The Elephant in the Room

Asian Elephants from the Asian Mammal Hall at the American Museum of Natural History

Throughout the life of this blog, you have witnessed what we do, interesting finds, funny jokes, and meaningful people we have been introduced to. The purpose of this post, however, is of a more personal nature: why should we care about collections. It may seem redundant or cliché to include this topic, but it is important that collections are recognized for what they are and what they can do for us.

Collection is defined by Merriam Webster as “the act or process of getting things from different places and bringing them together”. Collections, then, represent the bringing together of natural materials so it can be studied, enjoyed, and saved for future generations. This definition seems meaningless now, but I promise some meaning will hopefully be attached to it by the end of this post.

Humans seem to have an innate fascination with the world around them and a compulsion to try to collect and organize it. These two factors were most likely a driving force for the wealthy and influential men of Europe during the Age of Enlightenment to avidly collect anything that they could get their hands on. Once these men had amassed wonders from around the world they gather and arrange these curiosities into their personal Cabinets of Curiosity. These rooms were meant to be microcosmic world theatres where learned men could gather, discuss and of course brag about their collections. While the beginnings of these natural history collections were private and exclusive, they were the important precursors to modern day natural history museums that benefit everyone and not just the elite.

Some concepts behind the cabinet of curiosity still apply to today’s museums. They still serve as world theatres where people can travel the world in a matter of hours, see rare, elusive or even extinct animals and experience cultures that they may never get to experience firsthand. However, what makes the modern day natural history museum more dynamic and more beneficial to the public is the research that happens behind the scenes in the collections. 

Mammology Collections:

The Deadly Hippo 

Asian Elephant Skulls

This week’s tour was of the mammalogy department and the inspiration for this week’s blog. On the tour we saw lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) as well as a thylacine (extinct marsupial), both African and Asian elephants and a room full of hippo skulls. While physical specimens such as these are wonders to see, the ethics of physical museum collections often need to be justified because some think that photos would be good enough. The problem with photos is they do not capture every detail and descriptions can be taken in multiple ways. Without the physical specimens, organisms can easily be warped into mythical looking beasts such as the elaborately armored Durer Rhino or the bulbous and fish like dolphins found in renaissance art and sculptures. Even more importantly, the photo cannot provide DNA, viruses, and other microbiological information that could have important applications to the health of the environment and to the health of humans.  

The Room of Hippopotamus History

Icthyology and Herpetology Collections:

L: "Samantha", the Reticulated Python | R: Storage in the Icthyology Department

Ichthyology and Herpetology collections can also play an important role in monitoring the health of the environment since some species are sensitive to pollution and declining water quality.


Ornithology Collections:


Dr. Paul Sweet exemplifying typical preservation methods

Ornithology’s collection is comprised of bird skins, disarticulated skeletons, wet (preserved in alcohol) preps, and shmoos. And the one thing you may notice in this collection is that there are numerous examples of species in most cases. This may seem like literal overkill, but sometimes the birds will differ slightly due to location, which is an indication of natural selection at work. This shows why having multiples of each bird from different areas and over time is crucial to understanding biological processes.

Invertebrate Zoology Collections:

L: Typical Housing for Pinned Specimens | R: Wasp Nest 

The invertebrate zoology collection at AMNH houses a staggering 500,000 species. The collection includes Arachnids, Lepidoptera, and Hymenoptera, to name but a few. Curation methods for this collection vary depending on the specimen involved. For example, insects are stored using the pinning method. Specimen are pinned flat, with the pin piercing only the right side of the thorax, ensuring an unscathed half of the specimen. As well as smaller beetles, spiders, and ants, the collection houses a giant squid (Architeuthis kirki). The giant squid is stored in a large metal tank, and is preserved in ethanol. AMNH’s collection also houses gall wasp nests. Thus, this collection allows complete and thorough research to be conducted on different aspects of invertebrate zoology ecology.

Anthropology Collections:

Woven Baskets Housed in the Anthropology Dept.

When the anthropology department was established at AMNH, it had the goal of preserving cultures that were either dying out completely or rapidly changing due to the people’s interaction with other cultures. Today it resembles a Victorian museum but the impact that Anthropological collections can have on people, especially children, is extremely relevant. The cultural artifacts on display in museums can be used in early childhood education as tools to combat stereotypes, help children understand their own culture and develop an appreciation of other cultures (Bowers, B., Brightful, D., Heflin, C., Hindley, A., Kiehl, K.L., Pruckno, E., Raso, C., and Wolfe, J. (2015), Museums Providing Opportunities for Promoting a Positive Sense of Self in the Early Years. Museum and Society, 13: 142-157. ISSN 1479-8360.)  


Paleontology Collections:

Comemorative decorative plate of extant Coelacanth

Typical Mapes Collection Catalogued Drawer

Paleontology collections allow humans to explore our world’s distant past and gives us a glimpse into our own evolution. Just like our innate attraction to collecting and organizing the natural world, humans also have an intense desire to figure out where we fit into this biological picture. Whether it be closer relatives like Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neaderthalensis, or our more distant relatives like the lobbed finned fishes such as the coelacanth, the fossil record provides the puzzle pieces needed to figure out our place in the natural world.

