Annual Monitoring of Horseshoe Crab Breeding with NYC Audubon

Late on Saturday, May 25th, members of the MSNH and NYC Audubon, gathered in the parking lot of Sunset Cove Park in Queens to witness one of of the most extraordinary, ancient natural events, breeding of Limulus polyphemus, the Atlantic Horseshoe Crab. Each year, horseshoe crabs come to the eastern coastal shores of North America to breed. However, because of environmental factors such as pollution, habitat degradation and overharvesting, their populations are jeopardized. New York City Audubon, in collaboration with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, annually monitors horseshoe crab breeding in order to assess the stability of their populations, and we joined them again this year in their survey.

Being peak breeding season, the night was busy with hundreds of horseshoe crabs. Males were observed searching for females, who were laying their eggs in the shore, so that they could externally fertilize their eggs. The survey included quadrant sampling across a 100-meter transect with participants working in two groups. The number of males and females were recorded in each quadrant, as participants waded in the water crossing over fallen trees, creeks, and even trash cans! At the end of the survey, approximately 20 horseshoe crabs were tagged so that scientists could track their movements. Throughout the night, the number of previously tagged individuals was also recorded.

A special thank you to veteran coordinator, Dottie Werkmeister for leading the event, and also to Katherine Chen and Ann Seligman from NYC Audubon for organizing! To view more photos from this event, please visit our gallery. All photo credit for this event goes to Stephanie Loria.

We also recommend visiting a special photography exhibit by Bianca Otero on horseshoe crabs at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens, which is open to the public until mid-July. More details are available here.

Horseshoe crabs despite their name and superficial resemblance, are not crabs. They actually belong to their own class Xiphosura in Chelicerata, an arthropod group that also includes the classes Arachnida (spiders, scorpions, ticks, etc), Eurypterida (the extinct sea scorpions and also MSNH's mascot), and Pycnogonida (sea spiders) and some researchers even consider them arachnids. Worldwide only four extant species of horseshoe crabs still exist and all species except the Atlantic horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus, are found in the Indo-Pacific Ocean. Extinct horseshoe crab species have also been described and the earliest fossils date to roughly 445 million years ago! Despite their remarkable old age, horseshoe crabs have changed little morphologically since their first appearance and are therefore often referred to as 'living fossils' in the scientific literature.

Spring Birding in Central Park with Dr. Rachael Joakim

On a partly cloudy Sunday, April 28th morning, the MSNH gathered in Central Park for a spring birding walk led by Dr. Rachael Joakim, an avian expert and recent graduate from the City University of New York’s and American Museum of Natural History’s doctoral program. Coincidentally, our walk occurred at the same time as a large marathon in Central Park, and although the noise from the marathon was a bit disrupting, it worked in our favor as many birds steered clear of the noisy Homo sapiens, and were pushed closer towards our direction. Our walk began at Oak Bridge, went through the Ramble, and ended close to Belvedere Castle, at which point the sun had fully emerged. With our eyes and ears pointed above, we searched and listened carefully for our avian friends. All in all, 30 bird species were observed either by eye or sound with some special highlights including, a black-and-white warbler, a blue-winged warbler, a Louisiana warbler and wood thrushes. A complete list of the birds we observed can be found on ebird.

A special thank you to Dr. Joakim for leading the walk! To view more photos from this event, please visit our gallery. All photo credit goes to Stephanie Loria. To learn more about Dr. Joakim and her research, please visit her website.

Dr. Rachael Joakim is a recent graduate of the City University of New York Ph.D. program and American Museum of Natural History doctoral fellowship. Her research focuses on tropical avian communities and their microbial symbionts, and her dissertation analyzed data collected on 5 expeditions to remote jungles on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. In addition to avian research, she organized a birding competition amongst her fellow AMNH employees, which is now in its 7th year. She also participates in many forms of STEM outreach, including an after-school nature class in her neighborhood of Inwood, in the hopes of providing opportunities for young people to explore their interests in science and nature. She has been accepted into Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN)’s postdoctoral program beginning this summer, where she will continue her successful collaboration with Indonesian scientists to research avian evolution and address immediate conservation efforts as an employee of the government of the world’s 3rd largest democratic nation. She will be making the move with Zeus, her trusty 9 lb chihuahua mix, and looks forward to spending more face-time with her Indonesian work family!

NYBG Herbarium Tour with Laura Briscoe

Members of the MSNH met on a late morning at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx to be greeted by Laura Briscoe, the Assistant Director for the Cryptogamic Herbarium. Laura gave us some historic background on the founding of this world-class institituion, challenging the well-known story of unusual egality shared between both co-founders, Elizabeth and Nathaniel Britton.

Thus equipped, we proceeded into the herbarium, one of the largest in the world. First, we were able to observe a room where busy volunteers help digitize their collection, making it accessible to anyone who has access to the internet. After taking an elevator, we proceeded in the first of many rooms, which house the collection of the herbarium: movable cabinets, full of pressed, dried plants, glued on sheets of paper, with a wealth of information added to it, like collection date and place. Such information allows researchers to not only reconstruct long-gone environments (we must do something!), but also provides genetic samples to test for relatedness and reconstruct phylogenetic trees.

Laura generously placed some of the highlights of the collection on tables, and what wonders we could see: specimens collected by Charles Darwin, adorable moss-booklets, mesmerizing seaweed collections, amidst slime molds, and first appearances of the deadly American chestnut fungus, which killed most of these magnificent trees throughout the East Coast. Other, plants brought over by slaves were documented, providing insights how such collections could also serve our understanding outside of biology.

We want to thank Laura for a truly wonderful day and appreciate her generosity to spend Sunday afternoon with us.

To view more photos from this event, please visit our gallery. Photo credit for this event goes to Daniel Kukla Elise Morton.

Laura Briscoe is the Assistant Director of the Herbarium, overseeing the Cryptogamic Collections at the New York Botanical Garden. She received her B.A. in Human Ecology at the College of Bar Harbour in Maine, with a focus on botany and museum studies, and her M.S. on liverwort taxonomy, morphology and evolution at Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanical Garden. She also worked as a Curatorial Assistant at the Field Museum in Chicago for a decade. For her research, Laura has traveled to Chile and Fiji. At NYBG she manages close to two million collections of algae, bryophytes, lichens and fungi and is currently overseeing the digitization of lichens and bryophytes outside of North America. 

