Why would a Swedish paleobotanist go to the UCMP during a cold summer to study a collection of early Miocene plant fossils from Turkey instead of going to Turkey to enjoy a warm summer and great fieldwork? The reason - UCMP is home to a collection of fossil plants made over 40 years ago by Turkey native Dr. Baki Kasapligil (1918-1992). Born in Çankaca, Turkey, Baki was raised in Istanbul – his father was Turkish and his mother from the country of Georgia. As a young man he attended UC Berkeley … [Read more...] about In “Dr. K’s” footsteps: A glimpse of Turkey in the UCMP paleobotany collections
fossil
Paleo Video: Snail shell mystery
If you study snails, you’ve got to be patient. But two UCMP graduate students, Jann Vendetti and Scott Fay, used time-lapse photography to kick slow snails into high gear. They discovered some surprising behavior in snails living today—and in snails that lived millions of years in the past. The video features snails of two species: Kelletia kelletii, and Busycotypus canaliculatus (also known as Busycon canaliculatum). This group of animals is so numerous and diverse—in lifestyle, natural … [Read more...] about Paleo Video: Snail shell mystery
Marine vertebrate paleontology in Half Moon Bay
This week, we welcome guest blogger Robert Boessenecker. Bobby has been interested in paleontology since he was a kid. He grew up in the Bay Area; when he found Miocene shark teeth in the Santa Cruz Mountains, he was hooked. He first got involved with the UCMP when he was a high school freshman — he visited the museum with his dad, to interview UCMP Assistant Director Mark Goodwin for a school project. Bobby is now getting a Masters' degree at Montana State University. He studies the taphonomy … [Read more...] about Marine vertebrate paleontology in Half Moon Bay
Special exhibit: Fossil eggshell
This week, we've launched a new online special exhibit — Fossil eggshell: Fragments from the past. This is the best online source of information about fossil eggshell — you can't find this info anywhere else! This special exhibit was created in collaboration with Laura E. Wilson, Karen Chin and Emily S. Bray, from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Frankie D. Jackson from Montana State University. We can learn a lot from fossil eggshell. Using scanning electron microscopy, we can examine … [Read more...] about Special exhibit: Fossil eggshell
The game of prehistoric life
Evolve or Perish is a new board game – not from the makers of Monopoly, but from ETE, the Evolution of the Terrestrial Ecosystems Program, at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. UCMP Faculty Curators Cindy Looy and Ivo Duijnstee designed the game in collaboration with illustrator Hannah Bonner. Hannah is well-known for her cartoon paleobooks When Bugs Were Big and When Fish Got Feet. The three enjoy collaborating -- Hannah created the logo for Cindy's lab's web site, and she is … [Read more...] about The game of prehistoric life
Cal Day at the UCMP
Thanks for joining us on Cal Day! Here are some photos from a few of the UCMP's Cal Day events. At Fun with Fossils, visitors used microscopes to look for fossils. They picked through matrix collected at the Bug Creek Anthills in Montana. People found reptile vertebrae, fish scales… and one little girl found a dinosaur tooth! The courtyard of VLSB was buzzing as hundreds of visitors perused the Biodiversity Roadshow. This exhibit included specimens from many of the Berkeley Natural History … [Read more...] about Cal Day at the UCMP
Visit the UCMP on Cal Day!
Join us at the UCMP on Cal Day, Saturday April 17! Events run from 9am to 4pm; check the schedule for a full listing of activities. Here are just a few of the Cal Day events at the UCMP: ~ Take a tour of the collections with a museum scientist. The collections are open to the public just one day a year, so this is your chance! Tours are held throughout the day, but tickets are first-come, first- served, and they go fast — come early to pick up your free tickets in advance. ~ Visit the special … [Read more...] about Visit the UCMP on Cal Day!
