Are you down with the LPC?

April 14, 2010
2:20-5:00
Museum of Texas Tech University-
Natural Science Research Laboratory

I'm not sure how to begin recounting the experience I had this past Wednesday. It was absolutely amazing to be inside the NSRL with Dr. Nancy Micntyre educating our class. I suppose I should start by explaining why we were there. The museum's NSRL has an extremely important duty, to catalog a vast number of animal species and to preserve their "representations". Our main target was to view the area that stores the bird representations. All the specimens are organized in very sterile white containers that contain multiple trays with numerous bird representations. A representation is what they term anything that identifies with the bird, it could be a bird that has been stuffed and preserved, a skeleton, or perhaps just a portion of a skeleton. All of these "rep.s" are preserved to near perfection so that, if stored properly, they can last an eternity. Each specimen has an ID tag which usually states the name of the bird species, the scientific name, and the date which it was either found or brought to the laboratory (I'm not sure). For the skeletons to be cleaned, the lab employs flesh-eating beetles whose handy work perfectly cleans the bones.

I did not catch the number, but the museum's collection of avian and insect specimens was nothing in comparison to the collection of mammalian specimens. However, that is not to say that the bird collection is small, in fact, the NSRL has the 2nd largest bird collection in the entire state of Texas, second only to Texas A&M. One of the first things that Dr. Micntyre explained to us was that they collect more than just one specimen of every species because, like humans, each individual is different and it represents the biological diversity of this world. The birds are all organized according to taxonomy, not by alphabetical, which means that they are categorized in groups such as: song birds, owls, birds of paradise, etc. The NSRL's collection dates back to approximately 1866, that is some good preservation work!

Some of the birds that we got to see were: Golden Eagles- absolutely enormous creatures with huge talons, apparently a lot of Indian headdresses used to be made from the Golden Eagle's tail feathers, we also saw a Toucan- who's bill was actually quite lite, and a Quetzal- very beautiful and the national bird of Costa Rica (a country to which I will be traveling to this summer so hopefully I will be able to see one alive and in full display :) ). And of course, we saw the Prairie Chickens.

There were 2 Lesser Prairie Chickens and 1 Greater Prairie Chicken which had been stuffed in 1878 and was still in remarkable condition.
Notes about the LPC:
~The "barring" fades from the top of the chest to the bottom
~The Pinnae feathers are the feathers around the ears and males use those as display during courtship
~Their feet have a slight webbing between the toes (much like humans do)

Note of interest:
~The Audubon Society's symbol is the egret because during 1800s, the women's hat industry claimed the lives of so many of the birds that they almost went extinct.

It was a great experience and I feel very privileged that Dr. Micntyre was able to provide us with such a great tour. Now on to the Lesser Prairie Chicken Festival!