MAY 2011 ART& ANIMALS in THIS ISSUE Sunday with Celebrated at Morrill Hall April 2 a Scientist
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NEWS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA STATE MUSEUM theMammoth MAY 2011 ART& ANIMALS IN THIS ISSUE Sunday with Celebrated at Morrill Hall April 2 a Scientist The 3rd annual Colorful Creature Day was held April 2 at Morrill Hall. Over 1,100 visitors of all ages came out for this fun-filled afternoon of live animals and hands-on art activities in the Museum. Read more about this event on page 12! Museum Memories ..........................6-8 A Walk Through Time .......................9-11 Colorful Creature Day .......................12 Agate Fossil Beds: New Fossil Find Marks 30 Years of Discovery........... 14-15 Sunday with a Scientist ...................16-17 Trailside Turns 50! ...........................18 & MORE The Mammoth is available in color online! friendsofthemuseum.org MORRILL FRIENDS UNIVERSITY OF BOARD OF DIRECTORS NEBRASKA HALL Mark A. Brohman, President STATE MUSEUM STAFF CALENDAR Lois Mayo, Vice President EX-OFFICIO AT A GLANCE David Rowe, Treasurer Priscilla C. Grew Director: Priscilla C. Grew Diane Pratt, Secretary Mike Madcharo Associate Director: Mark Harris Karen Amen Marcia Hollestelle ADVISORY COUNCIL Informal Science Education: Judy Diamond, Curator June 19 Michael Leite Judy Diamond Amy Spiegel Keely Rennie-Tucker Connie Pejsar 1:30-4:30 p.m. Lynn Sobotka Norm Smith Sunday with a Scientist Education Coordinator: Kathy French Diann Sorensen Mike Zeleny Museum Associates: Ann Cusick “Tissue Mechanics: Mark Sorensen Cindy Loope Engineering Better Heart Mel Thornton ASHFALL CHAPTER Annie Mumgaard Health” Natasha Vavra Mark Brogie, Ina Van der Veen Art Zygielbaum President July 17 Research Partnerships Coordinator: Brett Ratcliffe 1:30-4:30 p.m. Sunday with a Scientist Anthropology: Alan Osborn, Curator CONTACT INFORMATION NAGPRA/Collections Assistant: Susan Curtis “Fish” Director’s Office (402) 472-3779 Nebraska Archaeological Survey: Alan Osborn August 21 Museum Information Line (402) 472-2642 School Program Reservations (402) 472-6302 Botany: Robert Kaul, Curator 1:30-4:30 p.m. Friends Office (402) 472-3779 Collection Manager: Thomas Labedz Sunday with a Scientist Mueller Planetarium (402) 472-2641 Collections Assistant: Linda Rader “Climate Change” Nebraska Hall Office (402) 472-2643 Ashfall Fossil Beds (402) 893-2000 Entomology: Brett Ratcliffe, Curator September 18 Trailside Museum (308) 665-2929 Collection Manager: M.J. Paulsen 1:30-4:30 p.m. Geology: R.M. (Matt) Joeckel, Curator Sunday with a Scientist Museum Geological Specialist: Karl Baumgarten “Plants” www.museum.unl.edu Parasitology: Scott Gardner, Curator September 30 Collection Manager: Gabor Racz 5-7:30 p.m. Grand Opening: CONNECT WITH US! Vertebrate Paleontology: Ross Secord, Curator “First Peoples of the Plains: Collection Manager: R. George Corner Preparators: Gregory Brown Traditions Shaped by the Robert Skolnick Land and Sky” MORRILL HALL Ellen Stepleton (Current Friends will receive Highway Salvage Paleontologist: Shane Tucker invitations by mail.) South of 14th and Vine Streets (402) 472-2642 Highway Salvage Preparator: Nicholas Famoso University of Nebraska October 16 Lincoln, Nebraska Zoology: Patricia Freeman, Curator Collection Manager: Thomas Labedz 1:30-4:30 p.m. Open Year Around Sunday with a Scientist Monday-Saturday: 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Affiliated Courtesy, Adjunct, and Emeritus Faculty: “Fossils” Thursdays: 9:30 a.m. - 8 p.m. (Open Late!) Anthropology: Thomas Myers Sundays: 1:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. Entomology: Mary Liz Jameson October 26-27 Closed Easter, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Geology: Robert Diffendal, Samuel Treves 5--9 p.m. December 24-25, and January 1 Invertebrate Paleontology: David Watkins “Fright at the Museum” Planetarium Closed Mondays & Husker home football Parasitology: John Janovy, Mary Lou Pritchard A spook-tacular Halloween game Saturdays Vertebrate Paleontology: Michael Voorhies, event for families at Robert Hunt, Jr. Morrill Hall! ASHFALL FOSSIL BEDS Zoology: Hugh Genoways, Paul Johnsgard 86930 517 Avenue (402) 893-2000 Ashfall Fossil Beds Superintendent: Rick Otto museum.unl.edu Royal, NE 68773 Museum Specialist: Sandy Mosel for more event details! Located seven miles north of Highway 20 between Royal and Orchard, Nebraska. Trailside Museum Staff Assistants: Susan Veskerna Pattie Norman Open Seasonally. Accounting Clerk: Judy Ray For schedule, visit ashfall.unl.edu Discovery Shop Manager: Marisa Kardell Exhibit Design Specialist: Ron Pike Graphics Design Specialist: Joel Nielsen TRAILSIDE MUSEUM Mueller Planetarium Supervisor: Jack Dunn PO Box 462 (308) 665-2929 Public Relations Coordinator, Friends Liaison, Crawford, NE 69339 & Mammoth Newsletter Editor: Dana Ludvik Located on Highway 20 at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. Public Service Associate: Linda Beran Research Collections Staff Secretary: Gail Littrell Open Seasonally. Scientific