Spitzer Hall of Human Origins Tour with AMNH biological anthropologist Alessandra Vecino Gazabón

Led by biological anthropologist Alessandra Vecino Gazabón, members of the Society toured the Spitzer Hall of Human Origins at the American Museum of Natural History to understand our long-lost ancestors and our connections to them. Featured in the Hall were the casts of Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis; ~3.2M years old), one of the oldest and most complete skeletons ever found, and of Turkana Boy, roughly 1.6M years old. By offering comparisons of the size and posture of these skeletons, Alessandra adeptly explained the nearly 7-million-year history of how modern humans (Homo sapiens) came to be. Alterations of foot shape, shifts in skull size and shape, the lengthening of leg bones and morphological changes to the pelvis were just some of the milestones discussed.

A special thank you to Alessandra Vecino Gazabón for organizing and leading the tour! Also thanks to our AMNH colleagues, Russell Taragan for arranging ear pieces, and Colby Sain, Pio Colemenares and Jairo Moreno for assisting with logistics and making this event possible. To view more photos from this event, please visit our gallery. All photo credit goes to Glenn Doherty.

Alessandra Vecino Gazabón is a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Biology at the Richard Gilder Graduate School of the American Museum of Natural History. She completed her B.A. in Archeology in 2015 at Columbia University and her B.A. in International Relations in 2010 at the Universidad del Norte in Colombia. She was awarded a prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in 2021. She is interested in the comparative biology of non-human primates in order to understand the origins and biomechanics of hominin bipedal locomotion and has also studied ape cranial morphology. 

Monarch Tagging in Battery Park with Dr. Harald Parzer

On a lovely but cool October 8, MSNH members met at The Battery to learn more about one of the most spectacular animal migrations observed each year in North America – that of the monarch butterfly.

Every year, millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) travel within one generation from as far north as Canada all the way to North Central Mexico where they overwinter high up in cool Conifer forests. Monarch butterflies use a combination of a sun-compass as well as the earth’s magnetic field to reach their overwintering grounds. Several additional adaptations have been found that help them on their journey: not only do migratory monarchs sport longer and narrower wings, but they are also intensely gregarious, and live much longer than their non-migratory conspecifics.

To further elucidate this radical solution by an insect to avoid freezing temperatures, Monarchwatch provided us with reflective stickers that are meant to be attached to the backside (ventral side) of their hindwings by citizen scientists like us. If these stickers are detected by one of the many volunteers of this project, the associated information provided by people who tagged the butterfly allows for the reconstruction of the migration route.

After a short demonstration, we were all equipped with a butterfly net and stickers. Off we went to hunt for monarchs feeding on the many native plants planted by The Battery Conservancy. In addition to these, the conservancy generously opened their doors to the The Battery Urban Farm where we could look for more monarchs and saw the wonderful produce grown in this highly urban area.

Given the cool weather of the previous weeks, monarch numbers were low and we were able to catch only two monarchs and tag them with the stickers. However, after the workshop participants have been able to tag numerous other monarchs on site.  In addition, one of the volunteers who participated in the workshop visited in the week following and was able to tag at least a dozen different monarchs over the course of a few days. Regardless, we hope these made it to Mexico and wish them well for the remainder of their lives.

To view more photos from this event, please visit our gallery. We would like to thank Elise Morton (Fairleigh Dickinson University) for taking pictures of the event, and a special thanks to Adam Walker as well as two wonderful volunteers from the The Battery Conservancy for giving us access to this wonderful space. We encourage anyone interested to visit their numerous garden projects as well as to consider volunteering for them.

Related Links to this Event
The Battery Urban Farm
An article about monarch wing evolution by Hari Parzer, which was just accepted to the Journal Evolution and Development.

Dr. Harald Parzer is Vice President of The Metropolitan Society of Natural Historians and Associate Professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He was born and raised in Salzburg, Austria, where he developed a deep love for anything "zoology", going on to study biology at several universities, including the University of Salzburg, Austria; University of Hong Kong, China; and University of Wuerzburg, Germany. Eventually, he went to the University of Vienna, Austria where he received his M.S., studying the mating system of the soldier beetle Rhagonycha fulva. In addition to soldier beetles, Dr. Parzer worked on several other organism groups, including leaf cutting ants, bats, and apes. He left Austria in 2006 to pursue a Ph.D. at Indiana University, working on the evolution of dung beetle genitalia. After completion of his Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology, he became professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey. In addition to teaching courses like Biological Diversity, Evolution, and Entomology, Dr. Parzer continues to conduct research with undergraduate students on a variety of topics, including butterfly wing evolution.

Billion Oyster Project Tour on Governors Island with Nicholas Ring

New York City used to be called "The Oyster Capital of the World." You wouldn't say that now, however: there is less than half a percent of an estimated peak of 200,000 acres of oysters in NY Harbor and the surrounding waterways these days. At least sixteen of those acres are thanks to the Billion Oyster Project (BOP), a just-shy-of-ten-years-old nonprofit organization based on Governors Island that is intent on restoring one billion oysters to the area by 2035. Succeeding in their mission would bring countless benefits not only to the oyster population itself but to New York City and the downstate region as well. Our guide, Nicholas Ring of the BOP and a New York Harbor School alum, showed a group of us how the whole process works, its origins and purpose, and where they stand today on their goals.

For many years, Eastern Oysters coming from New York Harbor were abundant and affordable. Their prevalence led in 1833 to the founding of Sandy Ground in Staten Island, the oldest free black settlement in America, a community to where many oystermen fleeing restrictive industry practices down south relocated. Decades of overharvesting the oysters for food and dredging them for their shells (the calcium carbonate of their shell is a common component in cement) led to a precipitous decline in their numbers, to the point of near eradication. Their fate didn't turn around until 2014 when founders Murray Fisher and Pete Malinowski of the New York Harbor School (NYHS), a maritime school situated among the old army barracks on Governors Island, spearheaded the effort to restore their populations. The Billion Oyster Project was formally initiated soon after and has, still in conjunction with the NYHS, continued to work toward their eponymous goal.

The reason for the focus on oysters is the numerous benefits they offer to the waterways in which they live. As "filter feeders," they can remove pollution out of water. While they can filter some pollution out, other types of pollution are hazardous to oysters, so they can also be thought of as water quality indicators. Their colony structure, taking the shape of a vertically-growing reef, offers a damper to strong waves and storm surges, protecting surrounding coastlines. These reasons drive the mission of the Billion Oyster project.

Nicholas walked us through the process of how they restore oysters to the harbor. It begins with discarded oyster shells donated by many, many restaurants from around NYC. These shells, left to be cleaned and bleached by the elements out in an open lot, are used as the substrate on which new oysters can anchor themselves. Once those new oysters start to form their own shells and condense into a loose reef, the oysters are moved into cages and lowered into prime locations around the harbor. The oysters are then left to flourish on their own, giving rise to more oysters and larger reefs. Oysters anchor themselves to the spot where they landed as baby oysters and never move, giving rise to the reefs.

