A day in the life…
Ever wondered what we get up to all day? This video offers a nice flavour. Thanks to Tom Wilkinson and Tom Fuller in the University of Oxford Public Affairs Directorate for putting this together.
Author: More than a Dodo
The finest fossils
One of the most remarkable fossil sites in the world is located in Chengjiang in China, where exquisitely-preserved fossils record the early diversification of animal life. The 525 million year old mudstone deposits in the hills and lakes of Yunnan Province, South China are so fine that they have preserved not only the shells and carapaces of Cambrian animals, but also the detail of their soft tissue. In recognition, the site was added to the World Heritage list by UNESCO in 2012.
Professor Derek Siveter, a senior research fellow at the Museum, has been studying this material for a number of years, authoring a book – The fossils of Chengjiang, China: The flowering of early animal life – in 2004. But the rate of discovery of new fossils over the last decade has led to a wealth of new material to be documented.
So Derek recently headed back to the University of Yunnan for a two-week visit, where he began work on a revised edition of the book. Much of the documentation of these important fossils is currently in Chinese, so the new edition will bring the material to English-speaking researchers and fossils enthusiasts too. It introduces both the professional and the amateur palaeontologist – and all those fascinated by evolutionary biology – to the aesthetic and scientific quality of the Chengjiang fossils, many of which represent the origins of animal groups that have sustained global biodiversity to the present day.
Scott Billings – Public engagement officer
What a year…
At the end of 2013, the Museum closed for a 14-month roof refurbishment project. On 15 February 2014 – a year ago yesterday – we reopened and returned to the light. Here’s what happened…
Happy Birthday Darwin!
By Darren Mann, Head of Life Collections
A birthday, on 12 February, and an ‘inordinate fondness for beetles’ are possibly the only things Charles Darwin and I have in common. In his autobiographical notes (1887) Darwin says that at the age of ten he made the decision to collect, but not kill insects; at the same age I was given, by my junior school teacher, four Madagascan hissing cockroaches (the large male I called Burt). So Darwin and I began a lifelong fascination with natural history at a similarly early age, though with very different results.
Much is written about Darwin and his scientific accomplishments, but did you know he was also an avid beetle collector? The quote below is testament to his enduring enthrallment with beetles.
“I feel like an old war-horse at the sound of the trumpet when I read about capturing of rare beetles… It really almost makes me long to begin collecting again”
Darwin was also a close correspondent of Reverend F.W. Hope, the founder of the entomological collections at the Museum, and the two often set out on insect-collecting expeditions together. These trips regularly resulted in the capture of rare or unusual species, and an occasional publication.
In 1831, Darwin embarked on his famous voyage around the world as naturalist on the HMS Beagle. He returned to England, in 1836, with around 4,000 insects, some of which were donated to his good friend Hope. Hope scientifically described a few of Darwin’s new species of beetles and named them in Darwin’s honour. Examples include the ground beetle Carabus darwinii and the stag beetle Dorcus darwinii.
“The above insect I have lately received from Chili. It is named in honour of Charles Darwin, Esq., who has greatly contributed to our acquaintance with the Entomology of Valparaiso, Chili, and other parts of the South American continent.” Hope, F.W. 1843.
During the Beagle voyage Darwin became the first collector of Tasmanian beetles. Onthophagus australis, collected by Darwin in Hobart Town in Tasmania in 1836, is shown in the photo at the top of this post. Whilst in Hobart Town he was also surprised to find
“Four species of Onthophagus, two of Aphodius, and one of a third genus, very abundant under the dung of cows; yet these latter animals [cows] had then been introduced only thirty-three years. Previously to that time, the Kangaroo and other small animals were the only quadrupeds; and their dung is of a very different quality to that of their successors introduced by man.”
This observation, possibly made on his birthday (and what a great way to spend the day) points to research questions that are ongoing today: the effects of habitat change from forest to pasture, and the impact that introduced farm animals have on native dung beetle populations.
In his 1871 publication, The Descent of Man, Darwin returned to dung beetles, writing about their sexual dimorphism, or differences in appearance between males and females, and arguing that there must be a contest between males and females which drives rapid evolutionary divergence amongst populations. There is now considerable scientific evidence to support these views on sexual selection, some based on dung beetle research.
So we come full circle. I work in the building where, in 1860, there was the first public meeting on Darwin’s then newly-published book, The Origin of the Species, an event now often referred to as the Huxley–Wilberforce debate, or Great Debate. My hobby and research interest focus on dung beetles and their ecology, including the effects of habitat change and loss of dung beetle diversity. And within sight of my office are those dung beetles Darwin wrote of from Hobart Town…
I am fortunate to be part of the curatorial team that looks after Hope’s collection, including those specimens given to Hope by Darwin. We have put a few of these on public display for the first time as part of our ‘Presenting…’ series of temporary exhibitions and to celebrate Darwin’s (and my) birthday I will give an informal short talk in the Museum on Thursday 12 February at 2.30pm, focusing on Darwin material from the collections.
Mystery critters
Five hundred million years ago, in the Cambrian period, the oceans teemed with strange and unusual creatures that are now preserved as fossils. This period in Earth’s history is important because almost all known groups of animals appear very suddenly in the fossil record at this time. Many of them look just like their modern day counterparts, but several are much more weird and wonderful, with a very different appearance from anything alive today.
I was recently awarded the Whittington Award from the Palaeontological Association which includes a small research grant that will allow me to study one of these weird fossils. The creature in question is known as the “muscle worm”, or Myoscolex, and is particularly interesting because almost the whole fossil is made up of very well-preserved muscle fibres. It’s the oldest record of muscle tissue in the fossil record.
The material comes from the Emu Bay Shale fossil site, located on Kangaroo Island in South Australia. The original collection of fossils is nearly 35 years old now. These original fossils showed the muscle tissue of Myoscolex very clearly, but unfortunately we don’t know much about the rest of its body and scientists can’t even agree on what type of animal it is! Some people believe it is an annelid worm – a segmented creature – while others think it could be an early ancestor of either the arthropods, which includes animals like crabs, shrimp, spiders, centipedes, and insects, or the chordates, a group which includes any animal with a backbone, including ourselves.
Fortunately, many new fossils have been collected in the last few decades that will help us solve the mystery of the Cambrian muscle worm. Active collecting by the South Australian Museum and the University of New England has revealed hundreds of new specimens that show us more details about the anatomy of Myoscolex, including the head, legs, skeleton, and even its digestive system.
I have been working with researchers in Australia on Emu Bay Shale fossils for several years now, both on the fossil collections in the museum and in the field. The Whittington Award will allow me to travel to Australia to study the new muscle worm fossils. The research will involve taking photos, making drawings, and analyzing the nicest specimens under scanning electron microscopes. I will then come back to the Museum in Oxford and compare the fossil information with modern animals found in our collections here. All of this work should allow us to finally figure out what the Cambrian muscle worm really is.
Stay tuned as we try to solve this mystery….
Allison Daley – Museum Research Fellow
Big up Christmas
Here’s a huge Merry Christmas from us – and Oxford University – to you. Thanks for reading More than a Dodo and see you in the New Year.
xx
More Than A Dodo 