Week 5

Week 5. It is hard to believe we are already this far into the internship!

This week some of us took a break from fossils and switched over to working with recent specimens, a many of which happen to be Nautilus shells. Although Royal Mapes focused the majority of his collecting on fossil cephalopods of the carboniferous, he also collected a significant amount of recent material from the Indo-Pacific. Having specimens from both the past and present allows for comparisons to see what evolutionary changes have occurred over time. 

Drawer filled with Nautilus

Nautiloids are cephalopods native to the Indo-Pacific that have changed very little over the past millions of years. They are often referred to as ‘living fossils.’ They bear a close resemblance to the extinct cephalopods, ammonites. 

Live nautilus (source: calphotos.berkeley.edu)

Comparison of nautilus and ammonites, with time periods (source: The Earth Through Time, Harold L. Levin)

What makes nautiloids different from other cephalopods are their specialized shells (in fact, they are the only cephalopod with an external shell at all). A nautilus controls its buoyancy by regulating the amount of water within the chambers of its shell, each connected by a single tube called the siphuncle (see above image). 

Clearly, these animals have beautiful shells. With such unique patterns and often a mother-of-pearl iridescence, this beauty makes them highly desirable for shell collecting and souvenirs. However, nautiloids mature relatively late and produce few offspring, and therefore harvesting these animals for their shells can have detrimental impacts on their populations. 

A particularly beautiful iridescent specimen found in one of our drawers

Bushra pointed out how to tell which shells were from animals that lived in aquaria, versus those that lived in their natural environment. The ones in aquaria develop a series of distinguished ridges at the aperture of the shell.

The specimen on the right is from an aquarium animal, and the one on the left is from Nautilus' natural ocean environment.

It has been fun to work with such beautiful specimens, and we often ogle over each new drawer we pull out. 

More information about Nautilus can be found here 

On our tour this week, we visited mammalogy! Sara Ketelsen, a past Mapes Intern and now Mammals Museum Specialist, led us through their massive collection. We got to see gorillas collected by Carl Akeley, as well as the type specimen for grizzly bears (Ursus arctos). Upstairs, we walked into a small room behind an old sliding door that opened into the hippopotamus skeleton collection. We then walked into the attic of the museum, and hanging on one of the walls was a large portion of their deer antlers. We also were lucky enough to head down to see the whale collection, filled with massive bones and skulls of cetaceans. 

Hippopotamus Room

Hippopotamus Skulls

The department also has an archive and library space with antique fixtures from the early days of the museum. 

Mammalogy Archive and Library Room, with glass floors.

A poster of Jumbo the elephant. He is now in storage in Brooklyn.

We are looking forward to making the most of these last few weeks, with still plenty to do in the collection and plenty to see throughout the rest of the museum!