A special thanks to the BOP and especially Nicholas Ring for providing us with this wonderful tour! If you'd like to get involved with the BOP, they are always looking for volunteers. You can sign up here. (link: https://www.billionoysterproject.org/volunteer)

Check out a few images from the event, including a touch tank where we examined the "rings" on oyster shells that can reveal their age, at the link here.

Credits for this writeup and photos from this event go to Glenn Doherty.

Annual Monitoring of Horseshoe Crab Breeding with NYC Audubon

On the evening of May 19th (because is there really any better way to spend a Friday night in NYC?), eleven citizen scientists donned their water shoes and headlamps for a trip out into Big Egg Marsh in Jamaica Bay, Queens. They were there to observe and study Limulus polyphemus, a horseshoe crab species that breeds along the eastern coast of North America from early May to late June annually on full and new moon nights, and is the only species of horseshoe crab found in the Atlantic Ocean. Joining forces with the NYC Audubon’s veteran site coordinator Dottie Werkmeister, the crew took a brief sunset training session before splitting into groups and heading out onto the shoreline.

Horseshoe crabs, dubbed ‘living fossils’ are not a species without controversy. They serve as bait in the fishing industry; they also heavily bolster scientific studies in that their blood is used to test for deadly bacterial endotoxins in human vaccines. Unfortunately, horseshoe crabs benefit from only very few if any protections in the State of New York. This annual count, taking place over the breeding season between May and June, ensures that scientists are aware of the increasing, decreasing, or stable nature of the population; without such work, an important breeding ground for the species will disappear.

The event took place in two parts. First, teams of two to three paced the shoreline at regular intervals to lay down a 1-meter-square “grid.” Any horseshoe crabs found inside the grid at the time it was placed in the surf were counted, with the distinction made between the number of males and females. Females typically were easy to identify in two ways: not only are they larger, but during breeding season, they occupy a “leading” position among a clump of horseshoe crabs, the remainder of the clump composed of “primary” (directly behind) and “satellite” (adjacent) males seeking to externally fertilize her eggs.

Next, the entire crew set about measuring and tagging lone horseshoe crabs (mating ones were not to be disturbed). First, they obtained a lateral measurement across the prosoma (“head”) using large calipers. Next, a hole was drilled in the lateral subophthalmic region (below the eyes) and identification tags were affixed.

Throughout the course of the evening, 50 new horseshoe crabs were tagged (46 males, 4 females) and 30 horseshoe crabs were recovered (previously tagged, and their current location recorded in the count). Despite these numbers, hundreds of horseshoe crabs still dotted the shoreline by the time the event was wrapped up. All in all it was an active Friday ‘love’ party for these ‘living fossils.’

Special thanks to NYC Audubon staff for organizing and their continued collaboration with us, especially Dottie Werkmeister for for her continued enthusiasm and leadership in our annual horseshoe crab event. To view more photos from this event, please visit our gallery. Credit for the writeup and photos for this event goes to Glenn Doherty.

Horseshoe crabs despite their name and superficial resemblance, are not crabs. They actually belong to their own class Xiphosura in Chelicerata, an arthropod group that also includes the classes Arachnida (spiders, scorpions, ticks, etc), Eurypterida (the extinct sea scorpions and also MSNH's mascot), and Pycnogonida (sea spiders) and some researchers even consider them arachnids. Worldwide only four extant species of horseshoe crabs still exist and all species except the Atlantic horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus, are found in the Indo-Pacific Ocean. Extinct horseshoe crab species have also been described and the oldest fossil, found in Canada, dates to the Upper Ordovician, 445 million years ago! Despite their remarkable old age, horseshoe crabs have changed little morphologically since their first appearance and are therefore often referred to as 'living fossils' in the scientific literature. 

AMNH Fossil Hall Tour with paleontologist Amelia Zietlow

In the afternoon on Sunday, February 19th, members ofThe Metropolitan Society of Natural Historians were taken on a fossil tour at the American Natural History Museum (AMHH) with Amelia Zietlow, a Ph.D. student at the Richard Gilder Graduate School of the AMNH. Amelia led us back in time to learn about the amazing animals that once roamed the Earth as well as the evolutionary origins of the creatures we know today. It was a big group of enthusiastic and engaged learners, so the museum provided us with earphones, so we could all hear what Amelia was saying, even if stuck behind a Lestodon (a giant ground sloth) or Velociraptor.

Beginning in the Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs, meaning “bird-hipped,” characterized by backward-pointed pubis bones, Amelia told us about how it’s thought this hip structure supported their need to digest large quantities of vegetation. This group includes fossils of the famed Triceratops and Stegosaurus, as well as members of the lesser-known group of hadrosaurids, the duck-billed dinosaurs, which possessed hundreds of interlocking stacked columns of complex teeth reflecting adaptations to grinding tough plant material with incredible efficiency. MSNH members learned about the different methods of displaying fossils: mounted in three dimensions, so scientists and the public alike can see how the bones would have fit together in the living organism; or flat packed in plaster, which saves space and can help to protect fragile fossils, but often fails to provide a complete picture.

We also visited the Hall of the Saurischian Dinosaurs, the “lizard-hipped” dinosaurs with forward-pointed pubis bones that are similar to modern lizards. Theropods are bipedal carnivorous members of this group and include the absolutely massive Titanosaur (a sauropod), Tyrannosaurus rex, and the Maniraptora which includes modern birds.

 In the Paul and Irma Milstein Hall of Advanced Mammals, Amelia took us to what she considered to be one of the most special specimens in the museum, the mummified remains of a baby Woolly Mammoth named Effie, who was born over 20,000 years ago in Alaska.

In the Hall of Vertebrate Origins, Amelia showed us fossils of mammalian ancestors, pointing out our relationship to fish and describing important transitions that can be observed in the fossils at the museum including a backbone, lungs, and complex ears that evolved via co-opting some of the lower jaw bones. Here we made a special stop at the impressive fossil of Tylosaurus, one of the largest of an ancient group of marine reptiles called mosasaurs, and one of Amelia’s focal study organisms. She told us how this once dominant group of predators, sometimes more than 13 meters long (Jaws would have nothing on them!), were viviparous, meaning that they gave birth to live young out at sea.

Thanks to Amelia, we all returned to our homes with a deeper appreciation and understanding of the organisms that came before us and the important work that the AMNH and researchers such like her are doing. A special shout out to Russell Taragan from the AMNH’s Volunteer Office for providing us with headphones!