X-ray analysis of fossil whale baleen
Two years ago I approached UCMP Assistant Director Mark Goodwin and asked if he had any room for some student help in his research. I had no previous experience in paleontology, just a passion for learning about dinosaurs and biology. Now, as a third-year graduate student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, I work on a variety of projects with Mark and the UCMP. For my own research, I study the micro- and nano-scale features in fossil bone with electron microscopy. I have … [Read more...] about X-ray analysis of fossil whale baleen
Fossils found fortuitously
Not all fossils are discovered by paleontologists combing the earth on special expeditions. Many fossils are found by accident — particularly during construction projects. Impressive fossils, like whales, mammoths, and sloths, have been found while digging foundations for buildings, leveling land for highways, and excavating subway tunnels. This spring, the UCMP blog will take you on a tour of Bay Area construction sites, past and present, to show you some of the fossils underfoot in the … [Read more...] about Fossils found fortuitously
Fish in the UCMP
It is pretty unusual to see fish in the UCMP. It’s not that we don’t have any fish specimens — we have over a million fossilized fish fragments. It’s just that none of our museum scientists focus on fish, and so the museum’s fish parts tend to stay in the cabinets. But this past summer, Ralph Stearley of Calvin College visited the UCMP, and he did a little fishing. Ralph pulled some spectacular specimens from the murky depths of the cabinets. The two specimens shown here are exceptional — … [Read more...] about Fish in the UCMP
How many mammoths?
A few weeks ago, the UCMP welcomed visitor Jake Enk, a graduate student from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Jake visited the UCMP to saw off chunks of fossil mammoth teeth. Yes, you read that right. He took a small saw, sterilized the blade with bleach, and sliced off a small piece of tooth. Even after tens of thousands of years, mammoth teeth still contain DNA. Jake will put a little piece of the tooth in a test tube, and use a series of chemicals to purify the mammoth DNA. He does … [Read more...] about How many mammoths?
Lupé’s story, part 2: Prototyping the mammoth exhibit
UCMP graduate student Kaitlin Maguire is working with the Children’s Discovery Museum in San Jose to develop a new exhibit about the life of Lupé, a mammoth fossil that was found in the nearby Guadalupe River. This is the second in a series of blogs about Lupé and the new exhibit. Read Kaitlin’s first Lupé blog here. Development of the Lupé Story Exhibition is moving along quickly as exhibit ideas come to life in prototyping labs, in which the development team at the Children’s Discovery … [Read more...] about Lupé’s story, part 2: Prototyping the mammoth exhibit
Collaborating, with the help of the collections
A few weeks ago, we blogged about the discovery of a new species of dinosaur, Tawa hallae. Two UCMP alums, Sterling Nesbitt and Randy Irmis, described this new dino in the journal Science. A few weeks ago, Sterling, Randy, and two of their Tawa co-authors, Nate Smith and Alan Turner, visited the UCMP. They've come from Texas, Utah, Illinois, and New York, to work together and delve into the UCMP's collections. Along with UCMP Faculty Curator Kevin Padian and graduate student Sarah Werning, they … [Read more...] about Collaborating, with the help of the collections
Conifer evolution workshop
If there were a Guinness Book of World Records for conifers, California would be one of the top record holders: the Golden State has the tallest conifer, the most massive conifer, and the oldest conifer. Learn much more than just conifer trivia at an upcoming workshop, The Origin and Evolution of Conifers, co-hosted by the UCMP and The Jepson Herbarium. Through talks, discussions, and a hands-on lab, you'll learn all about the origin, evolution, and diversification of this unique plant group. … [Read more...] about Conifer evolution workshop
Fossils provide baseline for mammal diversity
As more and more species go extinct, biologists wonder whether we are on the verge of the earth's sixth mass extinction. A new study, by Marc Carrasco and Tony Barnosky of the UCMP and Russell Graham of Pennsylvania State University, uses the fossil record to examine mammal biodiversity in North America over the past 30 million years. Carrasco and his collaborators used data from two fossil databases, MioMap and Faunmap, to determine the baseline of mammal diversity before humans arrived in … [Read more...] about Fossils provide baseline for mammal diversity
New dino described by UCMP alums
Last week, two University of California Museum of Paleontology alums, Sterling Nesbitt and Randall Irmis, described a new species of dinosaur in the journal Science. The new species, Tawa hallae, sheds light on early dinosaur evolution — and the importance of the UCMP's collections. Tawa's bones were first found by hikers in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, in 2004. Around that time, Sterling and Randy were doing fieldwork at the nearby Petrified Forest National Park in northern Arizona, excavating … [Read more...] about New dino described by UCMP alums
