Join internationally recognized cocktail connoisseur David Wondrich and master mixologist Don Lee of Momofuku Ssäm Bar for an evening of classic cocktails.
Wondrich and Lee discussed specialty “explorer” drinks, as well as the importance of ice in creating a perfect cocktail. Learn the story behind a now-discontinued whiskey that was recently discovered buried where Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton camped a century ago. Recorded at the American Museum of Natural History on June 8, 2010.
Zygothrica antedispar lapping the epichile. Credit: L. Endara
Dracula orchids tempt flies by masquerading as mushrooms. The natural world is often just as haunting as the macabre costumes worn on city streets, as highlighted by a study published this year by a curator in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History, David Grimaldi.
According to Grimaldi and colleagues, fruit flies (Drosophilidae) of the genus Zygothrica typically swarm on mushrooms and other rain forest fungi. But one group of orchids in the American tropics takes advantage of their preferences, duping the hapless flies into pollinating them with the scent and appearance of mushrooms. These orchids are from the genus Dracula, named so to keep the spirit of a former name, Masdevallia, when it was realized that there were separate orchid groups.
“Over 200 years ago, botanists on major Spanish expeditions to Peru named a new orchid Masdevallia because of the flower’s similarity to monsterly creatures like dragons and bats,” says Lorena Endara of the University of Florida in Gainesville. “Carlyle Luer, who later segregated Dracula from Masdevallia, sees these orchids as little bats flying in the forest since the flower faces down and the triangular sepals and the long sepaline tails display parallel to the ground.”
“Some of the flies attracted to Dracula are new species, and I am presently working on descriptions of them,” says Grimaldi. “I wanted to call this paper ‘Dracula as Lord of the Flies,’ but my co-authors convinced me to use the title ‘Lord of the Flies: Pollination of Dracula orchids.’”
The paper, published in the orchid journal Lankesteriana,presents over 700 hours of observational data on flowers in Ecuadorian cloud forest where fruit flies were seen mating in (and hence pollinating) Dracula orchids. In addition to Endara and Grimaldi, Bitty Roy of the University of Oregon authored the paper; the research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, and other institutions. Read more »
Goblin spider Australoonops granulatus from Africa. Credit AMNH
Goblin spiders lurk unseen in the world’s leaf litter. The natural world is often just as haunting as the macabre costumes worn on city streets, as highlighted by a study published this year by acurator emeritusin the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History, Norman Platnick.
Over the past three years, Platnick and colleagues have named or redefined the taxonomy of hundreds of new species of goblin spiders—an often overlooked group named for their unusual appearance and secretive habits. Goblin spiders (members of the family Oonopidae) are extremely small: the largest is 3 millimeters in size, and most are under 2 millimeters.
“Goblins are probably the most poorly known group of spiders,” says Platnick. “Their small size has made them difficult to study, but scanning electron microscopy and recent advances in digital imaging are allowing us to examine their structures in much more detail than was previously possible.”
A Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History unravels the previous taxonomy of the genus Stenoonops, a group of spineless goblin spiders that have a soft abdomen and muddy-orange carapace. Fourteen of the 19 species moved to new genera (in fact, six different genera). But because 17 new species from the Caribbean were described as Stenoonops, the genus increased in numbers and now has 23 species. Two other genera are given new species as well: Longoonops and Australoonops gain five species combined.
“It isn’t surprising that there are so many undescribed goblin spiders,” says Platnick. “When we began the global inventory of the Oonopidae, there were only about 500 species known, a number we thought represented about 20 percent of the actual biodiversity in this group. There are a lot of species that have small ranges—the perfect group for giving us hints about the biogeographic histories of the areas they occupy, as well as for conservation, by showing us what areas are most in need of protection against habitat destruction.”
In addition to Platnick, Nadine Dupérré is an author of this paper. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the American Museum of Natural History.
The Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond. Photo courtesy of Graff Diamonds
From its journey through the royal houses of Europe to a mysterious three-decade disappearance from the public eye, the Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond—an extraordinary 31.06-carat blue gem now on display in the Museum’s Harry Frank Guggenheim Hall of Minerals courtesy of Laurence Graff — has led a very colorful existence.
Mined in India, which also yielded the Hope Diamond, the Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond was once part of the dowry of the Spanish Infanta Margarita Téresa, the young princess famously depicted in Diego Velázquez’s masterpiece Las Meninas. The blue diamond then passed through subsequent marriages to the Wittelsbachs of the House of Bavaria in the 18th century. A century later, in the aftermath of the first World War, it was confiscated from the displaced royal family, landing on the auction block in London in 1931. Recorded as unsold, the stone seemingly vanished, resurfacing three decades later when Belgian jeweler Joseph Komkommer received a request to re-cut a large stone and recognized it as the historic blue diamond. By the time it came up for auction again in 2008 and was purchased by Laurence Graff, the gem had sustained significant damage that required repair to return it to its status as a flawless, fancy deep blue diamond. The re-cutting did not alter the gem’s distinctive shape but did merit a new name, the Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond, to signal both its history and its 21st-century renaissance.
The Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond is in very rare company. Based on its distinctive composition—specifically the absence of nitrogen and the presence of boron, which gives the gem its distinctive color—it is classified as a Type IIb diamond. Such stones are believed to make up less than half of one percent of all diamonds found in nature. Type IIb diamonds also share another unusual characteristic: they are semiconductors. Other famous examples of this unique group of gems include the 70.21-carat Idol’s Eye, believed to be in private hands, and the celebrated 45.52-carat Hope Diamond, which is on permanent display at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C.
A version of this story originally appeared in the Fall issue of Rotunda, the magazine for Museum Members.
2010 Young Naturalist Award winner Scott observed frogs in the field, including those who displayed signs of being infected with Chytridiomycosis. Photo courtesy of Scott.
Growing up in Michigan, 16-year-old Scott spent many afternoons trying to catch frogs at a nearby creek. That early fascination turned into a serious research interest when Scott learned that amphibians were threatened with mass extinction. “I couldn’t accept the thought that one day my children or grandchildren might now be able to enjoy the experiences I remember so fondly,” writes Scott in his winning essay in the 2010 Young Naturalist Awards Contest. (To read the essays of the 12 other winners, visit the Young Naturalist Awards website).
Now a high school student at Basha High School in Chandler, Arizona, Scott decided to study an aquatic fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, which causes a disease, Chytridiomycosis, responsible for catastrophic amphibian loss. He began by asking why frogs in some areas of Arizona seemed more susceptible to the infection than others. Did water chemistry have an effect on the growth of B. dendrobatidis?
To find out, Scott set out for the field. First, he met with an Arizona wildlife biologist and spent a day observing Chiricahua leopard frogs in sites suspected of being infected with B. dendrobatidis. He saw frogs that showed signs of infection—such as rigidity, lethargy, and hemorrhages in the skin, muscle or eye—and observed dead frogs as well. Read more »
Join internationally recognized cocktail connoisseur David Wondrich and master mixologist Don Lee of Momofuku Ssäm Bar for an evening of classic cocktails.
