NEWSLETTER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF
VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
VOL., 22, NO. 3
JULY, 2009
The Vertebral Column
Jim attended Olympia High School where his outstanding academic record included straight ‘A’s in all
the science courses but somewhat less than that in the
liberal arts. One highlight of his high school years
was a course in Botany. Jim was motivated to go on
to college by the instructor, a young man who had
recently finished a master’s in mycology at the
University of Washington,
Mead Retires
JAMES GLEN MEAD
By Don E. Wilson
Jim Mead was preordained for his position as Curator of
Marine Mammals here in the Museum of Natural History.
His father, a self-employed logger in the
Jim entered Yale in the fall of 1960 and committed to
Pacific Northwest, taught him
a major in botany. The Botat an early age to handle large
any Department was less than
objects by means of juryimpressive, so he abandoned
rigged mechanisms. Also,
that plan and worked his way
when he turned 16 and was
through majors in anthropolqualified to work at a regular
ogy, electrical engineering,
job, he started working as a
and finally completed a doumeat cutter in a local superble major in biology and geolmarket and received excellent
ogy. That combination was
training in the use of knives to
brought about by his associadisassemble large carcasses.
tion with Dr. Elwyn Simons
His road to the Smithsonian
began on May 6, 1943, when
Jim was born in Port Angeles, Washington on the south
shore of the Straits of Juan de Fuca. The Mead family
was in a category of “migrant laborers” and lived in 26
localities, mostly on the Olympic Peninsula but sometimes as far away as the Willamette River Valley in
Oregon. When the family increased to its maximum
sizeof 2 adults and 4 offspring, they settled in Olympia,
Washington in 1951.
who led several expeditions in
1962 and 1963 to the Big
Horn Basin of Wyoming and
to the Fayum Depression of Egypt. This led to his
being employed by the Yale Peabody Museum under
the directorship of S. Dillon Ripley. Little did either
know that each would go on to fame and fortune at the
Smithsonian Institution.
In the meantime he participated in a Yale expedition to
Alaska to investigate a large frozen carcass that had
Page 1
been discovered along the coast of Eschscholtz Bay. It
was in that bay that he had his first experience with
cetaceans. The Eskimos were taking belugas and he
managed to obtain 2 heads for dissection, one of which
is now USNM 485826. He then participated in a Harvard expedition to Kenya in 1964 under the guidance
of Bryan Patterson. He did his senior project, based in
large part on his dissections of the belugas, on the
asymmetry of the skull in toothed whales. He finally
graduated in June of 1965 and headed out west in his
1945 Chevrolet
army truck.
He had been
accepted by the
University of
Texas as Wann
Langston’s first
graduate student. He was
intending to
work on the
cetacean fauna
Jim in 1944 at the age of 1.
of the early
tertiary marine
deposits in Texas but cetacean remains were few and
far between. He became interested in a Permian locality in central Texas and did a descriptive
paleoecological treatment of it for his masters. He left
Texas in the spring of 1968 and migrated to the
University of Chicago.
Jim was enrolled in the Committee on Evolutionary
Biology at the University of Chicago’s Department of
Anatomy, this time as Jim Hopson’s first graduate student. After trying unsuccessfully to obtain funds to
conduct an expedition to Australia and Indonesia, an
Amazonian River dolphin died at the Shedd Aquarium
and Jim was off on a journey through cetacean anatomy that culminated in his dissertation, “Anatomy of
the external nasal passages and facial complex in the
Delphinidae (Mammalia: Cetacea)”.
This dissertation project had a lasting effect on his future. After dissecting the river dolphin, he was back
where he started, looking around for more dissection
material. At the Annual Conference on Biological
Sonar in Palo Alto, California in October 1969 he met
William Perrin, a porpoise researcher for the National
Marine Fisheries Service. Jim complained to Bill
about the lack of dolphin heads to dissect, so Bill said
he would look into it and asked how many heads Jim
might want. Jim foolishly replied “all I can get!” He
forgot about his conversation with Perrin until
American Air Lines air freight office in Chicago called
him up about a month later and asked him where to
deliver 100 frozen dolphin heads. Bill had access to
observers that collected dolphin heads from the U.S.
tuna fishery by the hundreds. Jim used the heads for
dissection, prepared the skulls and then forwarded
them to Charles Handley here at the USNM to be
deposited in the collection.
In the meantime, not content with the diversity of the
specimens that Perrin provided, he began investigating
the pilot whale fishery in Newfoundland. It was
located in Trinity Bay near an active whaling station
whose operations were overseen by the Fisheries
Research Board of Canada (FRBC). Besides that, it
was located in a town with the seductive name of
South Dildo. In July of 1970 he set out with a
colleague, Tim Strickler, to investigate whaling in
Newfoundland. They discovered that the pilot whale
fishery had more-or-less been abandoned but the local
fishermen sometimes harpooned a pilot whale and sold
it to the whaling station. Mead and Strickler spent a
productive couple of months in Newfoundland and
then departed in September for Chicago.
In 1971 Jim hired on as a biological technician at the
Arctic Fisheries Whaling Station and spent the next
two summers at South Dildo. “Summer” is a relative
term in Newfoundland but the field season usually ran
from May through September. He was still enrolled in
the University of Chicago, working on his dissertation
on the facial anatomy of toothed whales. He had
Page 2
found dolphins and pilot whales to be sporadically
available at the whaling station, certainly more so than
they were in Chicago. He also
worked on the general anatomy of
baleen whales as part of his duties
for the FRBC. As a part of his association with the FRBC, he was able
to go on several whale sighting and
tagging cruises, one in March of
1971 south from Halifax to Bermuda
in the “RV” West Whale 8 and one
in September of 1972 to Greenland
in the MV Carino.
Vertebrate Zoology, and got details of the job that he
was being offered. Needless to say he accepted and
reported to work on the 3rd of July,
1972 as Curator of Marine
Mammals. At that time the entire
marine mammal collection was located in the Old Torpedo Factory in
Alexandria.
