♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Pam Halstead: We're at the Wildlife & Fisheries Department at Cal Poly Humboldt.

I'm Pam Halstead, and this is "Field Trip."

Let's go check it out.

♪♪♪ Tamar Danufsky: No... No... yes.

I say I got the job because I'm tall.

Tamar: Well, since we're talking about sizes of eggs, Pam: Oh no, you've got me stumped, Tamar.

Pam: Wow, these are beautiful specimens.

Tamar: I agree.

I think they are beautiful specimens.

Pam: They are.

Hi, I'm Pam Halstead and I'm on a field trip investigating the Wildlife Department Museum.

What can you tell me?

Tamar: Well, my name is Tamar Danufsky, and I'm the museum curator.

And that means my job is to take care of all these beautiful dead things.

Pam: Wow, that's really cool.

Tamar: Yeah, so we're in, currently, the Harris Study Lounge in the Wildlife & Fisheries Building.

We have so many specimens on display.

We have lots of birds and lots of mammals.

Over 1000 dead animals on display in the building.

So this room has a whole lot of things and we could spend a lot of time in here, looking.

We have a lot more specimens that are not on display.

Would you be interested in seeing some of those other things?

I could learn a little bit more about the animals.

Pam: I sure would.

Tamar: Great, follow me.

Pam: 'Kay.

♪♪♪ Tamar: This is the Wildlife Museum.

It's not just the displays.

This room is full of specimens that are not on display.

All these cabinets have specimens in them that are not prepared in a lifelike position, so they're used for research and for teaching and are just sort of an archive of biodiversity.

So we have in our collection birds and mammals.

We have over 16,000.

We have skins, we have skulls, we have eggs, we have nests.

And they're available to researchers.

Our university students here use them in their classes.

So, these specimens will last possibly forever and we have specimens in our collection that are over 100 years old.

Pam: Wow, that's amazing.

How do you keep--we'll talk about that later maybe, but how do you keep them so that they don't disintegrate because when things are dead, they tend to rot.

Tamar: They do, they rot.

But rotting's all about moisture and bacteria using moisture and--so we dry them and, once they're dry, they don't rot.

What will happen is that just like moths will eat your sweater, your wool sweater, there are moths and there are beetles and there are little insects that will eat fur and feathers and skin, so all these cabinets are especially designed to keep bugs out, so that the bugs won't eat them.

Pam: That's good.

Tamar: Would you like to look around and-- Pam: I would.

Tamar: --I'll show you what some of these specimens look like that are not prepared for display?

Pam: Absolutely.

Pam: Wow, who knew you could fit so many birds into one little space, Tamar.

Tamar: Right, exactly.

So these are red-tail hawks and they're--you can see they're not mounted in a lifelike position.

Pam: Absolutely.

Tamar: They're not--I say they're not pretending to be alive.

But if you imagine that they were mounted in a lifelike position, you wouldn't be able to fit so many of them in a cabinet, and we wanna be able to collect a lot of them.

Pam: So, I could compare over time then, the health of a bird?

Tamar: Yeah, one of the really important things that the collection does is it gives us information over time, so we have birds that are very, very old.

How old is this bird?

Pam: 1909!

Tamar: 1909.

Pam: No!

Tamar: This bird died over 100 years ago, so what can this bird tell us or tell a researcher who wanted to look at it from information about red-tail hawks, information about the location where it was found.

This bird's from Ohio, so maybe it could tell us something about Ohio in 1909.

Pam: Yes.

Tamar: So, every one of these birds has all the information that we talked about, where and when they were found, but it also has information that we could still learn from it.

We could take a little bit of skin from this bird and we could extract DNA and we can learn about its genetics so there's all kinds of information that we can do with these sort of fancy molecular techniques.

Pam: Right.

Tamar: That in 1909 when this bird died and somebody skinned it and stuffed it, they didn't know about those techniques.

They didn't know what DNA was.

They didn't know about genetics, they didn't know about those molecules.

So maybe in the future, we'll be able to do all kinds of new amazing studies and learn about these birds.

Pam: That's fantastic, 'cause it tells you about the environment that the bird grew up in and then how that environment affected the bird.

Tamar: Exactly.

Can I show you something that tells us how old specimens teach us about the environment?

Pam: Please do.

Tamar: So, Pam, in addition to those bird skins, we also have a collection of bird eggs.

And let's talk about that in a minute.

But first, I wanna show you what I was talking about, how we can look at the environment by looking at specimens.

Pam: 'Kay.

Tamar: So, back in the 1960s, pelicans, bald eagles, peregrine falcons, were not having any babies.

And when biologists would try to figure out why, they'd see that the shells of their eggs had gotten very thin and when the birds tried to sit on the nest, the egg shells just crushed.

And so they weren't having any young.