To view more photos from this event, visit our gallery. All photo credit goes to Glenn Doherty and the writeup for this event was provided by Elise Morton.

Amelia Zietlow is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She completed her B.A. in Biology at Carthage College in Kenosha, WI, where she wrote her honors thesis on the development and evolution of the mosasaur Tylosaurus, which was later published in PeerJ in 2020. During her undergrad, she spent two summers (one of which was funded by the National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates program) at Marquette University in Milwaukee, where she worked on several projects studying embryological development in modern geckos. Currently, she is a third year Ph.D. Candidate at the Richard Gilder Graduate School at AMNH. Her dissertation research focuses on the anatomy and evolution of mosasaurs, a group of extinct marine lizards, and their living relatives.

Monarch Tagging in Central Park with Biologist Dr. Harald Parzer

On a cold morning on September 24th, the MSNH met with a full assembly of the board: Stephanie Loria, founder of the society, who returned from a visit from Germany where she is doing a postdoc, Glenn Doherty (Mount Sinai), and Dr. Hari Parzer (Fairleigh Dickinson University), who led the tour. At the entrance of the Conservatory Garden in Central Park, we were informed about one of the most spectacular annual animal migrations taking place on our planet. Every year, millions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) travel within one generation from as far as Canada all the way to northern Central Mexico, where they overwinter high up in cool conifer-forests. Monarch butterflies use a sun-compass and the Earth’s magnetic field to reach their overwintering grounds. Several additional adaptations have been found, which help them on their journey. Not only do migratory monarchs sport longer and narrower wings, but they are also intensely gregarious and live much longer than their non-migratory conspecifics.

Hari shared “monarch tags”, provided by the non-profit Monarchwatch, which are reflective stickers to be attached to the backside (ventral side) of a monarch’s hindwing. If detected by one of the many volunteers involved in this project, the associated information provided by people who tagged the butterfly, allows researchers to reconstruct their migratory route. All of us equipped with a butterfly net and stickers went on a hunt to nearby native flower gardens. Dr. Parzer showed us how to use the butterfly nets, carefully extract the caught monarchs from it, and attach the sticker to the butterfly’s hindwing. With growing confidence, as nobody wanted to hurt this endangered species, all of us were able to safely catch or tag a butterfly. After writing down the information (sex/date/location), we gave each a name and released them, wishing them all well on their journey. However, their journey appeared to be short on that day as most flew back to flowers to collect more nectar and energy to fatten up for their long journey.

Monarch sexing is fairly easy: on the top (ventral) side of the hindwing, males have a dark patch, full of microscopic scales. These scales, found also in other butterflies, often carry pheromones, which are important during mate finding.

We were told that while it is true that monarchs completely rely on milkweeds for raising their offspring, adults needs other native pollinator plants, which provide them with fuel as adults.

Despite the cold weather, we caught a total of 7 individuals, 3 of which were males, 3 females, and one…just flew off, after being tagged.

One of our participants, Beth Goffe, is a Central Park tour guide, and gave a few sneak-peaks of the area – showing us the Green Bench (named after Andrew Haswell Green, champion of Central Park, American Museum of Natural History, and other iconic NYC institutions, as well as creator of NYC itself with its boroughs, who after a life of accomplishment was murdered because of mistaken identity).

We hope that both, monarchs and Stephanie, arrived well in their new overwintering grounds and look forward to more events.

More info on monarch biology & migration.

To view more photos from this event, please visit our gallery. All photo credit goes to Shoshanah Wolfson and Glenn Doherty.

Monitoring Horseshoe Crab Breeding with NYC Audubon

On June 12, a calm early summer evening, The Metropolitan Society of Natural Historians met with our ever-wonderful Dottie from NYC Audubon at Big Egg Marsh in Queens to count and tag horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus).

Horseshoe crabs first appeared about 450 million years ago and fossils similar to modern horseshoe crabs are as old as 230 million years. A wonderful fossil, along with its footprints, can be found in the American Museum of Natural History (in the Hall of Ocean Life). However, during the event, we were looking for the living representatives, which, despite what their name indicates, are much more closely related to spiders and their allies than to crabs. Dottie, greeting us at the parking lot, explained the difference between males and females, males evolved their second paired appendage into a “boxing glove”, which they use to cling onto the much larger female during mating season. Parts of their walking legs partially evolved into mouthparts, allowing them to eat soft animals like marine worms. Their large compound eyes, along with a few other single eyes, allow them to see the underwater world, which they inhabit for most of the year. However, in late spring and early summer, they leave the depths of the ocean and return to their mating grounds: the sandy beaches along the east coast of the North America from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico. Here, guided by the moon, females arrive to the beaches to lay many eggs (up to 80,000). Males, clinging onto the female, compete with each other to fertilize the eggs as she releases them. Thus, any large female is usually accompanied by a few males, who will try their luck. No worries if they fail in a year, they have another. It is estimated that some horseshoe crabs can live up to 40 years!

After passing through a mosquito paradise (“I have never experienced so many mosquitoes in NYC!”, I was told), we finally entered the beach. Before tagging, we did a transect count – using a plastic frame quadrant, which we used at a given distance-interval to count how many horseshoe crabs were present. Our members, along with another group sent by the NYC Audubon Society, did not hesitate and waded through the waters filled with algae, coconuts, and other items better not to be described. We are in NYC after all! After doing the transect, we finally set up a station next to the bridge and brought horseshoe crabs, placed them on a tarp and added a tag by drilling a small hole into the left side of their carapace. First timers were as excited as old timers (like I) - a natural spectacle in our midst. While we have seen more horseshoe crabs before, we were certainly not disappointed. Within a short amount of time, we tagged fifty horseshoe crabs, and found a tagged specimen, which must have been tagged several years ago. Not bad! Dottie indicated that the well-known mass spawning seems to occur earlier every year, possibly a result of climate change. And indeed, the ocean was pleasantly warm. No one seemed to be cold, only full of energy.

After the annual group picture, we looked one more time at the ocean, saw the horseshoe crabs and the almost full moon over us. Like so many before us, humans and non-human animals alike, we were able to observe an ancient ritual, million of years old - horseshoe crabs leaving the depth of the oceans to lay their eggs. Eggs, which are also a critical food source to many shore birds. And, if nature wanted to remind us, a lonely skimmer (Rynchops niger) flew close to the water surface, skimming the water for prey with its lower mandible. A quiet moment.

