#ummz

Great Walls of Fish, Batman!

Here we take a slight departure from dead birds, because this wall of dead fish is incredible. Some jars hold only one specimen, whereas others, like this jar full of Longfin Dace (Agosia chrysogaster) hold dozens.

With fish and other specimens that must be preserved in alcohol, it can be more effective to store many specimens in the same jar. However, those specimens must be the same species, collected at the same time and place to avoid any confusion down the line. In this case, the dace were all collected from the Aqua Fria River on December 3rd, 1943.

So many dace, same time, same place.

At this time of year, some birds are coming to Michigan, and others are leaving. 

Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) are migrating south to the warmth of Florida and Cuba. They’re easier to see than hear some days, with their yodeling calls keeping groups together.

Snowy Owls (Bubo scandiacus) have already moved into Canada and the northern United States for the winter. Snowies have already been spotted this year in Michigan, as well as New York, Massachusetts, Montana, and even as far south as Illinois.

Here’s to the beautiful change in seasons, and our bi-annual change in birds!

The UMMZ Bird Division shares lab space with the Mammal Division, leading to some tables being covered in warblers while others are covered in rodents.

The Eastern Chipmunks (Tamias striatus) and various mice found here are pinned down to dry. They’ve been prepped as study skins, with the bones and soft tissues removed and replaced by cotton, and now have to dry in the right shape before beginning their new lives in the mammal cabinetry, helping researchers all over the world to learn more about order Rodentia.

Mammal preparation shared a lot of commonalities with bird preparation. Specimens can easily be stored out of alcohol baths, and the outer coating of the specimen, fur or feather, don’t change over time quite as drastically as those of other animals.

Last weekend, at a party filled with family and friends, we celebrated the retirement of Janet Hinshaw, collections manager of the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology Bird Division. UMMZ staff past and present, researchers, artists, volunteers, birders, and more all gathered to tell stories about how Janet has shaped our favorite museum, and through it, the way we view our place in the natural world. We also had to find out where she’d be vacationing/birding first (California, to see her grandkids and some good birds).

Listen, I’ve got a lot to say, so I’ll put it under the “read more”. There’s a lot of feelings under there.

Michigan is the summer breeding home to one of the rarest songbirds in the world: the Kirtland’s Warbler (Setophaga kirtlandii).

During the month of June, tours are led throughout the jack pine forests of Grayling, Michigan, full of people hoping to spot one of these incredible birds. Given their historically small populations, collections like this one are especially important. Data from each bird can be used for ongoing conservation efforts, and each individual has the opportunity to tip off researchers to possible challenges in the future.

All of these American Coot (Fulica americana) eggs came from the same nest! Must have been some busy parents of ten. While coots normally lay anywhere from eight to twelve eggs at a time, there’s a chance that something a bit underhanded lead to a nest of this size.

American coots are brood parasites, meaning that they’ll sometimes lay their eggs in someone else’s nest. While this might sound like a questionable parenting strategy, letting someone else raise a few chicks can make things much easier on a parent coot. Maybe some chicks will end up in an overcrowded nest, but others may now have access to more resources than they would have in their biological parents’ nest.

There’s still research being done on how much the ‘new parent’ coots can tell their eggs apart from the sudden newcomers, so if you want to get in on some real life drama, there’s a career path in ornithology waiting for you!

Labeling bones is an important job for anyone working with a skeleton collection. Bird bones can reach sizes so tiny, a normal ink pen simply won’t do. 

The pen used for these bones has a tip about a fifth of a millimeter wide. That’s smaller than the eyes of many needles!

Every bone has strength, but can still be breakable if handled incorrectly. Lab workers must use a steady, gentle hand to carefully mark even the smallest rib bones.

Yesterday was an exciting day here: we completed the first CT scan on our new departmental CT scanner, a Nikon XT H 225ST, which is being run by me (Selena), Matt Friedman (Earth & Environmental Sciences and Museum of Paleontology), and Brian Ellis (Civil & Environmental Engineering) in the CTEES (Computed Tomography in Earth & Environmental Sciences) facility. We’ve been eagerly waiting for months to have everything in place and be able to start using the machine, and yesterday was the day!

In true maize & blue spirit, Scan #0001 is the skull of a wolverine (Gulo gulo) from the Museum of Zoology collections. We were pretty happy with it and are looking forward to scanning a bunch rocks, plants, and animals!

Here’s the reconstructed of the skull, which will be 3D printed for a college function.

Here is the skull getting ready to go into the scanner

A radiograph image of the skull (nose and teeth towards bottom). The machine captures thousands of these images as the specimen is rotated 360 degrees, and then algorithms are used to convert them in the tomograms. The tomograms are then imported into software that allows them to be looked at in 3D.

Matt is starting the reconstruction process, looking at one possible tomogram as the various settings are optimized so that artifacts (like the streaks) in the image are minimized.