Creatures of Light Opens March 31 2 News at the Museum 3
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Member Magazine Spring 2012 Vol. 37 No. 2 Creatures of Light Opens March 31 2 News at the Museum 3 From the As spring brings warmer days, New Yorkers begin spring: Beyond Planet Earth was organized with Celebrating Burroughs’ Legacy, Research Reveals to emerge from the cocoon of winter and reach out MadaTech: The Israel National Museum of Science, President to a wider world. The Museum does that all year Technology & Space in Haifa; and Creatures of Light 175 Years After His Birth Microraptor Colors long through an extensive program of traveling is presented with Ottawa’s Canadian Museum Ellen V. Futter exhibitions and Space Shows. This spring, the of Nature and the Field Museum in Chicago. A team of American and Chinese researchers Museum has 15 of its exhibitions “on the road,” from The world is also coming to us. In 2011, some has revealed the color and detailed feather Einstein to Mythic Creatures, as well as six Space 40 percent of our visitors came from outside the pattern of Microraptor, a pigeon-sized Shows, and Science Bulletins appearing in 22 venues. United States. To welcome them, and all non-English dinosaur with long feathers on its hind limbs Traveling the Silk Road opens at the National speakers, we offer floor plans in 10 languages: that lived about 130 million years ago. Museum of Australia on March 31; Race to the End of English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, By comparing the patterns of pigment- the Earth is on view at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, Japanese, Russian, Italian, Chinese, and Korean; and containing organelles from a Microraptor Italy; Brain: The Inside Story is at China’s Guangdong audio translations of the Space Show in Chinese, fossil to those in modern birds, the scientists Science Center; and the list goes on. French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. determined that the dinosaur’s plumage was The Museum has become one of the world’s And 426 staff members speaking 37 languages wear iridescent with hues of black and blue, like leading developers and distributors of natural “I speak…” buttons identifying their language skills the feathers of a crow. Their results were history exhibitions, which have been presented to visitors. In all these ways, we are increasingly published by the journal Science in March. in more than 200 venues in 33 countries since serving a diverse international and domestic “This study gives us an unprecedented 2003. These shows often represent important audience and bringing the wonders of the Museum glimpse at what this animal looked like when partnerships, including our two exhibitions this to many millions both here in New York and abroad. it was alive,” says Mark Norell, chair of the Museum’s Division of Paleontology and one of the paper’s authors. Although its anatomy is very similar Table of Contents to birds, Mircroraptor is placed in the family Dromaeosauridae and is a close News 3 Naturalist John Burroughs remains an influential voice in American nature writing. relative to Velociraptor. Knowledge about Microraptor’s plumage could help scientists Close-Up 4 This April marks the 175th anniversary of the birth of noted naturalist zero in on the evolutionary transition 6 12 John Burroughs, a canonical figure in American nature writing, friend of from non-avian dinosaurs to birds. Shining Armor 6 Theodore Roosevelt, and key voice in the early 20th-century nature study The research also shows that and conservation movements. A Museum hall dedicated to the naturalist Microraptor’s tail fan, which was once Fieldwork in Extreme Environments 10 lies tucked to the side of the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians, showcasing thought to be a broad, teardrop-shaped Burroughs’ handwritten manuscripts, field glasses, and even his cane—all surface meant to help with flight, is actually Luminous Lures 12 reminders to those who walk and write in his footsteps that there is still much much narrower with two protruding feathers to be learned from nature. likely evolved for social interactions. This Next 14 “John Burroughs is timeless,” says Lisa Breslof of the Museum’s Education new finding suggests the importance of Department, who is also the secretary of the John Burroughs Association, display in the early evolution of feathers. Explore 18 which has been headquartered at the Museum since 1921. “He embodied the Museum’s mission of studying and understanding nature, and his legacy lives Watch a video interview with Mark Norell on Members 20 18 20 on in our research and education efforts.” amnh.org/news. Search for “microraptor.” Since 1926, the John Burroughs Association has awarded the John Seen 22 Burroughs Medal to authors who share Burroughs’ acute eye for nature, dedication to field study, and creative yet controlled prose style. The prestigious award has recognized various influential writers over the years. Rachel