Dr. Royal Mapes visits AMNH

It's not every day that you get to meet a person who has a natural history collection named after them but this week we got to meet and work with Dr. Royal Mapes.

We began the week by listening to a talk that Dr. Mapes gave on his 50+ years of collecting. He told us stories about collecting the specimens starting with his initial travels to various collecting sites all the way through to how he had to pack up about 600 drawers to send to AMNH. It was nice to hear his stories from the sites, now they seem like so much more than just the names of places we put into the database.



After the talk we wasted no time and started asking Dr. Mapes all the questions we had. He was truly like a fossil whisperer. He was able to answer our questions within seconds whether it be a question about a location or a need for species clarification.



We took a break from the ammonites and questions on Wednesday and took a tour of Anthropology with John Hansen. He explained that the Anthropology Department is still very much a Victorian museum, both the collections themselves and how the building itself is set up. Then he showed us elaborate woven baskets, some even had feathers incorporated into them. And he showed us an exceptionally tiny woven basket that had to be housed in a vial. We also saw some fascinating artifacts from California, China, and Siberia.




Later in the week Dr. Mapes spoke to us about what he thinks his collection will mean for the future. Having it here at AMNH allows his collection to be available to people for many years to come. It is a huge source of reference material, a fossil library if you will, of Paleozoic cephalopods and once it is organized people will come and find answers and generate new questions. And with technology always advancing, we don't even know what information is locked away in this collection just waiting to be found. These specimens are a treasure trove full of potential for current and future researchers and it was a great opportunity to meet with the man behind it all. Thank you Dr. Mapes!

Gotta catalog 'em all!

This week our behind-the-scenes tour brought us to exhibitions where Dina Langis showed us the scale model used to design the Dinosaurs Among Us exhibit currently on display at the museum, and gave us a sneak peek of the upcoming Cuba exhibit. We saw people making very realistic models for the exhibit, and it was interesting to learn about the months of preparation spent designing an exhibit for visitors, including the planning and then creation all the structures, models, and art. It definitely looks like it will be a spectacular exhibit so we'll be sure to come back in the fall when it opens!

Walking through the exhibition department.

The scale model for the Dinosaurs Among Us special exhibit.

Back in the basement, we've been steadily making progress on the Mapes collection. Our work requires us to rehouse (1/3 of) the over 500,000 specimens, most of which appear to be ammonites, by transferring them to new trays, and then to catalog them by assigning catalog numbers and adhering labels to the fossils. Lastly, we enter all this information into a massive database for a researcher to use should they want to look at particular fossils (thank goodness for control+F). So far we've cataloged ammonites from Nevada, Texas, and Oklahoma from the Triassic and Carboniferous periods.

So so many fossils.

It hasn't been completely smooth sailing, however. We've had to make several adjustments to the data we record as we continue to figure out what procedures work best and how to be most efficient with our time. Next week, Royal Mapes himself will be at the museum to assist us and answer any questions we have about his collection.

Everyone hard at work rehousing and cataloging the fossils! I promise they didn't pose for this.

Until next time!

The Interns Have Landed

On Monday, June 27th, we (the six invertebrate paleontology interns) began working on the Mapes Collection. We're the first set of interns to work on the collection under the IMLS grant, so we're definitely figuring things out as we go - which makes it all the more interesting!

On Wednesday, we started off with a taxonomy lecture given by Dr. Melanie Hopkins. We discussed some of the finer points of the subject, as well as taxonomy as it applies to museum collections . Later in the day, we took a tour of ichthyology with Radford Arrindell, one of the senior scientific assistants. He showed us a prep room and took us around storage so we could experience other collections besides invert paleo. It was an interesting day, and a nice change of scenery from the Mapes Collection room.

Nick models a clear and stained specimen in the ichthyology prep room.

Ashley and Spencer are very excited about fish.

A specimen after it has been cleaned by dermestid beetles.

Radford shows us ichthyology collections.

Anyway, an introduction is due for the interns. We are:

Nick Hugo is a Minnesotan who just graduated with bachelor's degrees in geology and biology from North Dakota State University. He likes cephalopods. A lot. Probably too much.

Spencer Irvine is a 2016 graduate of Williams College with a geoscience bachelor's degree. He is from New Jersey and has the best index fingers of the group.

Sara Ketelsen graduated with a B.A. in biology from Gettysburg College in 2014. She is from the mysterious "Central Jersey," which no one is sure actually exists.

Kate Purcell received her master's in wildlife conservation from University College Dublin this year.

Ashley Ratigan graduated from Oberlin College in May with degrees in geology and archaeology. She is the entire population of Rhode Island.

Kat Turk is from Virginia and graduated last month with a B.S. in geology from the College of William and Mary. She might or might not have written this blog.