One Wednesday in January of 1973,
he came back from lunch to find a
note left by Helen Hutchinson, the
Division of Mammals secretary, saying a gentleman from New Jersey
had called to report a live beaked
In January of 1972 Jim went on a
whale, which he had identified as a
tour of museums, including the UniOfficial
Smithsonian
Photo,
1972
True’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon
versity of Michigan and the USNM.
mirus), in a swimming pool in Beach
While in Washington, he spoke exHaven. He returned the call to Nat Ewer and discovtensively with Charles Handley, who was planning to
ered that Nat had managed to transport a live beaked
hire a technician as a part of the Marine Mammal
whale from the beach and had it in a neighbor’s swimCouncil, an organization funded by the National Sciming pool. That was the start of a 4-day struggle that
ence Foundation and based at the Smithsonian.
included transporting the animal to the Coney Island
Charles was planning to conduct an inventory of availAquarium where it subsequently died. The assembled
able cetacean specimens by sending that technician to
biologists finally identified it as a juvenile male Blainvisit the world’s museums. Jim indicated that he
ville’s or dense-beaked whale, Mesoplodon densiwould be interested, as he was getting his doctorate
rostris. At that time, most marine mammalogists had
and would be over-qualified for the FRBC job that he
not even seen a specimen of
currently held, despite
any species of Mesoplodon.
the allure of South
Dildo.
Roger Payne came through
D.C. while Jim was away
On Jim’s return to Newand had given a talk about
foundland in the spring,
his work in Argentina. The
he was sitting around
director of NMNH was imthe FRBC trailer on the
th
pressed and he offered to
6 of June when he got
send Mead down to investia call from some secre“Now folks, this is the way its gonna be
gate. Jim showed up in
tary in the Smithsonian
Trelew, Argentina on the
asking when he was goLee Creek, 1973. Becky, Jim, Clayton Ray, Leah Ray 18th of January, planning on
ing to report to work.
staying for 2 weeks with Roger. It turned out that exAfter having satisfied himself that the call was serious
penses were less than they were back in the States, so
he tried to call Handley and eventually reached George
he ended up staying 2 months and going to the
Watson, then chairman of the Department of
Antarctic as a side trip.
Page 3
On February 1st, he and Roger were scouting the
beaches on Peninsula Valdez from the cliffs, when he
saw a beaked whale carcass. He hurried down the
cliffs and approached the body. It had all the characteristics of a beaked whale, no notch in the flukes and
a pair of throat grooves, but it had teeth like a big
dolphin. Beaked whales have reduced dentition with
only one or two pairs of teeth in the lower jaw, except
for Tasmacetus, which then was known only from
New Zealand. He pondered this awhile before
realizing that he had the first record of a rare beaked
whale from the South Atlantic. There were, at that
time, only 6 records of that animal. Given the challenge of encountering rare beaked whales, Jim decided
to specialize in ziphiids. He has, at this date, seen and
collected 60 specimens of this family.
He came to the Smithsonian expecting to continue his
work with the anatomy and natural history of the species of whales that were taken commercially in Newfoundland. Unfortunately Canada ceased whaling after the summer of 1972. So he turned to stranded animals. Jim produced pamphlets and posters encouraging everyone who had routine contact with MidAtlantic beaches to report strandings and unusual marine mammal occurrences to the Smithsonian. The
geographic area covered was limited to a day’s drive,
but he and Charley Potter were young then and considered a day to be 24 hours. The posters and pamphlets
were distributed along the coast between Cape Cod,
Massachusetts and Charleston, South Carolina.
Jim was a key player in the foundation of the Society
for Marine Mammalogy in 1981, and served as
president from 1984-1985. He has also served on
the Marine Mammal Commission’s Committee of
Scientific Advisors at various times. These contacts,
as well as many others with colleagues around the
world have led to the NMNH marine mammal
collection becoming a major center for the study of
cetacean systematics and anatomy.
In addition to a long series of detailed anatomical
works on Cetaceans, Jim teamed up with Joy Gold to
produce “Whales and Dolphins in Question” in
2002. Jim’s curatorial instincts have spilled over
into his personal life, where his collection of encyclopedias, rare books, and movies threatens to overwhelm the cozy Arlington house he shares with his
wife (“roommate”, in Jim’s affectionate parlance)
Becky. Jim’s schedule has altered but little in retirement, and we look forward to his continuing involvement in the Marine Mammal Collection and
other departmental activities.
Within a year they were spending all of their time on
the road picking up animals, as the number of
strandings was phenomenal. As a result, the Marine
Mammal Commission staged a workshop on strandings in August 1977 at the University of Georgia.
That represented the formal initiation of the Regional
Stranding Network. They also participated in the Scientific Events Alert Network (SEAN) from 19751982, and with the Cousteau Society and the Marine
Mammal Events Program from 1984-1991.
Jim’s favorite place. Photo by Ewan Fordyce
Page 4
VZ NEWS
On May 6, 2009, in Baird Auditorium, NMNH Director, Dr. Samper presented Scientific Achievement
Awards for peer reviewed publications. Awardees
from Vertebrate Zoology were HELEN JAMES,
ROB FLEISCHER, and STORRS OLSON with a
Scientific Achievement Award for the publication,
“Convergent Evolution in Hawaiian Honeyeaters,”
published in Current Biology, 18(24) December 2008.
The authors were given a plaque and cash.
Helen James examines a specimen of the
the now extinct Kioea.
VZ LUNCH SEMINARS
Please contact DON WILSON (6331265 or E-Mail) to schedule a seminar or suggest speakers for the upcoming year. All seminars are held
in the Waldo Schmitt room, W218,
from 12:00-1:00 PM. See E-Mail and
elevator for seminar subjects as
the date approaches.
Upcoming VZ Seminars:
Science Achievement Awards 2009. (Front row lr): Dolores R. Piperno, Paleobotanist; Ted R. Schultz,
Research Entomologist; Matthew T. Carrano, Curator,
Paleobiology , Helen F. James, Curator of Birds, Vertebrate Zoology; Robert C. Fleischer, Head, Center
for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics, National
Zoological Park; (Back row l-r): Bruno Frohlich, Statistician; Donald J. Ortner, Curator, Research and Collections; Sean G. Brady, Curator of Bees, Entomology,
Hymenoptera Unit; Cristian Samper, Director at the
Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural
History; Hans-Dieter Sues, Associate Director in the
Office of the Associate Director for Research and Collections. Photo by James DiLoreto
Page 5
August 5 – Wednesday
KAREN ROBERTS, University of New
South Wales, Australia. “Ring Tales : The
Evolution of Pseudocheirid (ringtail)
Possums”
Farewell to Jennie and Tomoka -
DIVISION NEWS
JENNIE MILLER is leaving her position as
Research Assistant to DICK THORINGTON at the
end of July
to pursue
graduate
study at
Yale School
of Forestry
and Environmental
Studies. She
plans to
work with
Jennie Miller. Photo by J. Gold
Dr. Oswald
MAMMALS
Congratulations
2009 brings us the newly published Handbook of the
Mammals of the World. Vol. 1 Carnivores, Lynx
Schmitz and focus her PhD research on the impacts of
climate change on predator-prey interactions and food
webs for Indian fauna. She thanks everyone in VZ for
welcoming her despite her short stay at the museum
and hopes she can find an excuse to “collaborate” and
return for a visit soon.