Ardi is Breakthrough of the Year
Ardipithecus ramidus has been named Science magazine's Breakthrough of the Year. At 4.4 million years old, Ardi is the oldest hominid skeleton. This fall, a series of 11 papers about Ardi and her paleoenvironment were published in Science. UCMP Faculty Curator and Human Evolution Research Center (HERC) director Tim White was one of the lead scientists on the project, which involved an international team of researchers, including UCMP Faculty Curator Leslea Hlusko. To learn more about Ardi, … [Read more...] about Ardi is Breakthrough of the Year
No backbones allowed
The UCMP Invertebrates Collection includes over 31,000 catalogued specimens! Corals, crabs, bivalves, snails, ammonites… both fossil and recent — if it doesn't have a backbone, it's in this collection. I am a UCMP and Integrative Biology graduate student and have been assisting with curation of the Invertebrate Collection. I catalogue and label specimens, process loan requests, manage the Invertebrates Collection database, curate private collections that are donated to the UCMP, and do numerous … [Read more...] about No backbones allowed
Paleo Video: A modern day dinosaur extinction
During the Cretaceous, dome-headed pachycephalosaurs roamed through what is now the Hell Creek Formation, covering parts of Montana, Wyoming, and North and South Dakota. But UCMP Curator Mark Goodwin and Museum of the Rockies Curator Jack Horner argue that there were fewer pachycephalosaur species than we thought. Mark and Jack suggest that two species, Dracorex hogwartsia and Stygimoloch spinifer, are actually juveniles and teenagers of the species Pachycephalosaurus wyomingensis. Learn about … [Read more...] about Paleo Video: A modern day dinosaur extinction
South American crocodilians
Daniel Fortier visited the UCMP for two weeks this summer, investigating the taxonomy of South American crocodilians — crocodiles, caymans, and gharials. Daniel is from Brazil, where crocodiles are fairly common. He is a Ph.D. student at the Universidade Federal Do Rio Grande Do Sul in Porto Alegre, and is spending the year at the University of Iowa, in Iowa City. He is using fossils and modern skeletal materials to learn about crocodilian evolutionary history, places of origin, dispersal … [Read more...] about South American crocodilians
Flat Stanley visits the UCMP
The UCMP has hosted several Flat Stanleys this year, as part of the Year of Science 2009. Flat Stanley is a fictional character from a children’s book, written by Jeff Brown in 1964. In the original story, Stanley is a little boy who is flattened when a bulletin board above his bed falls on top of him. He finds that, in his new flattened state, he is able to have many great adventures by being mailed from place to place in an envelope. Inspired by this story, the Flat Stanley project began as a … [Read more...] about Flat Stanley visits the UCMP
Dinosaurs decoded
UCMP Assistant Director Mark Goodwin's research on Triceratops is featured on National Geographic Channel's video of the week. Triceratops are named for the three horns that protrude from the skull — and as Mark and his colleague Jack Horner have discovered, those three horns tell a fascinating story about the growth and development, and potentially the behavior, of these dinosaurs. The National Geographic video is an excerpt from an hour-long television program, Dinosaurs Decoded. Be sure to … [Read more...] about Dinosaurs decoded
The Bancroft Library’s Darwin exhibit
UCMP and the other Berkeley Natural History Museums are well represented on a new exhibit in the Bancroft Library — Darwin and the Evolution of a Theory. We had a special tour of the exhibit last week thanks to UCMP Faculty Curator – and exhibit co-curator – Kevin Padian. The exhibit is stunning. There are rare books and manuscripts from the Bancroft Library and other campus collections, as well as numerous specimens, including a South American ground sloth fossil from the UCMP, Galapagos … [Read more...] about The Bancroft Library’s Darwin exhibit
Human evolution in the headlines
This week's big paleo story centers on Ardipithecus ramidus, a species of hominid that lived in the woodlands of Ethiopia, 4.4 million years ago. UCMP Faculty Curator and Human Evolution Research Center (HERC) director Tim White is co-director of the Middle Awash Project, the team of researchers that excavated and studied the fossils. The team includes UCMP Faculty Curator and HERC Associate Faculty member Leslea Hlusko. Find out more about the discovery: Science magazine has 11 papers … [Read more...] about Human evolution in the headlines
Paleo Video: Kaitlin Maguire at the John Day Fossil Beds
