Shelf Life 19: Peering Back at Primates
Shelf Life – Peering Back at Primates
[GIBBONS HOOTING, INSECT BUZZ]
[Archival illustrations of primates sit amidst a lush, green jungle backdrop.]
ROBERT VOSS (Curator, Division of Vertebrate Zoology): Primates are a matter of real conservation concern. They’re usually the first mammals that are hunted out of local areas.
[Colorful images of primates and jungle fade into black and white.]
VOSS: And the idea is, if you save the monkeys, you save everything else that lives in the monkeys’ habitat.
[Color returns to a single gibbon illustration in the center of the frame. Around it, other forms of life in the rainforest appear—a lizard, a flower, a bird.]
[BIRDS TWITTER, GIBBONS HOOT, INSECTS HUM]
VOSS: So, conservationists are very concerned about mapping what primate distributions used to be and what primate distributions are now.
[Animal illustrations fade away, and a map of Southeast Asia is superimposed over a backdrop of rainforest. Areas indicating habitat range appear over some areas of the map.]
[CHAINSAWS BUZZ]
VOSS: In many cases, the populations are gone. It’s habitat destruction. It’s wholesale destruction of animals’ natural habitats.
[Black smoke rolls in over the scene. Scenes of tree stumps and land clear-cut for timber.]
VOSS: Museum collections are the best records for where primates used to be, especially in areas that have suffered a lot of deforestation, like East Africa and Southeast Asia.
[Curator Rob Voss holds a gibbon skull and stands in front of an open collection cabinet.]
VOSS: My name is Robert Voss, and I’m a Curator of Mammalogy here in the American Museum of Natural History.
[TWINKLING THEME MUSIC PLAYS]
[Images of scientific specimens and catalog numbers flash by in the Shelf Life title sequence.]
[A researcher scans primate bones with a laser. Hands pull out a collection drawer, filled with boxes.]
VOSS: We have probably one of the largest primate collections, and certainly the most heavily used primate collection in the world.
[A primate skull and jaw sit on a table in front of a specimen box. A superimposed map of Myanmar animates out over the skull.]
[A hand pulls a primate skull out of a box. A skull, map, and field catalog sit on a wooden desktop.]
VOSS: If there’s any question at all about identification, you’ve got a specimen in the collection with a locality and a date and a collector’s name.
[Researcher Lu Yao operates equipment in a genomics lab.]
VOSS: You also can get DNA from the actual specimen.
[Yao sits in the Mammalogy collection space.]
LU YAO (Research Associate, Division of Vertebrate Zoology): My name is Lu Yao and I am a Gerstner Postdoctoral Fellow, here at the American Museum of Natural History.
[Yao works in the genomics lab.]
YAO: A lot of my work is focused on primates in Southeast Asia.
[Yao scans a gibbon skull with a laptop and a laser.]
YAO: And once I started here at the American Museum…
[Close-up of a gibbon skull rotating on a scanning plate. Yao looks at 3D representation of skull on laptop screen.]
YAO: …my interest in gibbons really grew.
[Close-up of laser scanning over surface of gibbon skull.]
YAO: Gibbons are really unique for apes.
[Tree diagram of Great Apes appears, with branches for gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans.]
YAO: When we look at the other apes, which are the Great Apes, there are only three species of orangutans…
[Scientific names of three species appear over silhouette of orangutan.]
YAO: …two species of chimps…
[Scientific names of two species appear over silhouette of chimpanzee.]
YAO: two species of gorillas,
[Scientific names of two species appear over silhouette of gorilla.]
[Yao sits in Mammalogy collection space.]
YAO: …and just one species of us.
[Great Ape diagram appears and zooms in to gibbon silhouette. Many scientific names of different species appear.]
YAO: But when it comes to gibbons, there are about 20 species, or maybe even more.
[Map of Southeast Asia shows overlapping population ranges for various species of gibbon.]
YAO: The other really interesting thing about gibbons is that a number of the species actually naturally hybridize in the wild.
[Yao sits in Mammalogy collection space.]
YAO: So, different species can intermix with each other, naturally, and they produce stable populations.
[Yao processing samples in genomics lab.]
YAO: But these hybridizations have not been studied thoroughly using genomics by scientists because gibbons are extremely endangered in Southeast Asia.
[Yao sits in Mammalogy collection space.]
YAO: So, it’s difficult to get a permit to work on them.
[Hands pull gibbon skull out of collection box. Extreme close-up of gibbon skull, showing specimen number. Yao working in genomics lab.]
YAO: So, having those collections at the American Museum is really crucial to, specifically, my research and the research of many other scientists.
[Mammalogy staff member opens collection cabinet door and pulls out a drawer. Close-up of specimen box label reading, “No. 112592, Date 24 Feb 1935, Bunopithecus hoolock hoolock, MYANMAR: Sagaing, Chenga HKa.”]
YAO: These collections are important because it essentially houses specimens that were collected from wild populations.
[Camera pans across gibbon skull.]
YAO: So, we can look at changes over time.
[Map of Myanmar, expedition field notebook, and gibbon skull sit atop a wooden desk. Archival footage of a 1930s expedition, including shots of men in pith helmets, appears around the objects.]
VOSS: Arthur Vernay was a trustee of the museum. He was an ardent sportsman, and like many sportsman, he was very concerned about conservation.
[Archival footage of 1930s expedition, including shots of tents and mule trains.]
VOSS: In 1935 Mr. Vernay organized an ambitious expedition to the headwaters of the Chindwin River. It was some hundred-strong. It was a classic, old-school expedition. The American Museum was very interested in this area. It’s remote. It’s hard to reach and it was a hole on the map. It was a blank spot, biologically speaking.