Thank you, Dottie, as always for allowing us to join you and “your” horseshoe crabs. A happy return after the long break due to the pandemic.

To view more photos from this event, please visit our gallery. All photo credit goes to D. Kukula (https://www.danielkukla.com/).

Spring Birding in Central Park with Rachael Joakim

On Sunday, May 1st, a rather delightful spring morning, members of the MSNH met at Central Park to observe the last remaining free roaming dinosaurs, the birds. Old members met again, some of which have not seen each other since the beginning of the pandemic, while our newly joined members were eager to see more birds than “just” those pigeons we New Yorkers are used to seeing every day.

With our binoculars, we joined Rachael Joakim from the American Museum of Natural History and walked through the ever-lovely Ramble with our heads directed towards the trees where our feathered friends were flitting around. Spring migration! We are especially grateful that Racheal could find the time to lead this wonderful trip as she is close to finishing her Ph.D! We wish her good luck with her defense and all the best for her future!

Rachael Joakim is a 6th year partner Ph.D. student through the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and the CUNY Graduate Center. She studies the dynamics of wild birds and their microbial symbionts, using samples she collected herself over 4 month-long research expeditions in Indonesia. She is currently identifying avian malaria lineages in order to understand the infection dynamics within a complex endemic host community. In addition to avian research, she organized a birding competition amongst her fellow AMNH employees, which is now in its 5th year. She also participates in many forms of STEM outreach, including an after-school nature class in her neighborhood of Inwood, in the hopes of providing opportunities for young people to explore their interests in science and nature. If you would like to see her latest publication please check out this link.

Dr. Elise Morton (Fairleigh Dickinson University) graciously recorded the observed bird species (we saw a total of 30, see below) and uploaded them to eBird. She also provided us with a list of useful resources for bird identification:

eBird – Become a citizen scientist and report your bird observations! Getting started with eBird including free introductory course (eBird Essentials) offered by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. eBird App: For iPhone, For Android

Merlin – Bird Guide for identification: For iPhone, For Android

BirdNET – Identify bird vocalizations: For iPhone, For Android

To view more photos from this event, please visit our gallery. Photo credit goes to Elise Morton and Harald Parzer.

BIRDS OBSERVED

Canada Goose (Branta canadensis): 3 

Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos): 3  

Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura): 2

Chimney Swift (Chaetura pelagica): 3

Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias): 1

Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis): 1

Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus): 1

Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens): 2

Hairy Woodpecker (Dryobates villosus): 1

Great Crested Flycatcher (Myiarchus crinitus): 1

Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata): 7

Dodo (Raphus cucullatus): 0

Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Corthylio calendula): 4

European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris): 13

Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis): 3

Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus): 1

American Robin (Turdus migratorius): 12 

Tour of the Herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden with Dr. James Lendemer

The Metropolitan Society of Natural Historians met in the late afternoon of March 24th, a cold, drizzly day, at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) to be greeted by the ever-wonderful Dr. James Lendemer, a lichen specialist and assistant curator of Institute of Systematic Botany at the NYBG. This time, James invited us to see the marvelous herbarium of the Botanical Garden, where we not only learned how this astounding institution is run, but also how important it is for science and for many other scholarly activities. For example, the enormous collection of pressed dried plants and fungi is allowing us to reconstruct how the environment changed over the course of the last few hundred years. Sadly, much has been lost over the course of time. Lichens, which were found abundantly in the famous Palisades just across the lovely island of Manhattan, went extinct in this region due to air pollution.

When entering the herbarium, we passed by the immense collection of specimens, which were either sent or were received from scientific institutions from across the world – knowledge sharing at its best. Then, we entered the cold room, in which specimens, which are not fully processed, are temporarily stored to prevent insect damage, until they are ready to be shelved into the many drawers of the herbarium.

The herbarium itself is distributed among several floors – and among the collection, there are several treasures, many scientific, but also many equally important as for historical-sociological reasons. For example, we saw a liverwort, which was collected by no one else but Mr. Charles Darwin on his now famous visit to the Galapagos Islands. Interestingly, that liverwort is also considered a type specimen, thus it was used to describe and define the whole species. Many other type specimens are found in the NYBG Herbarium, the second largest of its kind across the globe (Kew Garden in England is #1 in terms of specimens). However, other treasures awaited us: plants collected by adventurous Alexander von Humboldt and his travel companion Aime Bonpland, famed ornithologist Audubon, and many more. Furthermore, we also were able to read a letter by the ingenious Thomas Edison, who tried to use an attached goldenrod plant to extract rubber from this species during World War I. Still in awe, Dr. Lendemer proceeded to show us a delightful loose sheet book with Mosses of Paris, as well as other bound books, which served as herbaria, before people realized that it might be easier to make comparisons if they are kept on loose sheets.

After these wonders, we learned about fungi, which were not only dried during preservation, but also hand-drawn and painted as a reference as dried specimens lose a lot of morphological information. The fungi, however, are stored in a cold room, as insects, like many humans, have a taste for those delicious morsels. Of course, we learned about lichens: 20,000 specimens are housed in the herbarium – and unlike many plants, they keep their stunning coloration throughout the centuries, which was demonstrated by beautiful specimen of Christmas lichen, among others.

Finally, we visited probably the most beautiful specimen housed in the herbarium. Intricate branching patterns, mesmerizing coloration – for the first time in our lives, algae appeared to us as astonishing artwork pressed on paper. On the way out, we were shown the “unknown cabinet”, specimens which have not yet been fully identified. It seems, there is plenty of more work to do at the NYBG Herbarium. While simple in technique, major discoveries can still be made with this century-old procedure, sophisticated tools are not needed but people who dedicate their time to this wonderful endeavor.

 Some of these people dedicate themselves to make the herbarium collections available to everyone, including people outside of the USA or who have limited means to travel. Thus, a multitude of volunteers are dedicating their free time to take image of pressed plants and what not, which then will be uploaded on to the NYBG website, creating a ‘Virtual Herbarium’. This internet-marvel allows us now to look at specimens collected by Darwin, Audubon, and our own Dr. Lendemer, as well as many others. By the way, anyone can visit the herbarium and explore specimens, as long as you have a scholarly-artistic reason to do so.

We left the herbarium in awe, still astonished about what was hidden from us in this grand building of the New York Botanical Garden. Thank you, Dr. Lendemer, for another great tour!

To view more photos from this event, please visit our gallery. All photo credit goes to Harald Parzer.

To become a volunteer at the NYBG visit here.

Also check out Dr. Lendemer’s book, which is authored with Dr. Jessica Allen, former vice president of the MSNH: Urban Lichens.

