserved. The nearest beer is 200 miles away. The director, Mark Norel, or the Vertebrate paleontology department here spent one year in grad school filtering 20 tons of dirt in futility."
On the elephant floor, she told us of Dumbo.. er Jumbo story. "Jumbo was the world's largest elephant taken into the Barnum and Bailey circus by PT Barnum. Jumbo became very temperamental towards the end of his life, and was wildly unpredictable. Anyways, somehow Jumbo escaped and was hit by a train. A curator dug up his bones later and brought them to the museum. Elephants only have 4 giant teeth and they are replaced twice in their lifetime. It turns out, Jumbo had a huge impacted molar in the back of his mouth. No wonder he was grumpy"
“there are fossils everywhere.even in Manhattan! The badlands in south Dakota is exceptionally rich in fossils because there is no damage to the fossils from burrowing tree roots.. (there are no trees). To find a fossil, one first quarries for rocks, then cracks them open. The rock fractures at their weakest point -- the plane of the fossil."
We marveled at the collections of fossils. Gina told us the unglamorous sided of fossil preparation. "You're out there... the sun is blazing, there is not a tree in sight. you dig up buckets of sand, and filter them through mesh. then you painstakingly look for teeth, cause often times, that is all that is preserved. The nearest beer is 200 miles away. The director, Mark Norel, or the Vertebrate paleontology department here spent one year in grad school filtering 20 tons of dirt in futility."
On the elephant floor, she told us of Dumbo.. er Jumbo story. "Jumbo was the world's largest elephant taken into the Barnum and Bailey circus by PT Barnum. Jumbo became very temperamental towards the end of his life, and was wildly unpredictable. Anyways, somehow Jumbo escaped and was hit by a train. A curator dug up his bones later and brought them to the museum. Elephants only have 4 giant teeth and they are replaced twice in their lifetime. It turns out, Jumbo had a huge impacted molar in the back of his mouth. No wonder he was grumpy"
"Why do elephants have such long trunks?"
"An elephant skull with its tusk weighs 900 pounds. to lower the head to drink water is an enormous burden on the elephant... but with a trunk, it can drink with east. Ever seen a giraffe at a watering hole? it splays it legs then dips its head. It really opens up itself to predators..."
The finale of the Vertebrate Paleontology tour was the dinosaur storage rooms. Shelves and shelves of skulls, and vertebrae. "The barosaurus in the Rotunda is a plastic mold. It was created a little under a decade ago. A Wesleyan physics professor, and amateur paleontologist, spent much time going around the shelves and drawing and piecing together the barosaurus. Each bone is so heavy and unwieldy a crane is necessary to move them, and the only way to manipulate the arrangement of bones is detailed drawings. When they lined up all the vertebrae, it spanned the whole 100 foot long storage room! The plastic model was made in Canada, as all the bones were shipped in a truck there... I know all the details cause that was my first job here in the museum. When the barosaurus first arrived, the model was so heavy that the pelvis and vertebrae kept swiveling!" While we were walking around, Gina brought down Jeff's childhood world and dispelled the brontasaurus myth.
The finale of the Vertebrate Paleontology tour was the dinosaur storage rooms. Shelves and shelves of skulls, and vertebrae. "The barosaurus in the Rotunda is a plastic mold. It was created a little under a decade ago. A Wesleyan physics professor, and amateur paleontologist, spent much time going around the shelves and drawing and piecing together the barosaurus. Each bone is so heavy and unwieldy a crane is necessary to move them, and the only way to manipulate the arrangement of bones is detailed drawings. When they lined up all the vertebrae, it spanned the whole 100 foot long storage room! The plastic model was made in Canada, as all the bones were shipped in a truck there... I know all the details cause that was my first job here in the museum. When the barosaurus first arrived, the model was so heavy that the pelvis and vertebrae kept swiveling!" While we were walking around, Gina brought down Jeff's childhood world and dispelled the brontasaurus myth.
"You mean the brontosaurus never existed?"