Carson, who received the award for The Sea Around Us in 1951, said in her acceptance speech, “In presenting me with the John Burroughs Medal you have welcomed me into an illustrious company, and you have given The Sea Around Us one of its most cherished honors.” Other medal winners have American Museum of Natural History ISSN 0194-6110 included Aldo Leopold for A Sand County Almanac, John McPhee for The Chairman Lewis W. Bernard USPS Permit #472-650 President Ellen V. Futter Vol. 37, No. 2, Spring 2012 Control of Nature, and Barry Lopez for Of Wolves and Men—though the judges Senior Vice President of Institutional Advancement, Rotunda is published quarterly by the Membership Office of the American make their decision based on an author’s entire body of nature writing. Strategic Planning, and Education Lisa J. Gugenheim Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY This spring, the John Burroughs Association will once again hold a private Chief Philanthropy Officer Peter W. Lyden 10024-5192. Phone: 212-769-5606. Website: amnh.org. Museum membership awards luncheon on Monday, April 2, to present the John Burroughs Medal, Director of Membership Louise Adler of $95 per year and higher includes a subscription to Rotunda. © 2012 American along with awards for an outstanding nature essay and natural history books Museum of Natural History. Periodical postage paid at New York, NY, and Magazine for children. The recipient of this year’s medal is Edward Hoagland for Sex and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: please send address changes Editor Eugenia V. Levenson the River Styx (Chelsea Green Publishing). to Rotunda, Membership Office, AMNH, at the above address. Contributors Whitney Barlow, Joan Kelly Bernard, Jill Hamilton, Elena Sansalone, Kendra Snyder, Ian Tattersall Please send questions, ideas, and feedback to . [email protected] For more about John Burroughs, visit amnh.org/news in April. Design Hinterland Photo 6 © Hiramatsu;T. image 12 © AMNH/5W Infographics, Velasco; P. photo 18 © AMNH; photo 20 © AMNH/D. Finnin Photos © AMNH; microraptor images © University of Texas/Jason Brougham This artistic reconstruction shows Microraptor’s crow-like sheen. Rotunda / Spring 2012 / AMNH.org 4 Close-Up at the Museum 5 Lysandra cormion Nabokov’s Type: Beetle-Wing The Talented Dr. Bassler In 1989, it was discovered that Lysandra cormion, Harvey Bassler made his mark as a geologist, pictured below, is a hybrid of two blue butterflies, Lysandra cormion Body Art: herpetologist, and anthropologist with deep Polyommatus coridon and Polyommatus daphnis. knowledge of the western Amazon, an area that But this does not preclude it from being a distinct In his poem “On Discovering a Butterfly,” Lolita author Vladimir Nabokov wrote Shuar Ear was largely unknown in his time. From 1921 through species—in fact, some new species evolve through of “the secluded stronghold” where specimens are kept “safe from creeping 1931, he journeyed by dugout and raft through hybridization. DNA analysis would be needed relatives and rust.” When Nabokov caught a frosty-blue butterfly in France Ornaments turbulent rivers and trekked in remote jungles to settle the question. in 1938, he brought it to the stronghold of the American Museum of Natural while mapping and surveying for oil, visiting History, where it still sits with a bright red label, crowning it the first and official When dressing for special occasions, the villages and collecting wildlife, fossils, and artifacts Globetrotters representative, or holotype, of Lysandra cormion. Shuar people of the upper Amazon adorn along the way. Bassler returned to the Amazon In 1945, Nabokov suggested that various New While Nabokov is most famous for his fancy prose style, he was also devoted to themselves with ornaments made from during World War II to help the U.S. government World Polyommatus blue butterflies had crossed lepidopterology, the study of moths and butterflies. After fleeing Russia in 1940, materials found in the surrounding rain forest: search for rubber sources. the Bering Strait from Asia and flown as far Nabokov started his American life volunteering in the Museum’s entomology feathers, plant fibers, animal parts, wood, and south as Chile millions of years ago. His theory, collections. He once told an interviewer, “It is not improbable that had there been stone. Along with colorful headdresses and A Beautiful Family long overlooked by the scientific community, no revolution in Russia, I would have devoted myself entirely to lepidopterology necklaces, men wear dramatic ear ornaments The ceiba borer beetle is a member of the was validated in 2011 when a team of scientists and never written any novels at all.” like those pictured here, which are made Buprestidae family of beetles, also known as performed DNA analysis that proved Nabokov The L. cormion specimen was only the beginning of the author’s contributions from toucan feathers, glass beads, and the metallic wood-boring or jewel beetles because was right all along.