Dr. James Lendemer is an Associate Curator at the New York Botanical Garden where he oversees the largest collection of lichen natural history specimens in the Western Hemisphere. He is also an Assistant Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center where he works with students pursuing careers in botanical science, especially lichenology and has also led outreach events for the MSNH. Although he has spent more than twenty years exploring lichens in the wild lands of America and abroad, recent collaboration with Dr. Jessica Allen, former vice president of the MSNH, led to urban exploration as well. Dr. Lendemer and Dr. Allen have recently published a book, Urban Lichens that allows identification of lichen species in eastern North America.

Manhattan Geology Walk with Dr. Jasmine Bayron

Gathering atop a metamorphic rock formation in Isham Park in upper Manhattan, Dr. Jasmine Bayron and the citizen scientists of the MSNH came together on February 27, 2022 to explore Manhattan schist studded with muscovite mica that formed nearly 450 million years ago. The rock formation began its life when the continents weren’t separated as they are today, but rather when they formed a much larger landmass known as Panagea. Dr. Bayron, who recently defended her work at the CUNY Graduate Center and is a current member of NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex Mission Sample Team, working to analyze samples of meteorites for organic compounds, began the day by demonstrating a simple way to test for the presence of certain types of marble (calcium carbonate): shaving off some rock dust and mixing it with a dilute solution of hydrochloric acid, to see if the resulting reaction produces carbon dioxide gas. She went on to explain how Inwood marble, as its known, came to be so prevalent in the area after it cooled millions of years ago. The marble layers, which originally lay horizontally, were acted on by incredibly high pressures of surrounding rock that caused the ductile marble to stretch and rotate from a horizontal position to vertical – hence the reason we see these layers exposed below our feet.

Continuing on to nearby Inwood Park, Dr. Bayron pointed to instances of garnet, New York State’s Gem, a semi-precious stone that also formed due to a high-pressure environment over millennia. The walk ended up at one of the highest points of Inwood Park where the group could look across the Hudson River (a valley formed by glacial erosion) toward the Palisades, a formation of diabase created nearly 200 million years ago that was originally hidden from view but was exposed over time due to erosion.

To see photos from this event, please visit our gallery. All photo credit goes to Glenn Doherty.

Dr. Jasmine Bayron is a meteorite petrologist who's research mainly focuses on extracting information from 4.6 billion year old meteorites whose chemical, isotopic, and mineralogical compositions can help foster a deeper understanding of ancient asteroids that are important for the development of planet Earth as we know it and the formation of rocky planets in the Solar System. She is affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History, NASA's OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Mission and the City University of New York.

Lichen Diversity of Central Park with NYBG Curator Dr. James Lendemer

On a delightfully sunny Sunday, on the 21st of November 2021, the MSNH was delighted to meet after many months of social distancing in person. Here, we came together to explore the lichen community of Central Park under the most excellent and cheerful guidance of Dr. James Lendemer and Amanda Chandler from the New York Botanical Garden. After moments of re-connecting (“so good to see you again!”), the excited twenty plus group walked for about 10 m, before having our first stop at a tall tree. On the way, we learned that our very own Charlie Zorn and Jennifer Bae got married during the pandemic. While they met outside of the society, the many events they attended together must have surely brought them together! Congratulations!

Once we reached the tree, nobody had to look up much, as our eyes were all glued to the Common Candle Flame (Candelaria concolor), a yellow lichen, growing at the base of the tree. “One of our most common lichens”, as Dr. Lendemer pointed out. So, what are lichen? A lichen is an organism, formed by multiple members: a fungus, which gives the lichens its shape and protects the algae and/or cyanobacteria inside, which in turn provide nutrients in form of sugar to the fungus. A guest photographer, Dr. Elise Morton (Fairleigh Dickinson University), continued to take pictures of all creatures great and small, while we learned more about the wonderful world of lichen.

Lichens can form a variety of shapes, most commonly foliose (“leaf like, with an upper and lower surface”), crustose (“crusty, cannot be removed”), and fruticose (“like a tiny shrub”). As lichens live only from what the atmosphere and their partner can provide, they are famously sensitive to air pollution. Consequently, during the 1980’s, lichens were a rare sighting in Central Park and elsewhere in the city…with tighter regulations, lichen could yet grow again and can now be found on rocks of the sidewalk, which was our second spot…a few meters further in. Here, we could see the crustose sidewalk fire dot lichen of the genus Caloplaca (C. feracissima). There we learned that lichen fix nitrogen, retain moisture, create soil and thus are important pioneer species, which can endure a lot of stress, besides air pollution. “And the constant rubbing of rock-resting New Yorkers”, James added.

Could one eat lichens? Some lichens are eaten, but not necessarily by humans, at least not on a regular basis. However, other mammals, like the reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) in the far north are highly dependent on it. While it does not provide much nutrients beyond carbohydrates, it’s certainly better than dying of starvation during the cold and long winter days, when little else grows. Back to Central Park. The next lichen we were able to find was the foliose, greenish Common Greenshield Lichen (Flavoparmelia caperata). Another very common lichen, this sun loving species, can be found on tree trunks (another closely related species grows on rocks, Flavoparmelia baltimorensis). Amongst it, we found another astonishing creature: a lacewing larva (Chrysoperla sp.), which uses pieces of dust lichens (Lepraria) and places it on its back, presumably for camouflage.

While looking at the Common Greenshield, we were told that a lichen might look just like one “individual”, however, recent research shows that one lichen can contain several individuals, which grow together, allowing for an easier way to exchange genes. Distance matters in non-mobile organisms! Our walk continued to a rock, which was full of another common species, the Common Grey Lichen (Physcia thomsoniana). Like for so many species, little fragments breaking off this lichen will continue to grow when finding the appropriate substrate. Thus, many lichens appear to grow downwards, “like a cascade”. Before finding a sister species (Physcia millegrana) on a nearby tree, James and Amanda were excited to find no one else but Dimelaena oreina, or golden moonglow lichen. As it was dry, the lichen did not provide much of the promised moonshine color, but provided us with the opportunity to say “Thank you” to two wonderful guides through our first in-person outing. Thank you, James and Amanda, and thank you to all of the participants – how wonderful to see you all again. Until soon!

To view more photos from this event, please visit our gallery! All photo credit goes to Elise Morton and Jennifer Bae!

 NOTE: Dr. Lendemer and our former vice president, Dr. Jessica Allen published an excellent book on urban lichen – just the perfect gift for any naturalist in our area. You can find it here.