[Path of expedition animates out over a map of Myanmar.]
VOSS: They traveled by river steamer and then by rail, and finally by mule train up into the headwaters of the Chindwin River.
[Map and field notebook sit on top of wooden desk. Images from archival footage appear around the objects.]
VOSS: Most of this material was collected in circumstances that are very different than what we have today. I mean, it’s not the kind of collecting we really do anymore.
[Yao sits in Mammalogy collection space.]
YAO: These collections are important because it also allows us to compare these older populations…
[Archival footage of gibbon swinging in trees.]
YAO: …and where these specimens were in the past…
[Archival footage dissolves into contemporary footage of gibbon in the forest.]
YAO: …to where these gibbons are today, and how the genetic diversity has changed.
[Yao sits in Mammalogy collection space.]
YAO: This would really help conservation efforts because it would allow conservationists to know where to release the gibbons back into the wild…
[Close-up of a gibbon’s face. Close-up of gibbon parent and juvenile.]
YAO: …and it would also help them understand which gibbons to mate together in breeding programs.
[Book of library shelves. One book is taken off and then replaced by another.]
VOSS: Museum collections are frequently compared to libraries, but that’s inaccurate, because if you lose a book in a library, you just go and you buy another book.
[Voss sits in Mammalogy collection space and holds gibbon skull.]
VOSS: But you lose this skull, this particular skull of this particular animal, and it can’t be replaced because this was collected at a particular time, at a particular place.
[Close-up of gibbon skull. Shot of skull with specimen information label.]
VOSS: And the value of the specimen consists partially in where and when it was collected. And we can’t go back in time.
[Researcher scans primate pelvis on rotating plate.]
VOSS: We host all sorts of visitors, including mammologists, evolutionary anthropologists, ecologists…
[Book opens to reveal illustrated page of gibbon species.]
VOSS: …and artists who are illustrating species for field guides.
[Collection staff member carries tray of specimens down narrow stairs. Text identifies this as “2015.”]
VOSS: To support the collection and maintain it for future generations…
[Footage of old collection infrastructure dissolves into shot of gleaming, white, new collection cabinets. Text reads, “2019, After NSF-funded project.”]
VOSS: …we got a big grant from the National Science Foundation to re-house and re-curate the primates.
[Hands put boxes in drawer and close it. Mammalogy collection staff compare label data, cut strings, and write out new labels.]
VOSS: Drawer by drawer, the specimens were put in new boxes. Then, specimen by specimen, the labels were compared with data captured from our catalogs…
[Voss, sitting in Mammalogy collection space, indicates the large size of the catalogs with his hands.]
VOSS: and our catalogs are great, big, heavy books like this.
[Drawer opens, revealing large collection catalog.]
VOSS: Great, big, heavy books.
[Hands open box, revealing primate specimen. Collections staff works at various tasks.]
VOSS: We have so many visitors that it makes sense to do what we can to keep it well-preserved and accessible.
[Yao works with scanner in Mammalogy collections.]
VOSS: Many researchers like Lu work on primates here at the American Museum, but we’re also thinking about the future. And we want to guarantee access with both physical and virtual access to our collection.
[Voss opens collection cabinet.]
[Researcher Doug Boyer measures specimen with calipers.]
DOUG BOYER (Associate Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University): Every time a researcher handles the actual specimen—even if it’s just a little bit, they degrade that priceless physical voucher.
[Boyer sits in Mammalogy collection space.]
BOYER: My name is Doug Boyer and I’m an assistant professor at Duke University.
[Boyer working in Mammalogy collections.]
BOYER: My research focuses on primates and primate evolution.
[Boyer sits in Mammalogy collection space.]
BOYER: When I was an undergraduate, I found myself going back up to the museum collection time and time again…
[Boyer working in Mammalogy collections.]
BOYER: …to take a new measurement on a specimen I’d already looked at.
[Close-up of gibbon skull scanned by laser. Animated circles reveal scenes from inside collection drawers and boxes and scanning data.]
BOYER: With a virtual museum, those physical limits aren’t there. So, you could potentially let the whole world into these behind-the-scenes collections.
[Hands open box revealing skull and animated 3D scanning data.]
BOYER: That’s when I began to imagine MorphoSource—an online database where, instead of spending years going around to museums, researchers, or students or artists or librarians or museum staff can access 3D digital data on specimens.
[Voss sits in Mammalogy collections.]
VOSS: MorphoSource offered us the prospect…
[Researcher adjusts bone on scanning platform. Scene dissolves into scan of bone, rotated in 3D space.]
VOSS: …of permanently archiving digital images of our specimens as they were used, and as they were scanned by researchers.
[Various examples of 3D scans of primates are rotated. MorphoSource website shown on laptop screen.]
VOSS: So, students in Brazil or students in Indonesia or students in Europe may not have the funds to travel here. But if the specimens were available in digital form, then those specimens could be examined.
[Voss sits in Mammalogy collection space.]
VOSS: We’re making our collections more permanent and we’re making them—at every step in this process—we’re making them more accessible to researchers…
[Gibbon skull inside archival box, with label information.]
VOSS: …and to the conservation community, to the artistic community, to anybody who has a legitimate use for the materials that we preserve.
[Voss closes collection cabinet.]
Primate specimens collected more than 80 years ago—such as gibbons from wild populations in Southeast Asia—are still being studied by researchers today to learn about the diversity of modern primates and help conservation efforts. Curator Robert Voss explains why these collections are irreplaceable and how the Museum has recently rehoused and re-curated more than 10,000 scientific specimens, which are now being digitized for future generations of researchers.