Don Wilson. Photo by J. Gold
Edicions, a comprehensive large format reference
edited by DON E. WILSON, (SI, Division of Mammals) and RUSSELL A. MITTERMEIER
(Conservation International).
This first volume of an 8 volume series, inspired and
equivalent to the highly regarded Handbook of the
Birds of the World, was four years actively in the making. It provides family accounts and comprehensive
species accounts with information on the taxonomy,
ecology, biology, morphology, habitats, feeding,
breeding, and conservation of all extant carnivores.
257 distribution maps, 33 color plates and more than
400 photographs, many of them of the carnivores in
their natural habitats, are included. A bibliography and
reference lists are also included to make this monumental volume of 727 pages a must for all libraries,
students, and researchers on carnivores as well as
those concerned about conservation and the present
status of these animals today.
TOMOKAZU KAWASHIMA, Post Doc, who has
spent many months in the Division of Mammals studying the nervous system of the primate heart, is leaving
to spend 2 months at the Field Museum in Chicago.
He then intends to take some days in the U.S. for
sightseeing and leave for Japan about October 1, 2009.
L to R. bottom, Suzy Peurach., Dick Thorington
Tomokazu Kawashima, Top: Joy Gold, Jim Mead,
Don Wilson, Lauren Helgen, Jennie Miller., Al
Gardner
Page 6
Meetings and Presentations –
ASM Meetings
BOB FISCHER, KRIS HELGEN, LAUREN
HELGEN, SUSY PEURACH, JENNIE MILLER,
DICK THORINGTON, DON WILSON and
NEAL WOODMAN attended the 89th Annual
Meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists
in Fairbanks, Alaska from June 24-28.
“Fleas from a small mammal community in a Guatemalan cloud forest;” and, with RYAN STEPHENS,
his 2008 RTP intern, “Differentiation of the broadclawed shrews Cryptotis griseoventris and C. goodwini using skeletal morphology of the fore foot.”
Suzy Peurach, USGS Museum Specialist,
presented a paper, “What can we learn from bat/
aircraft impacts?”
Richard Thorington and Jennie Miller also attended; Thor presented their paper, “Comparison of
wirst bones between ground, tree and flying squirrels
using MIMICS image processing software.”
Grizzlies in Denali. Photo by Suzy Peurach
The midnight sun prevented most of the SI group
from sleeping, (oh yes, too bad) forcing it to socialize for hours on end! Nearly all the SI participants
traveled to Denali National Park and were stunned
by the glacial vistas and captivated by sightings of
grizzlies, caribou, moose, lynx, wolves, marmots,
pikas, ground squirrels and mammoth-sized mosquitoes
At the meeting Jennie Miller, the Thoringtons:
Carey, Dick, Catherine. Photo by L. Helgen
Lynx.in Denali. Photo by Suzy Peurach
Kris Helgen chaired a session on Systematics.
SPNHC Meeting
Neal Woodman, USGS curator in the Division of
Mammals, chaired a technical session on
Morphology and delivered a paper entitled, “Species
limits of broad-clawed shrews, genus
Cryptotis, in southeastern Mexico and Guatemala.” He was also a co-author on three posters: “Small mammals from a cloud forest in the
Montañas de Cuilco, Huehuetenango, Guatemala;”
JOHN OSOSKY attended the SPNHC meetings in
Leiden, Netherlands July 6-11, 2009. It was well
attended despite the downturn in the economy. This
is only the second time the meetings were held in
Europe and gave John an excellent opportunity to
interact with colleagues from abroad. John presented
a poster entitled: Using Compost to Prepare Large
Skeletal Specimens, which was well received.
Page 7
Travel KRIS HELGEN visited the Natural History Museum, London during the first two weeks of May, the
Field Museum in Chicago for the last week of May,
and the American Museum in New York for a week
in mid-July for research in the mammal collections.
KRIS HELGEN attended an NSF-sponsored workshop, “Future Directions in Biodiversity and Systematics Research”, held May 27-29 at the Chicago
Botanic Gardens.
KennethYhuanje. Photo by J. Gold
At the National Geographic Society’s “Explorer’s
Symposium”, held June 8-12 at the society’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., KRIS HELGEN was
an invited attendee and speaker
Outreach SUZANNE PEURACH (USGS) gave behind the
scenes tours of the Division of Mammals to a group
of 18 students participating in the SmithsonianMason Semester for Conservation Studies 10 April
2009, as well as a tour to 25 summer interns 21 July
2009.
JOHN OSOSKY also gave a tour of the lab and our
cetacean collection to LISA PALMER and her interns in the Fish Division.
Nuwanti Liyanage, Photo by J. Gold
AMANDA JANICKI is from Missouri State University. She is on a Graduate Student Fellowship
and is working on Whitenosed Syndrome in bats.
Fellows, Interns KENNETH YHUANJE, from Papua, New Guinea,
has been an intern in the division of Mammals
working with KRIS HELGEN this summer
NUWANTI LIYANAGENS is an intern from Virginia Commonwealth University and is working on
DNA barcoding of Borneo bat tissues with DON
WILSON
Amanda Janicki. Photo by J. Gold
Page 8
BIRDS
JOHN OSOSKY is hosting a research associate
from Anthropology, Dr. AMANDA TANG, and
several of her students who are preparing a small
skeletal reference collection in the lab.
`
Research –
By Christina Gebhard
General News
According to a new paper, “Pacific Flying Foxes
(Mammalia: Chiroptera): Two New Species of
Pteropus from Samoa, Probably Extinct,” by KRIS
HELGEN, LAUREN HELGEN and DON
WILSON , 2009, American Museum Novitates, No.
