Three white-coated student interns huddle over the remains of a female African lion in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Zoological Museum’s specimen-preparation room. Huge paws, still furry and whole, hang over the table edge, while the students pick patiently at tendons and membranes in the exposed rib cage neck, and skull. Once the skeleton is completely disarticulated, it will be turned over to the flesh-eating dermestid beetle colony in a subterranean room near Birge Hall. Thoroughly cleaned, the bones will be added to the museum’s Osteology collection and made available for research purposes.
Without interns to help with such difficult tasks, the museum could not accept specimens like Vilas the lion, euthanized in summer 2012 and donated by Madison’s Henry Vilas Zoo. For many students, this is their first experience with hands-on activities in close association with museum professionals.
“We only have two state-supported staff to oversee collecting and curating, so we rely very heavily on our interns,” says Laura Halverson Monahan, Curator of Collections.
The UW Zoological Museum is a repository of more than 650,000 skeletons, skins, and preserved whole vertebrate animals and mollusks— with more arriving every day. Started in the 1880s by Edward A. Birge (after a fire destroyed an even earlier collection), the museum’s eight collections encompass long-extinct creatures like the passenger pigeon, endangered species such as the Wisconsin gray wolf, and thousands of other mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and mollusks. The collection draws researchers from around the globe and educates students about natural history, including new and old preservation techniques.
In addition to the museum’s internship program, Halverson Monahan co-instructs a new, upper-level course focused on natural history collections, which accepts 15 students per semester. Students learn to preserve whole animals in fluid, prepare mammal skins, press and mount plants, and pin and label insects. Their hands-on assignments teach them valuable skills, and at the same time, help curators like Halverson Monahan keep up with the influx of specimens donated by professors, museums, parks, zoos, natural resources professionals, and citizens.
The museum will welcome a sizable arrival this year: 500 bison bones, including very important skulls, from the Bell Museum of Natural History at the University of Minnesota. The bones are 7800 years old, from a long-extinct species: bison occidentalis.
“This may end up being one of the largest finds east of the Mississippi,” says Halverson. “A lot of people will want access to this collection.”
his story was featured in the Department of Zoology‘s fall newsletter. See the full newsletter here.