And they figured out that it was a pesticide that was being used, and the pesticide was called DDT, and that the pesticide was causing the eggshells to be thin.

So the biologists went to the makers of DDT and said, "You have to stop making DDT.

It's killing bald eagles and brown pelicans and peregrine falcons."

And they said, "Prove it."

And DDT was everywhere in the environment.

So how are you gonna prove that DDT is causing eggshells to be thin?

You have to compare eggs that have been exposed to DDT to eggs that have not been exposed to DDT.

But where are you gonna find eggs that have not been exposed to DDT when they've been spraying DDT in the environment everywhere?

Pam: You're gonna go to a museum.

Tamar: You're gonna go back into the past.

So here, are some beautiful brown pelican eggs from 1926.

That's what healthy brown pelican eggs look like.

These are brown pelican eggs from 1969.

That's what DDT did to brown pelican.

Pam: That's shocking.

Tamar: So, by going back and looking at eggs from before there was DDT, very old eggs, they were able to prove that DDT was causing this eggshell thinning and they were able to have DDT taken off the market.

And since they took DDT off the market, brown pelicans, bald eagles, and peregrine falcons are all doing much better.

They were all on the Endangered Species list and they've all been removed.

And when this person collected these brown pelican eggs in 1926, he wasn't doing it, thinking, "Someday, these eggs are gonna save brown pelicans," but we don't know how they're gonna be useful in the future.

So that's why when somebody calls me and says, "I've found a dead robin, you probably already have a dead robin," I say, "But I want a dead robin from this year, from this month, from this place, so that in the future, a researcher can look back at this year, this date, and this place."

Pam: So you're like the Nancy Drew of wildlife biology, which is so cool 'cause you're solving mysteries based on your observations of information that you've collected and stored.

Tamar: Well, it's not really my job to solve mysteries.

It's my job to have all the evidence so that someone can solve whatever mysteries they need to solve today or in the future.

Pam: So you let the--you're allowing the Nancy Drews to do their work?

Tamar: Right.

Pam: Nice.

male: Field Trip Trivia.

female: What year was DDT banned in the United States?

Is it, a, 1926; b, 1960; or c, 1972?

♪♪♪ female: The answer is c, 1972.

♪♪♪ Pam: What!

Everybody has speckles.

Tamar: Everybody has speckles here.

So you can see, these eggs are really different than the eggs that we just saw.

These eggs are all from birds that are shore birds.

So if I showed you these eggs and I showed you these eggs, which do you think nest on gravel and which do you think nest on sand?

Pam: Okay, this is my best guess, but since gravel has-- is big rocks and things, I would think that's gravel and that's sand.

Am I--tell me.

Tamar: You're wrong, Pam.

Pam: That's good to know.

Tamar: So, the eggs have markings that help make them disappear against where they're laid.

So the one with the bigger markings is on the gravel, and the one with the smaller markings is on the sand.

Pam: You know, I was basing my guess on the size, so that's very interesting.

I didn't even consider, but that's great.

Tamar: It's camouflage.

Pam: Camouflage, absolutely.

Tamar: So, these are kildeer eggs, and they nest on gravel.

And these are snowy plover eggs, and they nest on sand.

And you can imagine that if you saw these eggs, or if you were near these eggs on sand, they'd be hard to see.

Pam: They would.

Tamar: Yeah.

Pam: Now, here's a question.

In terms of size of the bird and the eggs, like, you would--I would assume that these are not gull eggs, because a gull, like a seagull, is a much bigger bird.

So, does the size of an egg match up or correspond with the size of the bird?

Tamar: Yes and no, because it's not just the size of the egg, it's the number of eggs.

So, some birds lay a whole lot of eggs, some birds only lay one egg.

So a bird that only lays one egg will usually lay a larger egg for the size of its body than a bird that's gonna lay ten eggs.

They're gonna be smaller eggs for the size of its body.

So, it depends.

It varies a lot.

Well, since we're talking about sizes of eggs, what's the smallest egg, Pam?

Pam: Well, think of the smallest bird that I can think of, like, that would be in my garden and the smallest bird would be a hummingbird.

Like, Anna's hummingbird is one that I know that flies around in my backyard.

Tamar: Hold out your hand.

Pam: Okay.

Tamar: That's a hummingbird egg.

Pam: It looks like a jelly bean.

Tamar: What's the biggest egg, Pam?

Pam: There's emus that are pretty big.

There's ostriches that are pretty big birds.

Those are the ones I can think of.

A rhea.

Pam: Whoa!

Tamar: So that's the biggest egg.

That's an ostrich egg.

Pam: Oh my goodness.

Tamar: So you have in your hands the smallest egg and the biggest egg.

Pam: That's incredible, wow.

That's so neat.

And I'm assuming the ostrich does not lay a lot more eggs than this, is that true or no?

Tamar: It does lay a lot of eggs.

Pam: What!

