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.