More than a Dodo

Trace fossils are a record of life; examples are footprints, bite marks, and burrows. The earliest trace fossils are thought to have been produced by an amoeba and are about 2,000 to 1,800 million years old. A special form of taxonomy (classification) has been created for trace fossils based on behaviour as it’s rare to find a body fossil preserved at the end of its trace and different organisms may produce identical tracks. Originally five behaviours were recognised but this number has now been expanded. (To find out more a good starting point is here).

In this blog we are looking at boring trace fossils. No, not yawn boring! I mean the types of holes made by different animals in shells for predation, shelter and attachment. These will definitely not make you yawn. We are going to explore the three types of trace fossil that can be found in Charles Lyell’s collection. These represent two different types of behaviour and therefore taxonomy: Praedichnia, defined as “trace fossils that show evidence of predatory behaviour, such as borings and bite marks” and Domichnia defined as “dwelling structures reflecting the life position of the organism that created it”.

Gastropod Borings

Gastropods have been boring into shells in the same way for the past 100,000 years. There are two main families of predatory snails, the Naticidae and the Muricidae. They can be identified to family level by the shape of the hole they create. The predation attempts are deemed successful when the hole has fully penetrated the shell.

The Naticidae create holes with slanted walls by secreting acid and scraping with their radula (rasp-like structure of tiny teeth used by molluscs for feeding). They feed on bivalves, scaphopods (tusk shells), and gastropods (including other naticids). The size of the holes they create varies depending on the species. This family evolved in the Late Triassic/ Early Jurassic and occur worldwide.

The Muricidae create holes with straight walls by using a softening secretion and scraping with their radula. They feed on bivalves, barnacles, and gastropods. This family evolved in the Early Cretaceous.

Sponge Borings

Unlike the gastropod borings, sponges do not create their borings to feed. Instead they use the shells they have bored into for shelter. Cliona celata is a boring sponge which creates holes up to 5 mm in diameter in mollusc shells and limestone. They use acid to bore into their chosen home. If they bore into a shell the animal usually dies because it has lost its protection as it is structurally weakened.

In The Boring-Sponge, Cliona written by Joseph Leidy in 1889 he describes the way “in which [the sponge] occupies the shells of oysters and clams with its sensitive papillae [small fleshy bumps] … protruding from the perforations of the surface of the shell”. Sometimes the sponge can outgrow the shell its living in, using other material from around it. This massive sponge was familiar to the fisherman of Beach Haven New Jersey, USA “under the name of Bay-Pumpkin ; often growing to the size of one’s head.”

Bryozoan Borings

Bryozoans are filter feeding aquatic invertebrates commonly known as moss animals. Some bryozoans encrust surfaces. This encrustation can cause a pattern of small pits to be etched into the substrate. To see the pits you need a microscope as they are approximately 0.1-0.9mm in diameter.

Originally this group of trace fossils were called Leptichnus, from the Greek leptos meaning “flimsy, delicate, subtle”, however this was found to be the name of a gastropod species. To keep the original meaning of the name, the name Finichnus was proposed, from the Greek finos meaning “fine, delicate”.

24 January 201717 April 2018

More than a Dodo2 Comments

‘Flight’ of the Dodo

By Mark Carnall, Life Collections manager

The museum holds the only remaining soft tissue of the extinct dodo known anywhere in the world. The partially dissected skin of the head and scales from the feet of a single dodo represent one of natural history’s most iconic specimens. In fact, it is so tied to the museum’s identity and history that we use the dodo as our logo and it is even incorporated in the name of this blog.

Although the dodo head had been at Oxford University since the formation of the original Ashmolean Museum in the 17th century, it wasn’t really until the 19th century that the specimen really became celebrated.

Around this time, publications confirmed the extinction of the dodo from the island of Mauritius, where it was endemic. To capitalise on the rising interest in the animal, Ashmolean Museum Keeper John Duncan commissioned a number of casts of the Oxford Dodo head to give to, and exchange with, other museums.

One of the earliest of these casts was presented to the British Museum in 1828; later casts are recorded as being sent or exchanged with leading scientists of the time, as well as with Leiden Museum and the Royal College of Surgeons.

From these original and later casts further casts and models were presumably made, and eventually, dodo specimens spread to virtually every major natural history museum in the world. Today, many museums display casts of this head, all stemming from the single specimen held here in Oxford.

One of the many casts in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, this one has been painted to match the original specimen

The Museum contains a number of models and casts of the head too; some are made from plaster and resin, some are painted to resemble the original specimen. The head of the dodo was actually dissected in 1847, by Henry Acland. He removed the skin from one side of the face so the early casts are a record of how the specimen would have looked originally.