Illustrator: Angie Fox For schedule, visit trailside.unl.edu 2 T H E M A M M O T H Friends of the University of Nebraska State Museum FROM THE DIRECTOR in Japan. The doll has been in the Museum for more than 80 years as a gift from children of Japan in 1927. As the direct result of cooperative activities in exhibiting the doll, Mie University signed an agreement with UNL in December 2010 to promote academic collaboration between the two institutions. In spite of the tragic and overwhelming events in Japan that accompanied the March 11, 2011 giant earthquake and tsunami which disrupted plans for their initial visit, our friends from Mie Prefecture were able to reschedule their trip to the first week of May. Our eight visitors included both Mie University officials and representatives of Kawai Elementary School who came to present a replica doll, “Senka,” to Prescott Elementary School in Lincoln. We attended a wonderful assembly at Prescott at which all the school’s students participated in singing songs for our Mie guests. It is amazing to see how far the influence of “Miss Mie” has extended, and "Barney" gives Priscilla Grew a Colorful Creature kiss. (Photo by Cody Steward) it is an honor for the Museum to have served as the catalyst for UNL’s new cooperative academic program with Mie University. It’s never boring being Director of the University of Finally, one more first-time experience for me – on April Nebraska State Museum of Natural History. There’s always 5, I shipped red water bottles and T-shirts with the Museum’s a chance for a first-of-a-lifetime experience. Thanks to Peggy logo to Canada for “product placement” in a Smithsonian Steward, her son Cody, and the Star City Llama and Alpaca video being shot in Venezuela. Jason Head, our new Curator 4-H Club, on April 2nd I received my very first kiss from a of Vertebrate Paleontology will come to UNL in July from the llama, right in front of the Morrill Hall steps. “Barney” was University of Toronto-Mississauga. Jason studies giant fossil much friendlier than I had expected, but then I had never snakes, a first for us! Jason was leaving for Venezuela where he actually met a llama before. My chance came on Colorful was to be filmed “measuring anacondas” (!), and we wanted Creature Day, the subject of the cover story of this issue. I to be sure that the world will know where he’s from when he hope you also had a chance to meet and greet some of our appears on TV later this year— wearing a red Museum T-shirt furry, feathery, wiggly, and scaly friends that day! and Nebraska cap. We will have a profile article on Jason in a I hope you, too, have been experiencing some “firsts” forthcoming issue of the Mammoth. during this 140th anniversary year for the State Museum. Jason is joining our team of Curators who do extensive Maybe you’ve had a happy “high five” from “Archie,” the international research. It was another great honor for Museum’s first mascot – who participated in the finish-line the Museum when Brett Ratcliffe, Museum Curator of festivities for the Lincoln Marathon on May 1. Perhaps a Entomology and Research Partnerships Coordinator, youngster in your family recorded a weather broadcast under was recognized as the 2011 Phi Beta Delta UNL Faculty the lights in our first ever “green screen” technology studio International Scholar of the Year. operated by Earth and Atmospheric Sciences faculty members during Dinosaurs and Disasters Day on February 5. Maybe — Priscilla C. Grew, Director you happened to notice the fossil of the American Lion from the Pleistocene (Ice Ages) on display for the first time in the special exhibit, “Life in the Past Lane,” highlighting our cooperative Highway Salvage Paleontology program with the Nebraska Department of Roads. Had you known that lions larger than today’s African lions once roamed the Nebraska plains? Or perhaps a Museum visit was the first time you ever got the feeling that frogs have personalities – as shown by the amazing facial expressions captured by National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore in his exhibit “Amphibians: Vibrant and Vanishing.” The Museum has accomplished another “first” – the first time to our knowledge that an object in the Museum’s collections has stimulated the negotiation and signing of a cooperative agreement between the University of Nebraska and a university overseas. This special development grew out of our celebration in July 2010 of the homecoming of our Japanese Friendship Doll, “Miss Mie”, after her conservation Jason Head, the Museum’s new Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology May 2011 3 FROM THE PRESIDENT GREETINGS FRIENDS MEMBERS! School will be getting out soon, and a family trip to Morrill Hall may be just the thing to get the summer off on the right foot. Morrill Hall is open late on Thursday nights from 4:30 – 8:00 p.m. The Sundays with a Scientist continue to be very popular and are held from 1:30 – 4:00 p.m. at Morrill Hall on the third Sunday of each month. Don’t forget about the wonderful planetarium shows and the gift shop while you are there.