Dr. James Lendemer is an Associate Curator at The New York Botanical Garden where he oversees the largest collection of lichen natural history specimens in the Western Hemisphere. He is also an Assistant Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center where he works with students pursuing careers in botanical science, especially lichenology. Although he has spent more than twenty years exploring lichens in the wild lands of America and abroad, recent collaboration with Dr. Jessica Allen, former vice president of the MSNH, led to urban exploration as well.

Spring Birding in Central Park with Biologist Rachael Joakim

On Sunday, May 2, a cloudy spring morning in Central Park, nine ready adventurers emerged from the fog of the last year and took their sights upward to the sky. With binoculars in hand and smartphones nearby to confirm their findings, the group engaged in the first in-person event of 2021: a spring bird walk! The group was led by biologist Rachael Joakim through various sections of Central Park starting on Central Park West and ending up at Belvedere Castle.

In that short distance, observers noted the many types of warblers, kinglets and finches that are present even in a small section of the park. This time of year finds not only birds that one might normally see but also many migratory birds passing northward through the area. As birds pecked at bugs from the dirt below to the canopy above, Rachael talked about how to locate birds first using our ears to listen for their calls before using our eyes, and she also discussed how best to identify birds - by the color of their bellies (what we’d normally see from below) to the shape of their tails and even to the color of their legs.

Among many other birds, the group spotted a few unique ones on the walk: a Baltimore oriole, an American Goldfinch, and the Blackburnian Warbler. Although there were reports of the rare Cerulean Warbler in the park that day, the group (and many other groups around us) were unable to locate it. Perhaps next year we’ll be so lucky!

To see a complete list of birds seen during our walk, check out ebird. To view more photos from this event, visit our gallery. All photo credit goes to Glenn Doherty.

Rachael Joakim is a 5th year partner Ph.D. student through the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and the CUNY Graduate Center. She studies the dynamics of wild birds and their microbial symbionts, using samples she collected herself over 4 month-long research expeditions in Indonesia. She is currently identifying avian malaria lineages in order to understand the infection dynamics within a complex endemic host community. In addition to avian research, she organized a birding competition amongst her fellow AMNH employees, which is now in its 4th year. She also participates in many forms of STEM outreach, including an after-school nature class in her neighborhood of Inwood, in the hopes of providing opportunities for young people to explore their interests in science and nature.

Online Plants on Plates with Botanist Dr. Donald McClelland

On Sunday, February 28, the MSNH joined botanist Dr. Donald McClelland to learn about the diversity and evolution of common fruits and vegetables that we eat. Dr. McClelland, a professor at Bard College, started off his talk by introducing “plant blindness,” a common disease that plagues many of us with the primary symptom being only viewing plants only as background material in our environments. After clarifying some terminology, including the difference between a nut, a fruit and a vegetable, and introducing us to the major groups of plants, Dr. McClelland showed us how much diversity is in our food and how they are related. For example, pumpkins, squashes and zucchinis, which look similar, are in the same family, Cucurbitaceae. Similarly, plants in the same family many times often have similar flavors. White mustard, horseradish and wasabi all have very sharp, pungent flavors and are in the same family Brassicaceae. At the end of the talk, Dr. McClelland gave us a challenge to see how much diversity we could pack into a salad by selecting ingredients that are from across the plant evolutionary tree.

To view the full recording from this event, please visit our gallery.

Dr. Donald McClelland is a botanist with expertise in the nightshade family (Solanaceae). He earned his Ph.D. from the City University of New York and The New York Botanical Garden joint program in plant biology researching the taxonomy and systematics of the cannibals’ tomato and its relatives in the Pacific Islands. Currently, he is an assistant professor of environmental science at Bard College at Simon’s Rock in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts where his research projects focus on the taxonomy and systematics of the Solanaceae, the flora of Montserrat, West Indies, and nectar and pollen forage plants for honey bees in New England. Dr. McClelland is also a beekeeper and maple sugar producer. He runs the apiary and manages the sugar bush at Simon’s Rock, producing honey and maple syrup annually. He is an avid gardener, forager of wild and wonderful food, and all-round outdoorsman.

Online Holiday Bed Bugs with Entomologist Lou Sorkin

On Sunday, December 6, the MSNH went online again via Zoom for Online Holiday Bed Bugs with Entomologist Lou Sorkin, co-hosted in collaboration with the New York Entomological Society (NYES). Lou, a recently retired, long-standing employee of the American Museum of Natural History, who is also a well-known expert on bed bugs taught us all about these notorious insects including their life cycle, natural history and behavior. He even showed us some of his own bed bug colonies which we got to enjoy safely from our home computers. With more than 40 participants, this event was one of our most largest and most popular and Lou was so excited to talk about his bed bugs that the event lasted more than two hours with participants asking questions until the very end!

To view the video recording from this event, please visit our gallery.

Lou Sorkin is treasurer of the New York Entomological Society and also one of its primary meeting organizers. He recently retired earlier this year from his 42-year career in the Invertebrate Zoology Department at the American Museum of Natural History. While at the museum, Lou worked primarily with the spider collection, maintaining and organizing this huge collection and assisting many arachnologists from all over the world with their research. Besides his scientific career, Lou has been a longstanding educator for the museum, promoting insects and other arthropods to school groups, NYES and the general public and can often be seen walking around the museum wearing tobacco hornworms (pictured above) in hope that kids and parents will look up from their phones and ask questions about these blue caterpillars! Outside of the museum, Lou has been active in entomophagy (eating insects), organizing several bug-eating events as well as forensic entomology, with some investigations he has been involved with having aired on television. But despite his varied interests, one of Lou's true passions is the common bed bug, Cimex lectularius (Hemiptera: Cimicidae). Over the past 30 years, Lou has been studying the life cycle and natural history of these notorious insects by examining infestations in homes, businesses, hotels and raising his own bed bug colony for research and education. Of course, in order to keep his colony alive, he has had to feed them, and over the years, Lou has fed himself to a few hundred thousand bed bugs! Many of his recent bed bug behavioral videos and explanations have appeared on his Facebook page and on certain insect and pest management groups and for this event Lou will share his knowledge about these insects with us.

Online Natural History Symposium

On Sunday, October 11, the MSNH returned after a long hiatus. To keep our participants and presenters safe but our community of naturalists engaged, we decided to resume hosting events online (via Zoom) until it is once again safe to host in-person events. Our first event in this format was the Online Natural History Symposium, where we got to learn about a variety of topics in biology, including sunflower tracking, bird diversity in montane regions in Africa, and fish anti-predatory behavior with Drs. Benjamin Blackman (University of California, Berkeley), Elise Morton (Fairleigh Dickinson University) and Bronwyn Bleakley (Stonehill College). Each talk lasted 25 minutes and participants were able to ask questions at the end. Despite not being able to meet in-person, we had 40 participants, more than what we normally can accommodate for in-person events, and our participants logged in from across the globe, including NYC, California and other parts of the world. The presentations were also recorded for anyone who missed it or wanted to watch it again!