Frozen Tissue Collections:

The Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics is AMNH's very own DNA Library. It houses 100,000 samples of frozen tissue and DNA. The collection allows researchers to sequence genetic material, utilize DNA barcoding, and use comparative methods to help build an understanding of the Tree of Life. The following video is from the collection tour for this department,

What Museum Collections Mean to Research

One Series of Completed Cabinets in the Mapes Collection

The scientific importance of collections is sometimes overlooked by the public audience. However, it remains one of the most significant reasons collections have existed for centuries. From a predictive natural sciences viewpoint, collections provide centers where the past can be studied to foretell future events. More eloquently summarized as: the present may be the key to the past, but the past is the key to the future. Collections house the past. This is especially relevant in studying how climate change has and will impact future generations and ecosystems.

One example of paleontological research focused on this problem studies how mass extinction events changed fauna and associated ecosystems. This research has provided some hypotheses focusing on how global warming will impact atmospheric conditions, ocean chemistry, and other large scale ecosystem processes. Paleontological collections house specimens from every age both before and after extinction events. Some of those samples can be studied to understand how organisms have reacted to rapid changes in environmental conditions. In addition, some of those organisms (most commonly mollusks, but ice cores and other geological samples have been used) can hold a record of those changes in their external shells. So, collections hold vital pieces of the puzzle that can tell past stories. These stories can hold answers to what might happen in the future.

Ocean temperature and depth changes based on oxygen isotopes throughout onotogeny (life and development) of listed genera. The left panel contains recent fauna. The right panel contains extinct organisms from the Mesozoic.

(Ritterbush, K.A., Hoffman, R., Lukeneder, A. and De Baets, K. (2014), Pelagic palaeoecology: the importance of recent constraints on ammonoid palaeobiology and life history. J Zool, 292:229-241. doi: 10.1111/jzo.12118.)

Additionally, collections hold some answers to more personal and modern questions like understanding how humans are related to primates. Some primate specimens housed in museum collections have been sampled for genetic purposes to better understand the relationships between and evolutionary timeline of humans and their ancestors. As collections preserve materials in a variety of forms, a lot of modern techniques are possible and have been applied to well preserved specimens for anatomical, genetic, and other biological studies. For example, collections have opperated as vital tools in the study of epidemiology, particularly with zoonotic diseases. When dealing with any zoonotic epidemic, a complete understanding of the vector is vital. The current epidemic of Zika Virus means a complete understanding of the vector (the mosquito species Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus). Natural history collections with specimen of Aedes mosquitos allows for the history of the vector to be studied, and a more thorough understanding of the spread of the disease.

One species of mosquito that carries the Zika Virus

Another important purpose of collections for research purposes is housing specimens for taxonomic purposes. Collections compose our record of what we know exists or has existed and how it relates to everything else. These are known as type collections. Essentially, they are a collection of specimens that define the type or species name. For example, the brown bear, Ursus arctos, has a single specimen defining what the species looks like.

Holotype (original defining specimen) of a female (macroconch) Jeletzkytes spedeni (A late cretaceous ammonite).

(Landman, N.H., and Waage, K.M. (1993), Scaphitid ammonites of the Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Fox Hills Formation in South Dakota and Wyoming. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 215: 1-257.)

In sum, a lot of research is done with specimens from collections for a wide array of studies. Keep in mind the examples above are just a glimpse of what has been done. Collections and research have been tied at the hip for a very long time and will continue to be as they are dependent on one another: research provides specimens and purpose to the collections and collections stores and preserved specimens for future research purposes.

What Museum Collections Mean to the Public

Natural history museums allow members of the public to dive into the deep ocean of facts on a range of organisms, from modern day mollusks to Precambrian prokaryotes. Information in museums is readily available on extant species’ conservation status, the evolution of different reproductive strategies, and even the future repercussions of a changing world. Additionally, visitors get an up-close view of models of species they might never see otherwise. I am fairly certain that *most* people will never see the world’s largest extant mammal, the blue whale, in real life. The global population of the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) was decimated as a direct consequence of the whaling industry. Today, this species is listed as endangered, a stark reminder of the negative impact anthropological actions can inflict on the natural world. Upon arrival to the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life in the American Museum of Natural History, visitors are greeted with a 98-foot model of this species. Suspended from the ceiling, this model blue whale is a buoyant reminder that we are obliged to protect the life on the planet.



Model of the blue whale in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life at the American Museum of Natural History



In the past, the public have had involvement in museum-based scientific studies. Public donations of deceased domestic dogs, for example, were used when researching the relatedness of dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) to wolves (Canis lupus). Engagement between the scientific community and the public allows for an inclusive environment, one where facts can be shared and appreciated by all. Museums are vital in bridging the gap that often exists between scientific information and the general public, and collections play a pivotal part in the interactive and immersive aspect of museums. AMNH’s on-going exhibition, The Secret World Inside You, is a unique experience, where visitors delve deep into the world of the microbiome.

To quote the eminent ethologist Dr. Jane Goodall, “only if we understand can we care”.  Natural history collections give members of the public a unique opportunity to explore the past and understand the future. By allowing visitors this peek into the past, a picture can be painted on the threats faced by fauna and flora around the world. By better understanding the biodiversity of our world, we can encourage visitors to adopt lasting behaviours that will lead towards a sustainable future.