In preparation for the Presenting display in the Museum I contacted natural history museums through the Natural Sciences Collections Association asking people to share information and photos about their casts and models of the dodo head. I wanted to try and construct a picture of how the dodo head was disseminated, as well as capture the diversity of quality and colours of representations of the original specimen. Here’s how far some of the dodos have flown:

American Museum of Natural History

Cast of head with no further catalogue information about provenance.

Bradford Museums and Galleries

Cast of the head labelled as coming from Cartwright Hall. Curator Gerry McGowan suspects this may have come via the Bradford Philosophical Society collections. The first curator of the society, Louis Compton Miall was friends with Thomas Henry Huxley and through him had contacts with many other geologists who may have gifted or exchanged this cast.

Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
Bristol received a cast of the head directly from Oxford from Philip Duncan in 1834, keeper of the Ashmolean Museum between 1826 and 1855. Unfortunately, the head was likely destroyed in bombings of Bristol in 1940.

Canterbury Museum, New Zealand
Received a cast of a head from Professor Rolleston on 21 July 1871 in exchange for two kiwi skeletons which are still in the museum collections today.

Grant Museum of Zoology UCL

Cast of head and foot presented to the museum by E.Ray Lankester in 1891/1892 just after leaving UCL and being appointed the Linacre Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Oxford.

Great North Museum Hancock

The Great North Museum Hancock’s cast was presented by George Townsend Fox. This specimen had been presented to the Natural History Society of Newcastle in 1841 by Fox and had originally been presented by Philip Duncan.

Horniman Museum and Gardens

Cast of the head that had quite a circuitous route to the Horniman Museum. The Horniman received the cast from the geology department of Queen Mary’s University of London in 1964 which received the cast from the Saffron Walden Museum in 1962.

Manchester Museum
Cast of a head, presumed to have been presented by William Boyd Dawkins. The cast is currently on display in the Living Worlds gallery in Manchester Museum.

The National Geological Repository British Geological Survey

bgs-national-repository — © National Geological Repository British Geological Survey

Cast of a head recorded as from the ‘original in the Ashmolean Museum’, purchased from the sale of Gideon Mantell’s collections in 1853.

National Museum of Ireland

national-museum-ireland — © National Museum of Ireland

Cast of head with ‘J.Johnson’ inscribed into the base, possibly referring to John Johnson, who commissioned five casts from the museum in 1837.

Natural History Museum London

The Natural History Museum’s collections contain three casts of the Oxford Dodo head – two in the ornithology collections (pictured) and one in the palaeontology collections. The unpainted cast in the ornithology collections has the name ‘Johnson’ inscribed into the base.

Nottingham Natural History Museum

Colleague Adam Smith got in touch with some interesting specimens from Wollaton Hall. The first one looks like another cast in this series but the second cast is unlike any of the others gathered here. The cast shows an open eye, detail on the beak as well as a more defined hook to the end of the bill.

Unfortunately, there’s not much information about the origins of these two casts so it’s probable that the ‘open eye’ cast may be a cast of a model reconstruction or an in progress sculpt. There’s an extremely slight chance it’s a cast of an otherwise unknown dodo head… If you recognise this dodo head do get in touch so we can solve this mystery for colleagues in Nottingham (it’s not the model dodo that we have on display here!).

Warwickshire Museum

Cast of a head at Warwickshire Museum with damage to the beak. Donated to the museum by clergyman and naturalist Reverand Andrew Bloxham in the 19th century. As the museum is currently moving stores, further information about when this cast was acquired is inaccessible.

If you work at a museum and have a dodo head cast to share, please do get in touch and we’ll update this blog accordingly.

Last updated: 10/11/17

‘Presenting… The Flight of the Dodo’ was on display at the Museum of Natural History from the 25 January to 22 March 2017.

Acknowledgements

With many thanks to colleagues across the sector who helped with information and images about dodo specimens: Adam Smith, Alice Adams, Jack Ashby, Carol Davies, Bonnie Griffin, Dan Gordon, Yvette Harvey, Mike Howe, Emma-Lousie Nicholls, Laura McCoy, Gerry McGowan, Nigel Monaghan, Henry McGhie, Pat Morris, Paul Scofield, Paul Shepherd, and Paul Sweet.

19 January 201725 January 2017

More than a DodoLeave a comment

Mysteries of the deep

by Sammy De Grave, Head of Research

It is often said that the final frontier of our exploration of the Earth lies deep in the oceans. Covering 70 per cent of the planet’s surface, the oceans nevertheless remain 95 per cent unexplored, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States. And they know, for they are doing the exploring…

Since 2008, the Okeanos Explorer at the NOAA has been investigating deep water ecosystems and has live-streamed many of its remotely operated vehicle (ROV) dives for scientists and the public to observe. Last year, Okeanos was engaged in an exploration of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument in the Pacific Ocean. During a single dive at an impressive 4,826 metres, on a muddy bottom at a site nicknamed Twin Peaks, a large shrimp was observed, which the participating scientists did not recognise.