3646, pp. 1-37, two new species of flying foxes from
Samoa have been described from (1) a specimen
collected in 1856(Pteropus allenorum, n.sp.)and
placed in the collection of the Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia and (2) a large flying fox
with large teeth (Pteropus coxi, n.sp.)collected by
the U.S. Exploring Expedition in Samoa, 18391841,and held at the Smithsonian. The first
specimen is considered extinct since it has not been
collected again. There have been some possible eyewitness reports in the early 1980s on the second
species, coxi, so it is possible that it might have survived for some years but is now unlikely. That two
possible extinctions (of bats similar to some species
in Samoa) took place in recent years is of interest
and the fact that they turned up by investigating
museum specimens show the value of museum
collections. In addition, this was a collaborative
effort by the Academy of Natural Sciences, the
Smithsonian Institution and in order to have it published, the American Museum of Natural History.
STORRS OLSON’s first day of retirement was 1
June, when he left for Nova Scotia, where he spent
June and July and sent in this report from Northern
Cape Breton Island:
“Rusticating in the north woods has many agreeable
aspects, not the least of which is tranquility. Purple
Finches, goldfinches, Pine Siskins, juncos, hummingbirds, red squirrels, and chipmunks come daily to the
porch feeders and several new species of birds and one
new mammal (see photo) have been added to the yard
list. I continue to get exercise with a chainsaw removing excess spruce trees in order to provide light for the
birches, oaks, and maples, which also entails hauling
the ensuing brush down the mountain and burning it. I
am not sure how beneficial this is for my constitution
as it seems that the more I do the sorer I get. Science
progresses as well. In less than 2 months I received
and corrected 5 sets of proofs, revised 2 manuscripts
returned from journals with reviewers’ comments, reviewed 2 other manuscripts, and made considerable
progress on several new manuscripts. We enjoyed the
company of British colleagues Julian Hume and Lorna
Steel for 2 weeks in June and I caught up on the latest
in paleontology of the Mascarene Islands. So far,
retirement doesn’t seem a lot different from what came
before.”
Media coverage of the Flying Fox paper appeared in
the Philadelphia Inquirer , Saturday, July 11, 2009 in
a feature by Tom Avril, titled “A New Species
Found in a Jar” subtitled, “Old bat resurfaces at
Academy of Natural Sciences.” See Page 19: More
Activities KRIS HELGEN has joined the Advisory Board for
Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia.
Page 9
This visitor added a new mammal to the Nova Scotia
yard list and has put in four appearances so far. The
oak tree in the background was rendered visible by
Storrs’s exercise program with a chainsaw. Photo by
Julian Hume.
Research -
hiding complex patterns formed by small- to
medium-ranged species. These patterns, which
are analogous for one and two dimensions, are
complicated further by long-distance dispersal
and discontinuous geographic ranges. Second,
geometric constraints lead to classic mid-domain
effects for large-ranged species and for mixed
range-size frequency distributions, but smalland medium-sized ranges of a uniform size generate more complex patterns, including peaks,
plateaus, canyons, and craters of species richness. This suite of patterns bear some similarity
to complex patterns of species richness observed
in continental biotas, suggesting that geometric
constraints may explain some of the spatial
variation in species richness patterns.
Deciphering mid-domain effects in
species richness patterns
by Gary Graves
Biogeographers widely agree that contemporary
climate and historical effects influence species
richness patterns but how important are stochastic
effects? What is the expected pattern of species
richness, for example, if the geographic ranges of
species are randomly distributed within a bounded
area, such as a continental landmass? Can randomly distributed geographic ranges produce patterns of species richness similar to those observed
in nature? Naively, one might expect that a random distribution of species would produce, on average, a uniform distribution of richness across a
continental landscape. However, randomly distributed geographic ranges within a bounded geographical domain, produce a central hump of species richness (the mid-domain effect, MDE). The
hump arises from geometric constraints on the location of ranges, especially larger ones.
We asked two questions: (1) How do patterns of
species richness in one- and two-dimensional
MDE models change as a function of range size?
(2) How does dispersal affect these patterns? We
used a spreading dye algorithm to place assemblages of species of uniform range size in onedimensional or two-dimensional bounded domains. In some models, we allowed dispersal to
introduce range discontinuity. As uniform range
size increases from small to medium, a flat pattern
of species richness is replaced by a pair of peripheral peaks, separated by a valley (one-dimensional
models), or by a cratered ring (two-dimensional
models) of species richness. With large range
sizes, the peaks or rings fuse to form a central plateau (one-dimensional) or a flat-topped mound
(two-dimensional) of highest species richness.
Adding dispersal to the two-dimensional model
weakens the peripheral ring and introduces complex patterns for long-distance dispersal.
These simulations yield colorful and rather intricate spatial patterns but what do they mean? First
they demonstrate that heterogeneous range size
distributions (whether theoretical or empirical)
used in most MDE models produce species richness patterns dominated by wide-ranged species,
Figure. Contour plots of expected species richness in a two-dimensional stepping-stone model.
Each row represents a different value of λ, the
Poisson dispersal parameter, and each column
represents a different geographic range size. Blue
represents the lowest species density and red
represents the highest species density. Each graph
represents the mean of 300 stochastic runs of the
model.
Working with the MediaCHRISTINA GEBHARD assisted the SI Networks film crew on the 30 Jun with props for a
mission critical program about the museum’s Centennial celebration in the Bird Division’s Library.
The SI Networks program featured an interview
with DR. HANS SUES.
Page 10
Outreach CHRISTINA GEBHARD gave a tour July 10th to a
new batch of Research Experience for Undergraduates
(REU) program students from Blandy Research Station. Their host Dr. Mary A. McKenna of the Biology
Department at Howard University brought them to
view the Division of birds first to learn about the scientific collection and then they went for a herbarium
visit and short presentation on plant conservation.
that was published in Frontiers in Ecology and the
Environment. The article focused on using stable isotope analysis to determine the migratory status of the
Canada Geese that caused the crash of USAirways
Flight 1549 on 15 January 2009.
As a result of the crash of USAirways flight 1549 on
15 January 2009 the Feather Identification Lab participated in many media interviews and appeared in over
130 news outlets including New York Times, NPR,
Newsweek, NBC News, and the Washingtonian.
Travel CARLA DOVE and JIM WHATTON traveled to
Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni Japan to collect bird
specimens 16 June – 1 July. Carla and Jim prepared
birds that were previously depredated and stored in
freezers and also collected fresh specimens. A total of
163 specimens of over 50 species were obtained.
Christina showing REU students a male Quetzal study skin.
