QUEST Community Science Blog

It’s rather mind-boggling to walk into the storage rooms at UC Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. The rooms hold all manner of skulls, skeletons, pelts, and entire specimens that are intact in jars and drawers. I was there with Gabriela Quirós, the producer of the QUEST story “Resurveying California’s Wildlife – 100 Years Later”. The Museum is generally not open to the public, except on Cal Day, which is the University’s annual open house celebration. Monica Albe, the Museum’s bubbly Senior Museum Scientist, accompanied by her equally enthusiastic fellow scientist, Allison Shultz, gave us a tour.

The Museum contains over 640,000 specimens of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals and 50,000 tissue samples that have been specially preserved since the turn of the last century. It’s considered to be the largest university museum collection of its kind in the country. While it may even seem a bit disconcerting at first to see this enormous collection– especially the specimens that have been stuffed to be appear more life-like– the historical importance of the collection is tremendously significant.

Many of the specimens were collected in the early 1900’s by the Museum’s first Director, Dr. Joseph Grinnell, a zoologist who realized how quickly the environment was changing under the influence of human civilization. He set out to meticulously document various regions in California by amassing specimens and creating field notes, photographs, maps, letters and other archival materials. Grinnell understood how valuable this information would be in the years to come to future generations who wanted to learn more about our ever-evolving landscape. Present-day scientists are able to utilize this information for climate change research and can even extract DNA to perform genetic tests.

Monica is the Museum’s preparator and oversees its Specimen Preparation Laboratory for UC Berkeley students. Veterinary hospitals or park employees donate specimens for her and her students to work on and she has a special license that allows her to collect any roadkill that she finds. The Museum usually preps specimens in three ways in order for scientists to have several options of study available to the: anatomy and biology (specimens that are prepared with taxidermy methods), skeletons, and entire specimens preserved in fluid. Monica even has a collection of dermestid beetles that help to completely clean the skeletons.

The Museum of Vertebrate Zoology is celebrating its 100th birthday this year and has several special centenary events to commemorate the occasion!

Watch the “Resurveying California’s Wildlife 100 Years Later” TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources. Don’t forget to see the behind-the-scenes photos from this story.

Jenny Oh is an Associate Producer for QUEST on KQED Television.

newly discovered Rhynchocyon udzungwensis
the grey-faced sengiAlthough enigmatic new species of insects are fairly common discoveries, many large animals have already made an appearance on the species list. Charismatic animals such as mammals are one of the most documented on the planet and it is now very rare to find a new species in this day and age. Yet in March 2006, Galen Rathbun of the California Academy of Sciences, along with Francesco Rovero of the Trento Musuem of Natural Science and a team of collaborators, confirmed a new mammal species - Rhynchocyon udzungwensis, or the grey-faced sengi. Their discovery was recently published in the February 4 issue of The Journal of Zoology.

Sengis are commonly known as elephant-shrews. They were first associated with elephants because of their long flexible snouts that resemble that of an elephant’s trunk. Moreover, recent molecular research has shown that sengis have more in common with elephants that the shrews they were originally associated with. Their closest relatives include elephants, sea cows, and the aardvark. Until now only 15 species of sengis were known to science. In 2005, the new sengi was first caught on film. Francesco Rovero of the Trento Museum of Natural Science had been setting up camera traps inside the remote Ndundulu Forest in Tanzania’s Udzungwa Mountains in order to survey the region’s forest mammals. When the camera recorded the unfamiliar sengi, he sent the photos to Rathbun for identification. Rathbun was sought after for his expertise - he has studied the ecology, social structure, and evolution of sengis for more than 30 years. Rathbun believed the sengi to be a new species and embarked on a two week expedition with a team of colleagues in March 2006 to confirm his belief.

There were a few setbacks confirming the new sengi species. Rathbun had planned their trip for the dry season but the rains came early making the shrew harder to spot. The size of the sengi also posed a problem as the traps that were brought proved too small for the giant sengi. The grey-faced sengis weigh close to 1.5 pounds which is 25 percent larger than any other documented sengi. Therefore, more traditional twine snares had to be built to contain the giant sengi. Victory prevailed and the team was able to catch 4 animals and make 40 observations thus confirming the new species. “This is one of the most exciting discoveries of my career,” Rathbun says. “It is the first new species of giant elephant-shrew to be discovered in more that 126 years. From the moment I first lifted one of the animals into our photography tent, I knew it must be a new species - not just because of its distinct coloring, but because it was so heavy!” More information about this expedition and other Academy expeditions can be found at http://www.calacademy.org/academy/expeditions/.

Cat Aboudara is the Special Projects Manager at California Academy of Sciences and works in the public programs division. The Academy is a wonderful fit for her because of her curiosity about the natural world and her experience in working with native California wildlife.