Tidbits

Congratulations!
To Audrey Aronowsky who received the Best Student Paper Award at the American Malacological Society meeting in July;
To Sarah Reiboldt who was invited to present a paper at the International Brachiopod Congress in London;
To the Paleontological Institute and Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences (PIN), with whom UCMP has maintained an exchange program and collaboration for the past decade, and is celebrating its 70th anniversary October 19-20 at the Institute and Museum in Moscow. Congratulations to our sister institution and best wishes for a happy birthday!

Welcome!
To Jacqueline Moustakas, a new student from Boston University, who joins the Padian and Clemens labs.

Wedding Bells!
Rather than spend the summer doing field work, two of our graduate students opted for marriage instead. Special congratulations to the happy couples, Samantha Hopkins and Edward Davis and Jim Kurpius and Meredith Bauer.

  Dick Spight with Dave Lindberg and Kevin Padian
Dick Spight (left) discusses the Icarosaurus with UCMP Director David Lindberg and Faculty Curator Kevin Padian. (photo by Colleen Whitney)

Rare Fossil Saved
Dick Spight, the retired East Bay businessman who purchased a rare fossil specimen from Butterfields auction house in San Francisco this past August, visited UCMP recently with his new prize. The fossil of Icarosaurus siefkeri, the only known specimen of this Late Triassic winged reptile, will be returned to its original home at the American Museum of Natural History where it had been for 28 years before the owner demanded it back so that he could sell it. Spight hated to see such a valuable fossil disappear into some private collection, so with some advice from Kevin Padian, he decided to buy it and return it to the AMNH.
Thanks Dick, for giving UCMP a look at the Icarosaurus and for ensuring that researchers will be able to study the fossil for years to come.

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October, 2000