Photo: Carla Vanderbilt
JAMES DEAN and MARCY HEACKER hosted
sixteen staff members from the USFWS Migratory
Bird office and Ellen Paul director of the Ornithological Council on June 2nd. The group met for lunch for a
meet and greet and an informal discussion of what we
did at the museum and some of the jobs the USFWS
people performed. Lunch was followed by a tour of
the bird collection with a discussion of how we acquired the collection, how they are used and how research and service work has benefits in the real world
(think bird strikes). The meeting was very successful
and potentially gained the Division of Birds a new volunteer.
Research CARLA DOVE and PETER MARRA (NZP) participated June 8th in a SI “Secretary Press Release” at
the Castle library to discuss the results of an article
Jim Whatton prepares to catch a bird using mist nets
at Marine Corps Air Station, Iwakuni, Japan.
VisitorsA photographer for the Washington Post magazine
visited the bird division to take a few pictures for the
magazine’s Second Glance page in which you are presented two copies of an image and asked to find the
differences between the two. Look for these and other
natural history museum related images this fall and
winter in the Sunday Post magazine.
Page 11
The Division of Birds hosted 150 visitors since the
last edition of the Backbone. Four of our visitors
arrived from the following countries: Austria, Brazil
and Canada. The remaining visitors were domestic
from the following states: CA, CT, DC, FL, MD,
MA, NE, NY, OH, TE, TX, and VA.
-
Lisa S. Ahn. Photo by J. Gold
Herps Collection Move -
Christina Gebhard holding an IvoryBilled Woodpecker and a Pileated
Woodpecker for REU Student
Amphibians and Reptiles
by Steve Gotte
Welcome LISA S. AHN, USGS new employee The USGS Patuxent Biological Survey Unit hired a
STEP employee through the USGS Human Resources Initiative (HRI) program to work in the museum for two months this summer. LISA S. AHN,
who just completed her undergraduate degree in biology at the City College of New York, began work
at the museum on Monday 8 June and she will be
with us through the first week of August. Lisa is
hired as a Museum Technician and is working on a
variety of collection and data management projects
in birds, mammals, and amphibians and reptiles at
NHB and MSC. Lisa’s permanent work station will
Lisa’s permanent work station will be in NHB 378.
The herp collection move is nearing completion, at
least the transportation aspects. All of the jarred ethanol specimens have been installed in Pod 5, as has the
Cleared and Stained collection. The tanks have been
moved but are still under going preparations (ethanol
levels and concentrations checked, new gaskets installed, FST tanks upgraded to SST tanks) prior to final disposition on the compactors. STEVE GOTTE
(USGS) and USGS STEP employee LISA AHN have
been working to reorganize and conserve specimens in
some of the more problematic tanks as part of the project. The dry types have been moved and installed in
POD 2 and the dry frogs and snakes are in the process
of moving now. The installation of the frogs and
snakes will be a two step process to allow conservation, and reorganization to reflect significant changes
in taxonomy that have occurred recently and were incorporated into the ethanol collections.
Shelf and aisle labeling, tank work, dry collection final
installation and database updates will keep Steve and
the rest of herp collection management staff busy for
some time to come.
The move could not have been accomplished as
smoothly as it was without the excellent work of the
Collection Support Staff (CSS).
Page 12
Trips and Meetings KEVIN DE QUEIROZ was in Pantanal, Mato
Grosso state, Brazil (June 26 – 2 July) as an ecotourist (field trip associated with the annual meeting of
the Animal Behavior Society, of which his wife was
the President at this year’s meeting).
and Herpetologists. He is going to Heraklion, Crete
(21-25 September) for the International Congress on
the Zoogeography, Ecology and Evolution of Eastern
Mediterranean.
Miscellaneous –
On June 16, ROY MCDIARMID (USGS) and
KEVIN DE QUEIROZ attended the meeting of the
Special Libraries Association at the Convention Center
in Washington, DC to receive an award on behalf of
the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
(of which Roy is the Past President and Kevin is a
Board member) designating the Journal of Herpetology as the most influential journal during the last 100
years in the category “Vertebrate Biology – Reptiles &
Amphibians.”
Caiman (Caiman yacare), Pantanal, Estado Mato
Grosso, Brasil, 1 July 2009, by Kevin de Queiroz.
STEVE GOTTE and GEORGE ZUG travel to
NYC & American Museum of Natural History:
You do not borrow python specimens, even if they
are the short-tailed Asian python with lengths seldom exceeding 1.5 m, because what they lack in
length they make up for in girth. STEVE GOTTE
(USGS), JEREMY JACOBS and GEORGE ZUG
have embarked on a project to review the morphology of the Malaysia to Burma Python curtus group
members. We quickly discovered that obtaining a
sample with good locality data would be challenging. Most specimens, even in museums, derive from
the pet-trade, so even when you discover specimens
with locality data as “US Rubber Plantation, Sumatra,” you visit the collection to see and measure
them. That was the reason for an early July trip to
the AMNH by Steve and George. The trip was successful for python and Pacific lizard data and enlivened by the inexpensive use of Vamoose (bus).
KEVIN DE QUEIROZ will be in Portland, Oregon
(22-27 July) for the Joint Meetings of Ichthyologists
Visitors The Division hosted more than 20 visitors from 7
states (CA, DC, MD, PA, SC, TX, VA and WA), Brazil and Panama for a total of over 123 researcher-days,
since the last Backbone. In addition several local researchers and students visit the division on a regular
basis.
Students, RAs, Fellows SAYANTAN BISWAS (GWU Ph.D. student) is getting close to finishing his dissertation on diversification of the herpetofauna of the Western Ghats.
ROSARIO CASTAÑEDA (GWU Ph.D. student)
continues her dissertation research on the systematics
and evolution of the Dactyloa subclade of Anolis lizards.
Both Sayantan and Rosario recently presented talks on
their research at the SSB/SSE/ASN meetings in Moscow, Idaho.
Page 13
JUAN D. DAZA (Research Collaborator) and ALEXANDRA HERRERA MARTÍNEZ (GWU
Ph.D. student) should be returning to the Division
from Colombia later this month.
DAN MULCAHY (SI postdoctoral fellow) is expected to arrive in DC to start his fellowship around
September 1.
SHAB MOHAMMADI (Old Dominion Univ.
Ph.D. student) is examining the size of adrenal
glands in toad eating and non-toad eating snakes. It
appears that enlarged adrenals reflect an adaptation
for dealing with toxins in the toads.
