Ornithologists generally discover new species by collecting them in the wild. But early in the 20th century, Museum ornithologist James P. Chapin found one on a hat.
In 1913, Chapin, while serving as an assistant on an expedition to the Belgian Congo, came upon a native of the Ituri Forest wearing a headdress with a distinctive feather. To the young naturalist, it suggested a pheasant or peacock, a strange possibility since these birds were native to Asia. Curious, he took it.
Fast forward to 1936. Chapin was visiting the Congo Museum in Tervuren, Belgium, and, by pure chance, found atop a cabinet a pair of taxidermied birds. A label indicated they were familiar Indian or Blue Peacocks, but he suspected otherwise—feathers on these birds matched the one he had collected 23 years earlier. Later that year, in a professional journal, he described Afropavo congensis, or the Congo Peacock, a unique species whose closest relatives are the Asian peacocks.
Eager to pursue his discovery in its habitat, Chapin returned to Africa in 1937, and in a forest in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he observed the birds on the ground and in flight and heard their nighttime call.
Over the years, ornithologists have hypothesized that Afropavo is more closely related to African guinea fowls or Old World partridges. However, genetic studies suggest that Afropavo is a sister taxon to the Pavo species, the bird commonly known as the peacock, and that Chapin’s hunch 100 years ago was right. Read more »
John Sparks and David Gruber imaging Bloody Bay Wall in Little Cayman. Courtesy of N. van Niekerk
Curator John Sparks is blogging weekly about the upcoming exhibition, Creatures of Light, which opens on Saturday, March 31.
One of the amazing things about working on an exhibition is having the chance to incorporate our own research—sometimes, very recent research.
Within the past year, including just last December, my colleague, Museum Research Associate David Gruber (CUNY), and I have gone on multiple expeditions to the Cayman Islands and the Exumas, Bahamas, to photograph a coral wall and its inhabitants at night using special lights and filters to capture biofluorescence.
The phenomenon of biofluorescence results from the absorption of electromagnetic radiation at one wavelength by an organism, followed immediately by its re-emission at a longer, lower-energy wavelength. With special cameras, we captured brilliant red, green, and orange fluorescing corals, anemones, mollusks, marine worms, and a myriad of fishes, including sharks and rays.
Although it is unnerving to hover in complete darkness over a wall that drops thousands of feet—particularly when we get occasional glimpses of quickly moving sharks in our flashes—the results are well worth the effort. Read more »
Gospel, jazz, blues, rhythm and blues, soul music, and hip-hop are the result of an ever-evolving African-American musical journey that has produced unique musical forms and traditions. The Museum will celebrate this legacy on Saturday, February 18, with the Global Weekends program The African-American Musical Mosaic, which will include performances by the Harlem Quartet, First Corinthian Baptist Church Choir, Charles Mack, Sandra Reaves-Phillips, and a special collaboration between Darryl “DMC” McDaniels of the hip-hop group Run-DMC and the IMPACT Repertory Theatre choir. In this video, DMC shares what performing at the Museum’s event means to him.
For more information about the program, click here.
Scientists at the Museum recently helped a group of rabbis answer a culturally significant dietary question: can canned fish products containing parasitic worms still be considered kosher?
The study began last spring, when rabbinical experts from the Orthodox Union, the largest organization that certifies food products for the Jewish community, brought a variety of kosher-certified sardines and capelin eggs to the Museum. The presence of worms could have been a sign that, during the preparation of the canned food, muscle from the fish had been improperly handled and allowed to mix with intestinal contents, potentially violating Jewish dietary laws.
The key to determining whether the canned food was improperly handled is in the worms’ life cycles, said Curator Mark Siddall, who conducted the study. “Some species of worms live in the muscles of fish when they’re in the larval stage,” he said. “Other species live in the fish’s intestines when they’re adults. We already know the life cycles for these parasites, so all we have to do is figure out what species were present in the canned food.”
This Thursday, February 16, scientists, writers, and educators will gather for a panel discussion of how social media change the landscape of science communication. Beyond a Trend: Enhancing Science Communication Through Social Media will feature Ruth Cohen, the Museum’s senior director of education strategic initiatives and director of the Center for Lifelong Learning, Carl Zimmer, science journalist and author of Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed, Ben Lillie, co-organizer of The Story Collider, and BBC journalist Matt Danzico as panelists. Jennifer Kingson, day assignment editor for the Science section of The New York Times, will moderate the discussion. Below, Cohen talks about a few of the Museum’s recent forays into social media.
What are some of the Museum’s recent digital youth initiatives?
Ruth Cohen: One project, the Urban Biodiversity Network, invites students to use web and mobile tools to aid their self-guided scientific investigations. In this case, they’re marking and documenting evidence of urban biodiversity and observing changes over time and in different environments. Students are excited to see how smart phones can be used as tools of science research; just as importantly, we need them to help us design and reflect on how these tools are most effective. We’re one of several organizations working on the project, which is funded as part of the Hive Learning Network in New York City, in partnership with Global Kids, Inc. and the Bronx Zoo. Read more »