"Yes, apparently on one dig, the found a barosaurus skeleton without a head. the paleontologists just mistakenly assumed that it was a different species from the barosaurus and named it brontosaurus."
After the tour we decided to explore the attics over the mammalogy department. As we passed an office, a scientist accosted us, asked for an ID and threw a suspicious glance. We proceeded up the stairs in the the darkness. The roofs of the attic are slanted 45 degree and are wood. A creaky metal catwalk cut across the ancient rooms. At one point, rows of stuffed animal heads (ram, deer, etc...) lined the walk and their glassy marble eyes were all pointed to the sky. a creepy walk indeed. One room along the way had a wire prison-like fence on both sides and had signs that read "Department of Mammalogy, Keep these doors locked at all times!" One door was curiously open, and I had my picture taken with elephant skulls. Their molars on their lower jaw were level with the ground, and the skulls themselves were also facing up towards the heavens. Elephant skulls have 2 openings for the nostrils of the trunk, unlike humans. Also unlike human's the bone supporting the nose is tremendous."
And then, past the Mayan stelae, were shelves of head busts of every race of man. Made in the 1930's, the museum anthropology department set out to document every race using real people as molds. Shelves and shelves of these heads. and at the end, past the boiler, 2 bushmen wrapped in old plastic. A perfect place for hide and seek. Two times, Ken hid and jumped out scaring the hell out of Jeff and Ben. But the biggest fright was doled to me by the hands of Jeff. On the way out, we noticed the prison doors had been closed. At the door at the top of the stair case, Jeff panicked and pulled at the door. "Who locked it?" he exclaimed. Everybody turned to me to see if I had the key. Ken went over to the door and tugged at it too. I went nervously back to the lit area of the attic. "What key? did the scientist lock us in from the outside?" It was saturday night, who would hear us? I rushed to the door, pulled it (it wouldn't open), pushed it in desperation. open. relief. "ha ha ha" "that was a good on, jeff, you fucker!" i said. but someone would get him back.
To cap the behind the scenes tour, we stopped by the entomology office/collections room and went up a narrow stairway to the roof, where one could see a panorama of central park sandwiched between harlem and midtown.... then to the rotunda ceiling, where the rosetta stones are moveable and one can peer at the unsuspecting barosaurus below.
Caroline met up with us, and showed us the hissing madagascar cockroaches. Ken fled the scene. He was disgusted by the tarantula cages lining the halls. In one office, Jeff was invited to touch a giant millipede (it looked like a black snake that was a foot long) "It feels like my fingernail" caroline invited. He touched the millipede, then her fingernail, then the millipede again. Jeff then asked Caroline if there were any dangers in touching the shedded tarantula skins on the shelf. Caroline replied 'no' then paused. (Tarantulas, known for their stinging bite, also a have a nasty defense weapon...their thin fiberglass-like hairs. They eject these at their predators, and can cause much respiratory damage). Jeff touched it, then Caroline leaked, "but some people are deathly allergic to tarantula hairs.. but they probably won't affect you." Jeff gulped. everybody laughed.
To cap the behind the scenes tour, we stopped by the entomology office/collections room and went up a narrow stairway to the roof, where one could see a panorama of central park sandwiched between harlem and midtown.... then to the rotunda ceiling, where the rosetta stones are moveable and one can peer at the unsuspecting barosaurus below.
Caroline met up with us, and showed us the hissing madagascar cockroaches. Ken fled the scene. He was disgusted by the tarantula cages lining the halls. In one office, Jeff was invited to touch a giant millipede (it looked like a black snake that was a foot long) "It feels like my fingernail" caroline invited. He touched the millipede, then her fingernail, then the millipede again. Jeff then asked Caroline if there were any dangers in touching the shedded tarantula skins on the shelf. Caroline replied 'no' then paused. (Tarantulas, known for their stinging bite, also a have a nasty defense weapon...their thin fiberglass-like hairs. They eject these at their predators, and can cause much respiratory damage). Jeff touched it, then Caroline leaked, "but some people are deathly allergic to tarantula hairs.. but they probably won't affect you." Jeff gulped. everybody laughed.
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