MEDIA NEWS
Toronto Star , 4 May Thursday , celebrated the
opening of a new Life Sciences Gallery at the Royal
Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto , Ontario, Canada with an article, “Back from the Dead Warts and
All” by Noor Javed. The Gallery segment on
“Declining Amphibians” featured the Giant Chinese
Salamander with the sculpted piece pictured in the
article. It was noted that the ROM borrowed the
USNM specimen of Andrais, from the S.I.’s Amphibian and Reptile collections to use as a reference
when they sculpted their model. The skeleton was
constructed with plywood and wire and covered with
papier mâché and then acrylic paint.
FISHES
by Jeff Williams, Dave Smith and Tom Munroe
On May 27, BRUCE COLLETTE represented
NOAA at a meeting of the Interagency Working
Group on Scientific Collections to plan future actions
of the group following publication of their final report:
"Scientific Collections: Mission-Critical Infrastructure
for Federal Science Agencies" (ISBN 978-0-98195000-6). Then on July 13, Bruce participated in a roll-out
event of the IWGSC report in the SI Executive Conference Room sponsored by the Office of Science
Technology Policy with the President's Science Advisor, Dr. JOHN HOLDREN, the SI Secretary, Dr.
WAYNE CLOUGH, and the Director of NSF, Dr.
ARDEN BEMENT. All agreed on the importance of
scientific collections. The roll-out was covered by the
Washington Post.
LYNNE PARENTI and SANDRA RAREDON were
interviewed by journalist BOYCE RENSBERGER in
the Sant Ocean Hall on June 4 about the book of fish
radiographs, ICHTHYO, in which they both participated. Sandra prepared the radiographs; Lynne wrote
an essay on the USNM fish collection. SITES, the SI
Travelling Exhibition Service, is planning a travelling
ICHTHYO exhibit which will feature fish radiographs
and explanatory panels on the use of radiographs in
ichthyology.
Travel and meetings.—
ASIH- Portland, OR
Sculpted Giant Chinese Salamander
BRUCE COLLETTE, DAVE JOHNSON, LYNNE
PARENTI, DAVE SMITH, RICH VARI, and INCI
BOWMAN attended the annual meeting of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
(ASIH) in Portland, Oregon, July 22-27. As has been
the custom in recent years, ASIH met jointly with the
American Elasmobranch Society, thje Society for the
Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, and the
Herpetologists’ League. This year the Early Life
Page 14
History section of the American Fisheries Society
also participated. Bruce Collette presented a paper
with PAMELA HENSON of SI Archives entitled
"Darwin and the Smithsonian" in a special symposium commemorating the 200th anniversary of
Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of
the publication of “The Origin of Species.” He also
presented a poster with his last year's intern
MALORIE HAYES, "Morphology of Percarina and
its Placement in the Family Percidae". Bruce participated in the Board of Governors meeting in his capacity of Past President and served on this year's ad
hoc Committee to Nominate an Honorary Foreign
Member. He also is on an American Fisheries Society Early Life History Section ad hoc committee to
Evaluate the Sally Richardson Award.
LYNNE presented a paper entitled “Darwin, Wallace and Biogeographic Classification” in the Darwin Symposium and participated as a panelist in a
graduate student program on international fieldwork.
In addition she attended the Board of Governors,
Business and other society meetings as an ASIH past
-President.
DAVE SMITH and INCI BOWMAN also participated in the Darwin symposium, presenting a paper
entitled “Darwin’s Critics.” Dave attended in his
role as Society Historian for ichthyology. Rich presented a talk on the catfish family Cetopsidae during
the catfish symposium and also served as a member
of the Nominating Committee.
DAVE JOHNSON (Part 1) and JOHN PAXTON
(Part 2) will present back-to-back talks detailing
their discovery that three described deep-sea fish
families are actually one: “Ontogeny and Systematics of Whalefishes: Resolution of a Deepsea Conundrum”. Part 1. History, ontogenetic transformations
and sexual dimorphism. Part 2. Biology, linking of
life stages, and relationships.
Indo –Pacific Fish Conference
BRUCE COLLETTE and TOM MUNROE participated in the Indo-Pacific Fish Conference in Fremantle, Western Australia June 1-6. Bruce presented two
papers "Why Red List Tunas and Billfishes" (with
KENT CARPENTER), and "Barcoding Fishes of the
Gulf of Maine" and also joined with DAVID
GREENFIELD and RICK WINTERBOTTOM on another paper "The Genera of Toadfishes
(Batrachoididae)".
Tom also presented two papers: "Deepwater Tonguefishes (Pleuronectiformes: Cynoglossidae) off Western
Australia" (with MARTIN GOMON and DIANE
BRAY) and "Species of Soleichthys
(Pleuronectiformes: Soleidae) Occurring in Marine
Waters off Queensland, Australia" (with DANIEL
GLEDHILL). Following the Conference TOM examined flatfishes in several Australian collections.
DAVE JOHNSON joined JOHN PAXTON for a
three-session marathon presentation detailing their
discovery that three described deep-sea fish families
are really only one: “Ontogeny and Systematics of
Whalefishes: Resolution of a Deepsea Conundrum”.
Also, DAVE JOHNSON was co-convenor of a Symposium, “Ontogeny and Systematics” with JEFF LEIS
of the Australian Museum and co-author of a paper
presented by his previous predoc, NALANI
SCHNELL of Tuebingen University entitled
”Ontogenetic Fusion of the Third and Fourth Pharyngobranchials: a New Character in the Phylogeny of
Stomiidae(Teleostei: Stomiiformes).”
AI NONAKA, DAVE JOHNSON and BRUCE
COLLETTE visited the Australian Museum in
Sydney after the Indo-Pacific Fish Conference. TOM
is still in Australia examining flatfishes in several Australian museums. Dave worked with JOHN PAXTON
on their whalefish project. Bruce identified many of
Page 15
the previously unidentified halfbeaks and garfishes
fishes in the collection. Bruce stopped off in Sydney
on the way home to stay for a few days with former
NMNH Director FRANK TALBOT and his wife.
ossiciecles).. Furthermore, one common small marine
fish off the coast of eastern North America,
Maurolicus weitzmani, is named for him. Probably the
most colorful of the fishes named for Dr. Weitzman is
Poecilocharax weitzmani, a Peruvian small freshwater
fish now known to reach nearly two and one half
inches in total length (65 millimeters in standard
length, a new record for the known length of that species). A specimen that large was recently catalogued in
the Fish Division (USNM 391811). The French ichthyologist Jacques Géry in 1965 named this species
after Dr. Weitzman based on a preserved specimen
collected in igarapé Préto a tributary of the upper
Amazon River in Peru, not far from the city of Leticia.
