July 2024 Field Trip to Devil’s Lake.
Right, comely crew: Emily Halverson, UWZM Collections Manager; John Stuhler, Curator of Mammals and Birds; Gregory Mayer, Adjunct Curator of Amphibians and Reptiles; John Lyons, Curator of Fishes; and Prashant Sharma, IBio Associate Professor and UWZM Faculty Director. Laura Monahan, Associate Director and Curator of Osteology, taking the photo.
Prep Lab Remodeled
Nearly 175 years of collecting has resulted in some noteworthy collections at the University of Wisconsin Zoological Museum. To continue to be used now and for future teaching and research, regular additions to the Museum collection are required. Therefore, the Museum acquires approximate 1,000-2,000 specimens per year, nearly all of which require some type of preparation, many of which are derived from research activities of UW faculty and students, as well as state and federal (USFWS) agencies. The Museum’s critical ongoing role as depository for these important research voucher specimens cannot be overstated. Depending upon the necessary type of preparation (often dictated by the class of animal) the specimens are prepared in various ways (as skins, skeletons or fluid preserved specimens) and are added to the various collections within the Museum. In addition, the UWZM has recently established a frozen tissues collection that requires tissues be extracted and preserved from every specimen that is prepared at the Museum. Protocols and procedures for the preparation laboratory have been approved and meet or exceed BSL-2 standards. However, the physical space (Noland 438 suite) that serves as the Museum’s preparation laboratory, did not meet the required UW Biosafety Level 2 (BSL-2) basic facility standards in a variety of ways. The laboratory space and most fixed equipment (fume hoods, sinks and one walk-in freezer) were original to the building (built and/or installed in 1971). By the time the remodel was completed, the only existing equipment that remained was the walk-in freezer that was installed in 2008.
These major upgrades improved the utility of the Preparation Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin Zoological Museum and brought the facility to the appropriate BSL-2 safety standards. This space is essential to the growth of the Museum collections which provide support for educational opportunities at UW Madison. In addition, this space is a teaching laboratory for students from all over campus. With improved physical space, we can continue to expand the Museum’s participation in education, research and outreach.
Blaschka Glass “Remodeling”
The University of Wisconsin–Madison Zoological Museum (UWZM), was established at the very first UW Board of Regents meeting in 1848. After the first Science Hall burned, Edward A. Birge (Professor of Zoology, later UW–Madison president) started purchasing specimens to replace the ones lost in the fire, which included a collection of glass invertebrate models created by German glassblowers Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka. The UWZM Blaschka models, purchased in 1890, were originally used for teaching, but are now considered works of art that cannot be exhibited and handled due to their delicate construction and weakened condition.
175th Anniversary funding supported Tim Drier, a professional scientific and artistic glassblower with 40-years of experience, to work at UW–Madison for one week to apply his glassblowing expertise to this project. Tim and brother Tracy Drier, (UW–Madison Department of Chemistry Master Scientific Glassblower) created glass models of species not stable enough for teaching and display, thus not represented in the UWZM collections. The focus was on deep sea thermal vent invertebrates. Recently developed equipment has allowed researchers to see what lives deep in the ocean, animals especially difficult to study in their environment and cannot be collected because the pressure differential would destroy them. Walking in the Blaschkas’ footsteps, Tim and Tracy are working to make models of the “uncollected” for use in labs today.
The Museum Store gets a Makeover
Two years in the making, the UWZM Store is finally up and ready for action! We’ve added three newbies to the selections: a new bird poster; a category featuring Skulls of Wisconsin Carnivores including species information; and a selection of IBio’s vintage zoological charts, now collectors commodities, from the late 1800s and early 1900s. In addition we are printing all posters on exhibition-quality canvas, a more hardwearing material than paper.