Tamar: So if it only laid one egg 'cause it's such a big bird, it would be much bigger.

Pam: Oh, that's-- Tamar: For its size, the ostrich doesn't lay a very big egg.

Pam: That's true.

male: Field Trip Trivia.

female: The bird on the left can lay up to 100 eggs.

Bird on the right lays the largest egg compared to its size.

Can you name these birds?

♪♪♪ female: The answers are ostrich and kiwi.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Pam: [gasping] Tamar: I'm sorry, did we startle you?

Pam: Yes.

Tamar: There's nothing to be afraid of.

Would you like to go look at some skulls with me?

Pam: Yes, please.

Tamar: Cool, c'mon.

♪♪♪ Tamar: So I took out some skulls that we could look at.

These are mammal skulls and the first thing I think you need to do with a skull is identify what it is.

So, if I showed you this skull, and I showed you this skull, and I told you that one of them was a dog and one of them was a cat, which one do you think would be a dog and which would be a cat?

Pam: Okay, so in my mind I'd have to think of a cat face and a dog face.

Tamar: Exactly.

Pam: So, okay, good.

Except some dog faces are different.

Like I have a dog with a pushed-in nose that's called a boxer, and so it does depend but most dogs have a kind of elongated nose.

So I'm thinking this has a very short nose and I think that cats have very short faces.

So I'm guessing that that's a cat, and that's a dog.

Tamar: That's right, very good.

Pam: It's all cool, thank you.

Tamar: Very good, but this is really big.

Pam: It's not a normal kitty cat.

Tamar: It's not a kitty cat.

It's a cat relative.

This is actually a mountain lion.

Pam: Wow.

Tamar: So that is-- Pam: Those canines and the killing teeth here are just huge.

Tamar: Yeah.

Pam: They're bigger than--well, this is--and this is a dog.

Tamar: So, it's a dog, but it's not a dog.

This is a wild animal.

So what do you think is related to a dog that's big?

This would be a big dog.

Pam: Yes, and I've seen PBS specials on dogs so I think that that would be a wolf.

Tamar: It is a wolf.

Pam: Great.

Tamar: Yeah, so we have a wolf and we have a mountain lion and we can identify them by their shape.

Pam: Yes.

Tamar: There are other ways we might identify things.

I wanna show you two little skulls here.

Pam: Okay.

Tamar: These little skulls are from weasels.

We have two kinds of weasel here, locally, and one is called the long-tailed weasel and one is called the short-tailed weasel.

But you actually can't tell them apart by measuring their tail.

To tell them apart, the best way is to measure their skull.

Pam: All right.

Tamar: And I have some skulls here so I thought maybe you would wanna measure them and see if you could tell which is the long-tailed and which is short-tailed.

So, here, it's a little complicated, though.

Pam: All right.

Tamar: Not just a measurement.

Pam: Okay, I'm ready.

Tamar: First, let's look at some--what are we gonna measure?

So, what's this big part here for, up the skull?

Pam: That's the cranium that houses the brain.

Tamar: Exactly, so that's where the brain is, in the cranium.

So we wanna look at what proportion of the skull, how much of the skull, the whole skull, is cranium.

And if that length is more than 47% of the total length, then it's a short-tailed.

If it's less than 47%, then it's a long-tailed.

So we're gonna measure the cranium from behind where the jaw rotates, so from here to the end and we wanna know if that is more or less than 47% of the whole skull.

Pam: Okay.

Tamar: Okay?

Pam: So I have two measurements to make.

Tamar: Yes.

Pam: All right, here I go.

Tamar: On each skull, two measurements.

Pam: All right, each skull.

So, first, I'll do the length of this larger skull, and we're measuring in millimeters, everybody.

So I'm gonna now look and see that that looks like it's 48 millimeters in length.

Now, I'm measuring the length of the cranium and I get 15 millimeters.

Now I'm measuring the smaller skull and the length of the skull is 34 millimeters.

Measuring the cranium of this smaller skull, the length of the cranium is 18 millimeters.

Which one of these is the short-tailed weasel and which one is the long-tailed weasel?

male: Well, that sounds like a job for Number Woman.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Number Woman: That's a great question, Pam.

Which skull is the short-tailed weasel and which skull is the long-tailed weasel?

Let's figure it out.

Well, I have a data sheet to remind us that our large skull has a total length of 48 millimeters and a cranium of 15 millimeters.

So we'll use that fact to find a percentage.

So, for the large, we have cranium divided by total because we wanna find the percentage the cranium is to the total.

So when we go back, we have 15 over 48 and if we take 15 over 48 we can see that 15 is less than half, right?

Because 15 out of 30 would be half, so it's much less.

But if we use that calculator, we can see that 15 out of 48, we divide on the calculator, you actually get about 0.31 because if you think about it, like, 15 x 3 is 45.