Spotted 4,826m below sea level, in the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument: the shrimp Bathystylodactylus — Spotted 4,826m below sea level, in the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument: the shrimp *Bathystylodactylus cf. bathyalis*

This was an unexpected find. Although there are about 4,000 species of caridean shrimps in the world’s oceans, very few live below 1,000 metres, and fewer than 20 species are known from depths lower than 3,000 metres. Those that do are usually only found as broken specimens, creatures damaged by the trawls which also bring them to the surface.

Photos of the deep-dwelling shrimp were duly sent to two experts: Dr Mary Wicksten at Texas A&M University and Dr Sammy De Grave, head of research here at Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Both immediately recognised the specimen as belonging to the rare genus Bathystylodactylus, which comprises of only three scientifically-described species, which in turn are only known from six specimens, all damaged.

The bristly legs, called setose legs, are used in passive filter feeding — The bristly legs are used in passive filter feeding

The Okeanos team had made something of a discovery, one which was published in the open access journal Zookeys. The posture of the shrimp clearly show it to be a filter-feeding species, with its long, bristly legs facing into the current. This type of feeding behaviour has not been seen in caridean shrimps before.

Surprisingly, although the shrimp was observed at almost 5,000 metres below the surface, it is not the deepest recorded shrimp. That honour goes to a different species, Glyphocrangon atlantica, living in the western Atlantic, which has been trawled from as deep as 6,373 metres. Blurry photographs from 6,890 metres in the Kermadec Trench might indicate that carideans live even deeper still, maybe even as far down as a related group of shrimps called dendrobranchiates, which are known from depths down to 7,703 metres.

These findings show that life of many kinds continues to be discovered in regions of the planet once thought to be completely inhospitable.

3 January 201717 January 2017

More than a Dodo3 Comments

The power of real

Of all the questions that curious children ask about specimens in the Museum, the most frequent by far is ‘Is it real?’. It’s a surprisingly complex question, mixing ideas of authenticity with more basic confusion over whether something is, was, or wasn’t ever alive.

So what do children make of all the weird and wonderful things on display in museums and how does it affect their experiences? Research by psychologist Dr Louise Bunce aims to find out, as she explains here…

If you want to know when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, or how bees extract nectar from a flower, or what meteorites are made of, what would you do to find out? Search the web perhaps? The answers to all these questions, and many more besides, can be found on the internet, so why visit a museum instead to learn about the natural world?

Example animal used in the research - Oryctolagus cuniculus and the toy rabbit — A taxidermy rabbit (*Oryctolagus cuniculus*), used in the research in the Museum…

Despite the wealth of information available online, the objects in museums continue to captivate visitors and offer something that the internet can’t. There’s something about ‘the real’ that has a certain power. Standing close to, and sometimes even touching, the genuine article – whether that be the head of a Dodo, or a painting by a Dutch Master, or a fossilised dinosaur skeleton – can induce goose bumps in museum visitors. But where does this potent effect come from?

... and a soft toy rabbit. Even younger children know the toy rabbit is not 'real'. — … and a soft toy rabbit. Even younger children know the toy rabbit is not ‘real’.

To begin to look at this question I have studied the importance and understanding of the ‘real’ in children visiting museums. When do children develop an understanding that they are looking at the real thing as opposed to a copy or model?

I conducted research with children visiting the Oxford University Museum of Natural History to see whether they understood that displays are of genuinely real animals, not manufactured models or replicas. And if they think they are models, how does that affect their experience?

The results were quite striking. Most 4- to 5-year-olds believed that the animals on display were not real because they were not moving, or because they were not alive. Consequently their reaction was somewhat dismissive.

A child participating in the research at the Museum

In contrast, most older children, those from the age of around 8 years, said that the animals were real because, for example, they had the real animal’s fur, or other authentic features. These children were also more curious about the animals because they were more likely to ask a question about the displays than children who perceived the specimens as not real.

So if younger children were missing out on the power of the real, I wondered whether there was something we could do to help them. I repeated the experiment but this time introduced children to toy animals and asked them to compare them to the museum animals. Now the majority of 4- to 5-year-olds seemed to gain a sense of awe because they perceived the museum animals as genuinely real in comparison to the toys, which they knew were not real.

These experiments seem to indicate that children do not necessarily perceive museum objects in the same ways as adults, but that we can help to give them meaningful encounters with museum specimens to create an inspiring museum visit. So don’t just Google it – grab the kids, a cuddly toy prop, and get down to the museum – or indeed out into nature – to be inspired by the real.

21 December 201611 September 2018

More than a Dodo1 Comment

Charles Lyell’s Friends and Family

It’s that time of the year again, when we come together with friends and family to share in the festivities. So I thought it would be wonderful to find out about the family and friends of Charles Lyell.