There is another known species in this same genus,
Poecilocharax bovalii, described in 1909 as a new
species from the Potaro River below the spectacular
Kaieteur Water Falls in Guyana by the ichthyologist
Carl Eigenmann then of Indiana University.
Ai Nonaka, Dave Johnson and Bruce Collette at
the Australian Museum Collections and Research
building, June 2009. Photo: Mark McGrouther
BRUCE COLLETTE travelled to Cambridge, UK
on July 7-8 as the recently appointed Chair of the
IUCN Tuna and Billfish Specialist Group and a new
member of the IUCN Marine Conservation SubCommittee. The function of the Sub-Committee is to
provide technical advice to the Chair of the IUCN
Species Survival Committee and the IUCN steering
Committee on marine conservation issues.
Poecilocharax bovalii. (the only other known species in
this genus.) This species was described by Carl Eigenmann
in 1909 from what is now Guyana from specimens collected from below Kaieteur Falls on the Potaro River.
Photo by Rudd Wildecamp of the Netherlands.
Honored
What’s in a Name? Honor and Recognition
Dr. STANLEY H. WEITZMAN of the Division of
Fishes has had 11 fish species, mostly freshwater
fishes from South America, named for him, including three non-South American marine fish species
known only from their distinctive fossil otoliths (ear
A male Poecilocharax weitzmani . See extent of
the size that the dorsal and anal fins of this
species can reach in males. Photo by Rosario
LaCorte was of an aquarium specimen
apparently imported from Peru.
Page 16
VisitorsKASSI COLE visited NMNH several times to X-ray
gobies for her research and to discuss a draft ms on
reproduction and development in epipelagic fishes
with BRUCE COLLETTE for her book
"Reproduction in Marine Fishes"
Maurolicus weitzmani :Common deep water east
coast marine fish of North America
Paleontologists have been in the habit of describing
otoliths from fossil marine and or freshwater
Weitzman papers (published early in his career): one
on the osteology of a relatively primitive member of
the South American freshwater fish family Characidae and another on a relatively primitive member of
the marine fish family Sternoptychidae. Each of
these has become a basic reference work for subsequent publications on more specialized fishes in
these two families by subsequent authors. In the two
publications Weitzman made written descriptions as
well as detailed drawings of the otoliths and people
working on fossil fishes based on otoliths found in
sedimentary strata used his otolith drawings and descriptions as a basic reference for comparative work
on fossil otoliths.
The most recent new species of fish named for
Weitzman is Bryconadenos weitzmani by Menezes,
N. A., A. L. Netto-Terreira, and K. M. Ferreira.
2009 . A new species of Bryconadenos (Characidae)
from the rio Curuá, rio Xingu drainage, Brazil.
Neotropical Ichthyology, 7(2): 147-152.
Outreach AI NONAKA has been greeting visitors in the
Oceans hall showing them examples of larval fishes
and explaining how different most of them are from
the adults, She always manages to have a group of
interested folks waiting to take a look through the
magnifying glass. See Page 19 for photo.
SIMON STUART, Chair of the IUCN Species Survival Committee visited BRUCE COLLETTE on
May 20 to discuss BRUCE'S recent appointment as
Chair of the IUCN/SSC Tuna and Billfish Specialist
Group for the 2009-2012 IUCN Quadrennium.
JONATHAN DEEDS, FDA Center for Food Safety,
visited on June 24 to discuss cooperative bar-coding of
fishes of mutual interest to FDA and NMFS. This has
resulted in additional funds for the Division to preserve, catalogue, and voucher bar-coded specimens.
PUBLICATIONS
Arroyo-Cabrales, J. O.J. Polaco, D.E. Wilson and A.L.
Gardner. 2009. Nuevos Registros de Murcielagos Para el
Estado de Nayarit, Mexico. Revista Mexicana de Mastozoología, 12:141-162.
Cole, F.R., and D.E. Wilson. 2009. Urocitellus
canus. Mammalian Species, 834:1-8.
Collette, B.B. and D.W. Greenfield. 2009. Batrachus
uranoscopus Guichenot, 1866 Supposedly from Madagascar, is Not a Threatened Species of Toadfish
(Batrachoididae). Cybium 33(1):79-80.
Colwell, R. K., N. J. Gotelli, R. Carsten, G. L. Entsminger,
C.Farrell, and G. R. Graves. 2009. Peaks, Plateaus, Canyons, and Craters: the Complex Geometry of Simple Middomain Effect Models. Evolutionary Ecology Research,
11:355-370.
de Santana, C. D., and R. P. Vari, 2009. The South America Electric Fish Genus Platyurosternarchus^
(Gymnotiformes: Apteronotidae). Copeia, : 233-244
Dove, C. J., N. F. Dahlan, and M. Heacker. 2009. Forensic Bird-strike Identification Techniques Used in an Accident Investigation at Wiley Post Airport, Oklahoma,
2008. Human-Wildlife Conflicts 3(2): 179-185.
Frey, J. K., R. D. Fisher, and S. C. Peurach. 2009. Capture
Locations of Two Endangered Rodents during a 1902 Exploration of the Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico.
West.N.Am.Nat. 69(2): 267-71.
Page 17
González, S., J. E. Maldonado, J. Ortega, A. Talarico,
L. Bidegaray, J. E. Garcia and J.M. Barbanti-Durate.
2009. Identification of the Endangered Small Red Brocket
Deer (Mazama bororo) using Noninvasive Genetic Techniques (Mammalia; Cervidae). Molecular Ecology Resources, 9: 754-758
Hastings, P. A. & V. G. Springer. 2009. Recognizing
Diversity in Blennioid Fish Nomenclature (Teleostei:
Blennioidei). Zootaxa, 2120: 3-14.
Hastings, P. A. & V. G. Springer. 2009. Systematics of
the Blennioidei and the included families Chaenopsidae,
Clinidae, Labrisomidae and Dactyloscopidae. Pp. 3-30,
In: Patzner, R. A., E. J. Gonçlaves, P. A. Hastings & B.
