March 2014 WINTER 2015 RESEARCH & WINTER 2014 COLLECTIONS Collection News History It’s a Wrap at the Petersen London, includes more than 150 costumes including a Mary In the previous issue of Pickford dress from Little Annie this newsletter the History Rooney lent by the NHM’s History Department reported that Department. inventory work was taking place to prepare the return from the On October 21st Seaver Center Petersen Automotive Museum of Collections Managers Brent Riggs hundreds of NHM artifacts which and John Cahoon attended the have been on loan for the past opening of “Light & Noir: Exiles twenty years. Since the Petersen and Émigrés in Hollywood, closed for renovation on October 1933–1950” exhibition at the 19th, the History Department Skirball Cultural Center. The began packing. Shown here exhibition explores how the are Research Assistant Kristen experiences of German-speaking Hayashi and Anthropology exiles and émigrés who fled Nazi Collections Manager KT Hajeian, Europe influenced the classic inside the Gas Station diorama at films of Hollywood’s Golden the Petersen, wrapping the Whiz Age. The Seaver Center loaned a Auto Care Products display case poster from the 1941 film “The formerly on display in the Gas Hitler Gang.” Station. The Seaver Center also loaned Seaver Center Collections several artifacts to the William Managers Betty Uyeda and John S. Hart Museum for an exhibit Cahoon attended the October celebrating Hart’s 150th birthday 1st opening of the “Hollywood December 6th. Included were a Costume” exhibit at the letter from his friend Wyatt Earp historic May Company Building and an illustrated letter to Hart at Wilshire and Fairfax, the from his good friend Charles future location of the Academy Russell. Shown is a page from Museum of Motion Pictures. the Russell letter. The exhibit, organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, WINTER 2014 Herpetology Field Work Tim Higham from UC Riverside and Lars Schmitz from Claremont McKenna College visited the Herpetology Collection in late October to examine wet and skeletal specimens of geckos. They are examining how eye size and morphology change with transitions between nocturnality and diurnality. Jeff Molin, a graduate student from Cal Poly Pomona, visited the collection five times during the Fall to examine skeletal specimens of several local desert lizards. Jeff is studying how skull morphology varies across species with different dietary preferences. Rancho La Brea Marine Biodiversity For the first time in seven years, Research Associate Christopher full time excavation took place Shaw along with a crew of staff Center and Echinoderms in Pit 91 at Rancho La Brea this from the Arizona Western College in past summer. Beginning on June Yuma and volunteers went on their 28th and continuing through to semiannual expedition to El Golfo September 7th 2014, visitors to de Santa Clara, Sonora, Mexico in Hancock Park and the George C. November. They explored three Page Museum had the opportunity canyons that had not previously to view activity in Pit 91 and see been prospected and discovered new displays of the history and a couple of microfossil sites for discoveries in the refurbished Pit the next trip. They collected about 91 viewing station. The reactivating 100 specimens and of notable of Pit 91 is part of the new Tar Pits experience for visitors to Hancock Park. Volunteers Cecilio Garcia and Lucy Filippone joined the Research and Collections staff at Rancho La Brea for the summer as Pit 91 excavators and work Under the guidance of Adam Wall was supervised by Gary Takeuchi. and Kathy Omura, the demolition The successful field season was interest is this Felis rexroadensis and construction of the Marine highlighted by the recovery of over right dentary (catalog number Invertebrate collection room lab space a hundred fossils mostly birds, but AWC19792) photographed here. has been completed. After a long 28 also included lizards and rodents. This was discovered by volunteer years of making do, the space has Nina Masuda. finally been fully renovated and a new purple fume hood for processing collection material has been installed. This new world-class collection facility provides the necessary amenities for the efficient curation of our wet collections as well as a vibrant and organized space for viewing our outstanding collection material. 