Watch this video and join UCMP graduate student Kaitlin Maguire on a field trip to the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument! After visiting the park last spring, Kaitlin decided it's the perfect place to do her dissertation research. "When you do a field project for paleontology, especially if you're looking for fossils, you never know what you're going to find — you never know if there's going to be enough data," says Kaitlin. But paleontologists from the UCMP and elsewhere have been … [Read more...] about Paleo Video: Kaitlin Maguire at the John Day Fossil Beds
A summer studying snails in the Caribbean
I am a graduate student with the UCMP and the Department of Integrative Biology at Berkeley, and I study the biogeography, conservation biology, and microevolution of molluscs. From July through August of 2009, I traveled to nine islands in the Eastern Caribbean looking for Cittarium pica, a large, marine gastropod, or snail. This species has many common names, including West Indian Topshell, burgao, burgos, cingua, magpie shell, wilke, and “whelk”, which is why knowing the scientific name is so … [Read more...] about A summer studying snails in the Caribbean
T. rex gets a manicure
A few months ago, the UCMP’s Tyrannosaurus rex broke a nail. The right claw mysteriously went missing. We needed to replace it, but obviously the standard-issue drugstore press-on nail just wouldn’t do. We had to re-construct a new right claw by making a copy of the intact left claw. Danny Anduza, a UCMP volunteer, carried out the claw restoration. First, he mixed up a rubbery substance and painted it over the T. rex’s left claw, to make a mold. Once the rubber hardened, he carefully sliced it … [Read more...] about T. rex gets a manicure
Super-sized sinuses
David Dufeau, a graduate student from Ohio University, spent a few days at the UCMP this July, studying the development and evolution of the middle-ear sinuses in archosaurs — birds and crocodilians. He explains that the sinuses in these animals were so greatly expanded that they completely surrounded the braincase. By understanding these super-sized sinuses in the archosaurs, David hopes to infer something about the nature of auditory receptivity. Maybe the sinuses expanded as adaptations … [Read more...] about Super-sized sinuses
Rudists
Not to be rude, but what in the world is a rudist? Well, rudists are invertebrates, and they lived in the world’s oceans during the late Jurassic and the Cretaceous, about 150-65 million years ago; they are now extinct. They are bivalves — the name means “two shells.” Today’s familiar bivalves, clams and mussels, have two shells that are more or less symmetrical. But rudists were a bit unusual: their two shells were very different from each other. One shell was either conical or coiled, … [Read more...] about Rudists
Pterosaur landing made quite an impression
Pterosaurs, flying reptiles that lived from the Late Triassic until the end of the Cretaceous Period, are known from their fossilized skeletons and their footprints, which show that at least some of the pterodactyloid pterosaurs walked on all four limbs. Now, one rare set of footprints tells us how these pterosaurs landed on the ground. Kevin Padian, curator at the UCMP and professor of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley, just published a paper on a pterosaur landing trackway, which his … [Read more...] about Pterosaur landing made quite an impression
Lupé’s story: A mammoth’s journey from the ground to a museum
In 2005, Roger Castillo found the fossilized bones of a juvenile mammoth in the Guadalupe River near San Jose. Roger was walking his dog along the river, which he did frequently as a volunteer for the Guadalupe-Coyote Resource Conservation District, when he saw the tusks of the mammoth's skull poking out of the soil along the riverbank. At the time he wasn't exactly sure what he was looking at but recognized their importance and contacted the UCMP. The fossilized mammoth has been named Lupé, … [Read more...] about Lupé’s story: A mammoth’s journey from the ground to a museum
One more Moropus
This summer, Carolyn Rounds visited the UCMP to study our Moropus fossils. Carolyn is a grad student in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. And Moropus is an extinct horse-like creature, part of a taxonomic group called chalicotheres. Chalicotheres are pretty unique — they had claws instead of hooves. They didn’t use their claws to rip apart prey; they were herbivores, and they probably used their claws to pull vegetation down from trees. … [Read more...] about One more Moropus
Meet a mosasaur
Imagine you are driving down I-5, just north of Bakersfield, in California’s hot and dusty central valley. Except that it’s the Cretaceous Period, 80-65 million years ago, and the central valley is actually an inland sea. And instead of seeing cows standing by the side of the highway, you see mosasaurs swimming through the salty water. Mosasaurs were marine reptiles that lived during the late Cretaceous, in oceans all over the world. They had fins on their long bodies, and sharp teeth in their … [Read more...] about Meet a mosasaur