G. Kapoor (eds). The Biology of Blennies. Science Publishers, Enfield, New Hampshire.
Hastings, P. A. & V. G. Springer. 2009. Systematics of
the Blenniidae (Blennioidei). Pp. 69-91, In: Patzner, R.
A., E. J. Gonçlaves, P. A. Hastings & B. G. Kapoor
(eds). The Biology of Blennies. Science Publishers, Enfield, New Hampshire.
Helgen, K. M., L. E. Helgen, and D. E. Wilson. 2009.
Pacific Flying Foxes (Mammalia: Chiroptera): Two New
Species of Pteropus from Samoa, Probably Extinct.
American Museum Novitates, Number 3646, 1-37 pp.
Helgen, K.M., R. Kays, L.E. Helgen, M.T.N. Tsuchiya Jerep, C.M. Pinto, K.-P. Koepfli, E. Eizirik,
and J.E. Maldonado. 2009. Taxonomic boundaries
and geographic distributions revealed by an integrative systematic overview of the mountain coatis,
Nasuella (Carnivora: Procyonidae). Small Carnivore
Conservation 41: 65-74.
Javonillo, R., J. R. Burns, and S. H. Weitzman, 2009.
Sperm Modifications Related to Insemination, with Examples from the Ostariophysi. Chapter 17, pp. 721-761, In
Reproductive Biology and Phylogeny of Fish (Agnathans
and Osteichthyes). Vol. A. Science Publishers, Enfield,
NH. USA.
Marra, P. P., C. J. Dove, R. Dolbeer, N. F. Dahlan,
M. Heacker, J. F. Whatton, N. E. Diggs, C. France,
and G. A. Henkes. 2009. Migratory Canada Geese Cause
Crash of US Airways Flight 1549. Frontiers in Ecology
and the Environment. 2009 Doi:10.1890/0066
Olson, S. L. and R. E. Ricklefs, 2009. More on the
Origin of the Red-legged Thrush (Turdus plumbeus) of
Dominica, West Indies. Auk, 126: 449-454
Patzner, R. A., P. A. Hastings, V. G. Springer, P. Wirtz
& E. J. Gonçalves. 2009. List of Valid Species of Blennies. Pp. 443-473, In: Patzner, R. A., E. J. Gonçlaves, P.
A. Hastings & B. G. Kapoor (eds). The Biology of Blennies. Science Publishers, Enfield, New Hampshire.
Peurach, S. C., C. J. Dove, and L. Stepko. 2009. A
Decade of U.S. Air Force Bat Strikes. Human-Wildlife
Conflicts 3(2):199-207.
Reynolds, R. P. 2009. Comments on the Proposed Conservation of Usage of Testudo gigantea chweigger, 812
(currently Geochelone (Aldabrachelys) gigantea) (Reptilia,
Testudines) (Case 3463). Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 66 (2): 182.
Schipper, J., K.M. Helgen, J.L. Belant, J. GonzálezMaya, E. Eizirik, and M.T.N. Tsuchiya Jerep. 2009.
Small carnivores in the Americas: reflections and future research and conservation priorities. Small Carnivore Conservation 41: 1-2.
Schipper, J., K.M. Helgen, J.L. Belant, J. GonzálezMaya, E. Eizirik, and M.T.N. Tsuchiya Jerep
(editors). 2009. Special Issue: The Americas. Small
Carnivore Conservation volume 41.
Thong, V.D., S. Bumrungsri, D. L. Harrison, M. Pearch, K.
M. Helgen, and P. J. J. Bates. 2006. New Records of Microchiroptera (Rhinolophidae and Kerivoulinae) from Vietnam and Thailand. Acta Chiropterologica, 8: 83-9
Wilson, D.E. and Mittermeier, R.A. (eds). 2009. Handbook
of the Mammals of the World. Volume 1 Carnivores. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. 727 pages.
Wilson, D.E. Introduction. pp.11-16 In: Wilson, D.E. and
Mittermeier, R.A., Handbook of the Mammals of the World.
Barcelona: Lynx Edicions.
Wilson, D.E. 2009. Class Mammalia (Mammals). pp.17-47
In: Wilson, D.E. and Mittermeier, R.A., Handbook of the
Mammals of the World. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions.
Woodman, N. and J.E. Pefaur, 2008. Order Soricomorpha
Gregory, 1910. Pp. 77-187, In: Gardner, A. L. editor, Mammals of South America. Volume I: Marsupials, Xenarthrans,
Shrews, and Bats.
Woodman, N. 2009. The Stephen H. Long Expedition
(1819–1820), Titian R. Peale’s Field Illustrations, and the
Lost Holotypes of the North American Shrews Sorex brevicaudus Say and Sorex parvus Say (Mammalia: Soricidae)
from the Philadelphia Museum. Proceedings of the
Biological Society of Washington, 122: 117-129
Zug, G. R. 2009. Reptiles (Vertebrata: Reptilia) of the
Gulf of Mexico. pp. 1317-20. In Felder, Darryl L. David K.
Camp (eds.), Gulf of Mexico Origin, Waters, and Biota.
Volume 1, Biodiversity. Texas A&M University Press: College Station TX. i-xix, 1-1393.
Page 18
EXTRA NOTES:
Kris Helgen has just found out that the flying fox
bat discoveries (Backbone, page 9) is featured on
the new Smithsonian science page! See :
http://smithsonianscience.org/
**************************************
A few more photos of Jim Mead, early
on and later.
Jim with John Heyning, 1991, beaked whale
1959, Jr.-Sr. Dance
Ai Nonaka showing larval fishes to visitors
Photo by J. Gold
2001 West Basement
1978 Necropsying a dolphin
2006 Narwhal
dissection
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To be added to the Backbone mailing
list send a message to Joy Gold through
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or address your request to Backbone,
Joy Gold Rm. 369A NHB, MRC 109,
Smithsonian Institution, P.O. Box
37012, Washington, DC 20013-7012
EDITORIAL STAFF
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Editor
Don Wilson
Joy Gold
DIVISION NEWS CONTACTS
Fishes
Herps
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Mammals
MSC
DEADLINE FOR NEWS
238-1742
Dave Smith
238-1736
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Tom Munroe
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Steve Gotte
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VZ staff will submit news items to
Division Contacts by October 16, 2009
DEADLINE FOR DIVISION
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All news items to Joy
by OCTOBER 23, 2009
Page 19
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