2 WINTER 2014 Herpetology Recent fieldwork in Herpetology student Hayden Kirschbaum, who has focused on urban populations. is working with Greg on these On October 11th, Greg, Research lizards, Hayden’s father Kenneth Associate Bobby Espinoza, and brother Avery, Avery’s friend and three CSUN graduate or Jack, UCLA undergraduates Stevie undergraduate students travelled to Kennedy Gold and Danielle Tran, Simi Valley to follow up on a report Saddleback College Students of Mediterranean House Geckos. Rachelle Brown and Brett Schiller, They found numerous individuals, and local lizard fan Jim Hall. The making this the first Mediterranean group collected a large sample of House Gecko population recorded wall lizards that were then sent for Ventura County. to Dr. Heather Liwanag of Adelphi University in New York. Heather Greg, Bobby, and Bobby’s son Max and Greg are working together conducted another gecko hunt to examine morphological and on Oct. 18th. This time they went physiological differences among to Orange County following up several introduced Italian Wall on a report by a citizen scientist. Lizard populations in the U.S. Although the highlight of the evening was documenting the The last bit of recent fieldwork first Mediterranean House Gecko fun occurred on November 5th. population for Orange County, the Following a report of an unusual most excitement of the evening was “bird” call to Kimball Garrett, when two Orange County sheriff’s, Kimball correctly identified the with guns drawn, approached Greg “bird” as a Coqui Frog and turned thinking the group was stealing the info over to Greg. Coqui Frogs copper wiring from the recently are a restricted species in California closed car dealership that the so Greg worked with the California geckos called home. A bag full of Department of Fish and Wildlife geckos and 8-year old Max helped (CDFW) to conduct a survey of the diffuse the situation quickly. site. As a result, Greg and a great group of volunteers visited the On Oct 25th, after Haunted Museum, Torrance nursery on a warm Fall Greg, Bobby and Research Associate evening to work with a CDFW Game Tom Wake returned to Orange Warden and a CDFW Biologist in County to check on two other recent search of the frogs. The frogs were reports from citizen scientists about challenging to locate in the nursery geckos. Greg changed out of his vegetation, but with a big group T: Size variation in nonnative Coqui Frogs collected in Los Haunted Museum costume and into of helpers, 18 frogs were found. Angeles County. In the upper left are several adult males; in an NHM t-shirt, but Tom and Bobby The volunteers included UCLA the lower right are several recent hatchlings including the were still in costume as the three smallest individual found that was 8 mm long and weighed undergraduates Stevie Kennedy 0.03 g. caught geckos at two new localities. Gold and Nicolas Lou, Saddleback Together, these three populations College undergraduates Brett B: NHM Research Associate and UCLA Archaeologist Tom are the first records of established Wake holding a bag of Mediterranean House Geckos. Schiller and Rachelle Brown, Because this survey took place immediately at the close of Mediterranean House Gecko Hayden and Kenneth Kirschbaum, Haunted Museum, Tom is still in his costume, the uniform of populations in Orange County, and Glen Yoshida, the citizen the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team. and all result from observations by scientist who worked with Greg citizen scientists. to document the first Indo-Pacific Prior to the gecko hunt on October Geckos in L. A. County. As a result of 11th, Greg was joined by nine field these efforts, the group documented assistants to help collect Italian the first established population of Wall Lizards in Coastal San Pedro. Coqui Frogs in L.A. County, which is The group included high-school also the second population known in the state. 3 WINTER 2014 Dinosaur Institute Vertebrate Paleontology Gansus zheni In September and in collaboration T: Field camp is nestled in a canyon in central Photo: S. Abramowicz with Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xorkoli Basin, among deep red lake deposits Maureen Walsh traveled to Beijing, that are richly fossiliferous. The basin is flanked curator Xiaoming Wang took part in by the Altyn Range (in background). China in mid-September to prepare an expedition to the Xorkoli Basin specimens of a new species of Early in northern Tibetan Plateau, north B: Dr. Samuel A. McLeod holds a fossil fish from Cretaceous bird formally named Messel that was found on the day of our visit to China. Vertebrate fossils preserved the quarry. Gansus zheni. Dr. Chiappe and a in this basin are of middle to late collaborative team of scientists Eocene age (about 45 to 35 million from the Beijing Museum of Natural years ago) and represent the first History and the Chinese Academy of such fossils found in the Tibetan Geological Sciences described this Plateau. Discoveries this year new, very advanced Early Cretaceous include limb bones of a giant rhino bird in the international journal (this group, known as indricotheres, Zootaxa on November 14, 2014. includes the largest ever land mammal in the world), hip bones of a titanothere (rhino-sized odd- toed animal), as well as a mystery skeleton that defies the wisdom of field workers. Dr. Samuel A. McLeod, Collections Manager, Vanessa R. Rhue, Assistant Collections Manager, and Cara L. Burres-Jones, LACM Research Associate and Associate Professor at Pasadena City College, traveled Dr.