To watch the recording and view the transcript, please visit our gallery.

PRESENTATION SUMMARIES

Nature’s metronome: The biology of solar tracking by sunflowers
Benjamin Blackman, Associate Professor of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley

Although sunflowers are named for how their stems bend to track the sun and we have known about this daily growth rhythm for centuries, this iconic phenomenon has actually received only limited scientific study. In my talk, I will discuss what our recent research has revealed about how and why sunflower stems track the sun.

Long-term diversity dynamics of an Afromontane tropical forest bird community
Dr. Elise Morton, Assistant Professor Fairleigh Dickinson University, NJ

This presentation will focus on the long-term patterns of avian diversity in the tropical montane forests of the Albertine Rift of East Africa. This region is incredibly important biologically, providing habitat for over 50% of Africa’s bird species, many of which are endemic, endangered and/or threatened. These high levels of diversity and endemism can be attributed to the steep elevational gradient characteristic of the area, as these correspond to a variety of other environmental gradients (e.g., temperature and precipitation) upon which biological communities are structured. However, the species in this region are under threat due to changing climate and high levels of human disturbance driven by high population density and inequality. As such, this talk will also touch on the conflict and intersection between human needs and natural resource conservation in this region.

The company you keep matters - Social patterns influence cooperative antipredatory behavior in Trinidadian guppies
Dr. Bronwyn Bleakley, Associate Professor and Biology Chair, Stonehill College, MA

Trinidadian guppies, Poecilia reticulata, perform a suite of cooperative antipredator behavior in response to large predatory fish. How well they cooperate to share the risk depends on many factors, including the specific social partners with whom they interact and their own physiology and experience. In guppies, the company you keep matters.

Dr. Benjamin Blackman is an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Current research in the Blackman Lab focuses on how plants respond to predictable seasonal and daily fluctuations in the environment and how these responses evolve during adaptation and domestication. Dr. Blackman received his Ph.D. at Indiana University, Bloomington in 2009, completed a postdoc at Duke University, and moved from the University of Virginia to join the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley in 2016. In 2017, he was honored with the Botanical Society of America’s Emerging Leader Award.

Dr. Elise Morton is an assistant professor in the Biological Sciences Department at Fairleigh Dickinson in NJ. Her research is broadly focused on avian ecology and conservation, particularly in the montane tropical forests of East Africa. Her career path has been unusually sinuous, first receiving her Ph.D. in Biology from Indiana University where her research was centered on the population dynamics of bacterial plasmids. However, during her postdoc at the University of Minnesota, Elise became heavily involved with volunteer work with the Audubon Chapter of Minneapolis, advocating for bird-friendly building design. This motivated her to combine her intellectual interests with her passion for wildlife conservation and pursue a second degree in Wildlife Conservation and Ecology at the University of Florida, where she began her work on birds.

Dr. Bronwyn Bleakley earned a BS in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Arizona and a Ph.D. in Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior with a Professional Area Certificate in Animal Behavior and a minor in College Teaching from Indiana University, where she investigated the evolutionary genetics of cooperative antipredator behavior in guppies. She completed a National Science Foundation International Research Fellowship split between the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter, Cornwall and Northern Arizona University studying cannibalism in an endangered isopod. She is now an associate professor and chairperson of the biology department at Stonehill College, a predominantly undergraduate institution in southeastern Massachusetts, where she continues to investigate the evolution, genetics, and physiology of social behavior with undergraduate researchers.

Fossil Mammal Hall Tour with paleontologist Julia Tejada at the American Museum of Natural History

On Saturday, February 22, the MSNH gathered for Fossil Mammal Hall Tour with paleontologist Julia Tejada at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Julia, a paleontologist from AMNH, brought us through the two fossil mammal halls at the museum (Hall of Primitive Mammals and Paul and Irma Milstein Hall of Advanced Mammals) and taught us about the evolution of our mammalian relatives, integrating her own research into the tour. Julia’s work focuses primarily on the giant sloths from South America and while going through the AMNH halls, we got to see some great examples of what these sloths once looked like and learned about what they ate based on Julia’s research. These extinct sloths are quite enormous compared to the sloths we see today! Julia also touched on the geological history of South America and its implications for current mammalian distribution patterns. South America was an island continent for at least 50 million years, before the uplift of the isthmus of Panama and subsequent connection of South America with North America led to biotic exchange of mammals across this landmass.

To view more photos from this event, visit our gallery. All photo credit goes to Stephanie Loria.

Julia Tejada is a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History. Julia uses stable isotopes to reconstruct ancient ecologies and ecosystems. Through the combination of geochemistry and deep time evolutionary tree analyses using fossil data she seeks to understand the evolution of mammalian communities in Amazonia through time, with a special focus on sloths. Julia has a substantial record of peer-reviewed publications, has led expeditions to the Peruvian Altiplano in the Central Andes, and has participated in numerous field missions to the Amazon region and coastal deserts in Peru. Julia received her B.S. from the San Marcos University in Peru, her M.S. from the University of Florida, and M.A and M. Phil. from Columbia University.

T. rex: The Ultimate Predator Exhibit Tour with paleontologist James Napoli at the American Museum of Natural History

On Sunday, November 17, the MSNH joined paleontologist James Napoli for a guided tour of the T. rex: The Ultimate Predator exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Besides admiring all the great displays, we got to learn first hand from an in-house paleontologist about the latest T. rex research as James explained thoroughly our current understanding of T. rex biology and evolution. James also debunked some popular ideas about T. rex. For example, he pointed out that despite popular news articles, it is unlikely that T. rex was a scavenger given its large size.

To view more photos from this event, please visit our gallery. All photo credit goes to Stephanie Loria and Valentin Ehrenthal.

JAMES NAPOLI is a Ph.D. student at the Richard Gilder Graduate School of the American Museum of Natural History. He grew up in Setauket, New York, and spent his formative years in the halls of the museum where he is now a student. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Brown University in Geology and Biology, and a Master of Science from Stony Brook University in Physiology and Biophysics. His research focuses on the evolutionary biology of vertebrates, especially extinct species like dinosaurs. He is particularly interested in developing new methods to identify species of extinct animals, and in studying the evolutionary importance of individual variation among members of a species.