Bats, Rats, and Birds, Oh My!!

April 14, 2010

Museum of Texas Tech University-
Natural Science Research Laboratory

This was an interesting trip for me.

I'm a lover of life. I'm a tree-hugging vegetarian who lies in the grass watching sunsets and playing with ants. I was mysteriously absent in high school the day we dissected a fish. I always say a prayer or at least acknowledge in some way any animal or bird I see reposed on the side of the road.

Imagine the turnings of my inner world as our guide, Dr. Nancy Mcintyre lead us through a museum of preserved birds and animals.

I'm a lover of life and all that, but I'm not squeamish; I went past the two doors guarding the flesh-eating beetles to meet them up close. I held a dead toucan. I examined a tiny jar of hummingbird bones.

Let me take you through my notes:

Museums started with the peculiar human propensity to collect things. The mission of a museum is to tell the story of the world, illustrate it with specimens. Museums are a tremendous method of education. It's one thing to look at a bird in a book, and quite another to hold it in your hand.

The specimens they have in the greatest number are bats and rats. The first room we followed Dr. M into was full of them floating in jars of amber liquid. We asked if the liquid was formaldehyde, and learned that formaldehyde is a fixative, not a preservative. The chemical found in it, formalin, is used to temporarily preserve a specimen. Alcohol is used for the long-term.

Dr. M picked up a skull sitting on a table. "Take a guess," she said.

"Prairie dog?" 

"Beaver."

There are beavers in Lubbock. I wouldn't have guessed. 

All the jars of floating bats and rats and things were called fluid preparations. These specimens include the organs, skin, and everything.

Dead Critter to Clean Skeleton:

-Remove soft tissues

-Allow the specimen to dry out

-Expose it to flesh-eating beetles 

The flesh-eating beetles are kept on the bottom floor behind two doors. The room is temperature controlled. Upon asking, we learned that the beetles only feed on dead flesh.

Most of the specimens are kept upstairs to protect the collection from flood, bugs, and other damages.

One side of the museum is dedicated to mammals and holds approximately 80 to 90,000. The side for birds holds about 6,000.

I was surprised to learn that more than one specimen of a species was collected. Why collect more than one?
Though a bird is the same species, individual specimens may look very different.

"Imagine you were an alien coming to collect a specimen of a human. If you only collect one person, you've collected only one sex, race, and age class," Dr. M explained.

A human museum... Que imagination!

They can also boil a skeleton to clean the bones, but this takes longer and smells more strongly.

Nancy took us to the bird side, walked us through a maze of great white cabinets full of birds. The specimens were organized by taxonomic order, not alphabetical. The museum has a representative (specimen of some sort, stuffed, preserved, or a skeleton) for every bird except a Tinamou.

I gathered some interesting facts as we wandered among specimens:

-A hummingbird nest is the size of quarter, so when you see one, you'll have no doubts about what it is. 

-The feathers of juvenile golden eagles were once used for Native American headdresses. 

-Toucans are related to woodpeckers. When I held one, I found that its beak was surprisingly light. 

-The Quetzal is widely regarded as the most beautiful bird in the world. Its feathers were used for headdresses for royalty.

-Owls' eyes are larger than their brains.

-Egret plumes were used for hats so much that they nearly went extinct.

-Bats and rodents are the most diverse groups of mammals.

We were also allowed to wander among the mounted mammal specimens. We saw eagles, tigers, lions, deer, prairie dogs, zebras... all sorts of mammals watching us with glass eyes.

Dr. M called us with a whistle and took us to another room to see the long-awaited prairie chickens. We saw a specimen of a Greater Prairie Chicken (first preserved in 1878) and a Lesser Prairie Chicken, the latter we would soon be seeing alive. The Lessers have a slight webbing on their feet and are scratchers. The barring of the specimen we saw was faded.

"Birds lose something in death," Dr. M said. Their colors aren't quite as vibrant.

It was an interesting experience for me. I felt very disconcerted walking through rows and rows of dead animals. Yet death is a part of life. None of the animals or birds in the museum were killed for the purpose of being preserved--they all died in some other way and were donated.

Yet I left the museum feeling strange... feeling humble. Reminded of my own mortality. I left pondering a human museum, rows and rows of humans...

I'm very glad I went, and very glad I saw the flesh-eating beetles and held the toucan.