Mary Horner was Charles Lyell’s wife. She, like him, was a conchologist and geologist, and she made major contributions to her husband’s work. They were partners in science, with Mary accompanying Charles on field trips. She assisted him by sketching geological drawings, and cataloguing their collections. In addition to her spoken languages of French and German she learnt Spanish and Swedish to assist with communications. They even spent their honeymoon in Switzerland and Italy on a geological tour of the area. Mary had a vast interest and a great understanding of geology, and was present in her husband’s conversations with Charles Darwin.

NPG x46569,Mary Elizabeth (nÈe Horner), Lady Lyell,by Horatio Nelson King — Mary Horner Lyell. Accessed from here on 20 December 2016

Charles Darwin, arguably one of the most well-known names in science, was a friend of Charles Lyell. Captain Fitzroy of the HMS Beagle gave Darwin the first volume of Lyell’s Principles of Geology, a work that heavily influenced him. Lyell and Darwin first met on 29^th October 1836. In letters digitised by the University of Cambridge there are multiple correspondences between Darwin and Lyell. In a letter to J.D. Hooker about Lyell’s death, Darwin states they “have both lost as good & as true a friend as ever lived”. In the letters Darwin offers information about his life and what he is up to, makes suggestions of books that Mrs Lyell should read (some of which have nothing to do with geology), as well as discussing work on geology. Darwin requests that Lyell send him news about himself and his wife, as well as asking Lyell for his wife’s opinions to discover what she would find least troublesome. It is impossible to read their letters and not know they are friends.

charles-darwin-wellcome-images

Charles Darwin. From Wellcome Images. Accessed from here on 20 December 2016

Joseph Dalton Hooker, friend of both Lyell and Darwin, was one of the finest 19^th century British botanists and explorers. He was Charles Darwin’s closest friend. He was a founder of geographical botany (phytogeography), which looks at the geographic distribution of plant species and their influence on the earth’s surface. After he died it was suggested that he be buried in Westminster Abbey near Darwin, however his widow declined and instead followed her husband’s wishes to be buried next to his father.

joseph-dalton-hooker

Joseph Dalton Hooker. Accessed from here on 20 December 2016

Charles Lyell’s father, also named Charles Lyell, gave up law as a profession after a considerable inheritance to concentrate on botany (the study of plants). His studies focussed on mosses with several species of these plants being named after him. Like his son he also corresponded with noted naturalists such as the botanist William Jackson Hooker (father of Joseph Dalton Hooker) and James Sowerby. He was said to have great taste in literature and even published a translation of The Canzoniere of Dante.

Gideon Mantell is renowned for his work on Iguanodon, reconstructing its structure and life habits. During his medical career he attended to more than 50 patients a day, and delivered over 200 babies a year. In the little free time he had he pursued geology, which was a childhood passion. He corresponded frequently with Lyell, discussing geology and fossil finds. After a horrible carriage accident left Mantell crippled he started taking opium as a painkiller. He died, possibly from an overdose, in November 1852.

gideonmantell

Gideon Mantell. Accessed from here on 20 December 2016

This is a small selection of the fascinating people who filled Charles Lyell’s life. This is the time of year where you can appreciate all the amazing people in your life. Enjoy!

13 December 20163 January 2017

More than a DodoLeave a comment

Steven’s Christmas spiders

by Steven Williams, Oxford Brookes University research student

Described by A.G. Butler in 1873 as ‘the most gorgeously coloured spider in this genus’, Gasteracantha scintillans, with its metallic green iridescent abdomen, is the first of my Christmas Spiders.

Spiky and sparkly: *Gasteracantha scintillans*

The beautiful colour of the abdomen certainly has a very festive feel and it would not be out of place next to a bauble on a Christmas tree; at least not in my house. This species and the other closely-related metallic Thorn Spiders are currently only found on the Solomon Islands.

Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean, is one of the locations where my second Christmas spider, Austracantha minax, can be found. Although not as striking as the metallic green of Gasteracantha scintillans, the layout of the abdominal spines on this spider almost give it the appearance of a star – perfect for the top of a Christmas tree, no?

Austracantha minax: starry, and found, amongst other places, on Christmas Island — *Austracantha minax*: starry, and found, amongst other places, on Christmas Island

The common name of ‘Christmas Spider’ is attributed to this species because in areas of Western Australia it is associated with the arrival of Christmas as the males reach maturity in mid-December and females in January.

Did you know that there is also an Eastern European folk tale of how tinsel came to be included in Christmas tree decorations? The legend tells of how spiders spun cobwebs on a poor family’s undecorated Christmas tree overnight. In the morning the webs turned to gold and silver and the family never lived in poverty again. So when you put the tinsel on the tree this year you could imagine you are a spider spinning a web!

With that spidery festive thought, have a very Merry Christmas from everyone at the Museum!

Author: More than a Dodo

Exploring Borings