That would be a third, so it's about 30--0.31 and percent, per penny, which is 100ths, we get about 31% of the cranium out of the total for the large skull.

But then, if we have a small skull, and we want that same cranium out of total, then we can look back at our data and we see that what we have is 18 milliliters--millimeters out of 34 millimeters and so we go back and we write 18 out of 34 and we notice, hmm, well, 18 x 2 would be 36, so it's actually more than half, right?

So if we use a calculator, we know that 18 divided by 34 is about 0.53 which is about 53%.

Ooh, 31% is less than 47%.

Remember, we said, oh, it would be less than half, right?

So we know that that is the long-tailed weasel, and then, well, 53%, we saw that that was more than half, right?

So it's greater than 47%, so then we know that that's the short-tailed weasel.

So we find out that the large skull belongs to the long-tailed weasel, and the small skull belongs to the short-tailed weasel.

Back to you, Pam.

Pam: Thanks, Number Woman.

Tamar: This is the mountain lion, and what does the mountain lion eat?

Pam: Meat.

Tamar: Does it kill things or does it eat things that are already dead?

Pam: It kills things but I bet if it was super-hungry, it might eat something that was already dead, but basically it kills them first.

Tamar: Yeah, so these teeth are gonna help it kill things, these big canine teeth.

So here's another.

This is a big skull.

Pam: It is a big skull.

Tamar: And it also looks like something that eats meat.

It has those big canine teeth.

But look at its molars.

They're really flat.

Pam: There are really flat, and this looks like a little older of a creature, as well.

Tamar: That's right.

It is worn.

You noticed that.

It's worn down.

Pam: Is it possible that this animal could have molars like we have?

Tamar: They are kind of similar, and that's because this is an animal that, like us, eats a little bit of everything.

What's that called, animals that eat a little bit of everything?

Pam: They would be called omnivores.

Tamar: Right, right, so carnivores eat meat, herbivores eat plants, and omnivores eat everything and this is a black bear.

And bears eat a little bit of everything.

Here's the biggest skull we have out.

How about this one?

Does this one eat plants?

Is this a carnivore, an omnivore, or an herbivore?

Pam: Well, let's see.

I have to think.

First off, it seems to not have any canines at all.

It does not have any sharp teeth there.

It has incisors but only incisors are the very front teeth and it has them on the bottom but it doesn't have them on the top.

Tamar: Isn't that weird to have incisors on the bottom but not the top.

Pam: It seems weird to me, for sure.

And then it also has these really sharp kind of ridges on its molars and it has a whole heck of a lot of molars and pre-molars are the molars in front.

So I'm guessing that this is eating vegetation.

Tamar: That's right.

So this--these are really great for grinding up vegetation, which is hard to digest so you have to grind it up really well.

It doesn't have any incisors on the top, but it does have the ones on the bottom and it uses those to clip vegetation.

Pam: Oh yes, nip grass or whatever, yes.

Tamar: So what do you think this is, that's really big?

♪♪♪ Pam: It looks like a cow.

Tamar: It's not a cow.

Pam: Okay, wait, now, this is good.

Is it a--it's not a horse 'cause a horse has a big high forehead.

Tamar: Well, a horse also has incisors.

Pam: Has incisors, that's right.

Tamar: Anybody knows that who's been nipped by a horse.

Pam: That's true.

Oh my gosh, is this a local animal?

Tamar: It is a local animal.

Pam: Oh no, you've got me stumped, Tamar.

Tamar: Okay.

Pam: Help me--oh wait.

Tamar: Well, I'm gonna show you this one.

What's this?

Pam: A sheep.

Tamar: Look, it's very similar.

Pam: A goat?

A sheep?

Tamar: And they're--this is very similar but it's smaller and it's not a goat or sheep 'cause it's a wild animal.

Pam: Wild animal, a deer.

Tamar: It's a deer, yes.

Pam: That is a deer.

Tamar: So this is just like a deer, only it's way bigger.

Pam: It's an elk.

Tamar: Okay, yes.

Pam: Thank you for all those hints.

I appreciate it.

Tamar: What about this?

Pam: Oh my goodness.

Tamar: What does that eat?

Pam: That's crazy.

Look at the molars.

So I'm thinking plant material and I know that a rat or a rabbit has teeth like this in the front but I don't think-- is this a wild animal?

Tamar: This is a wild animal.

Pam: So is it possible that this is a beaver?

Tamar: It's possible, but it's not.

Pam: Is it a muskrat?

Tamar: It's very similar.

The skull is very similar to a beaver.

I'm gonna give you a little hint.

You don't wanna pet it.

Pam: You don't wanna pet--oh, a porcupine.

A porcupine.

Tamar: Right.

Pam: That was a great hint.

♪♪♪ Tamar: The last thing I wanna show you before you go, I wanted to show you the poop collection.

Pam: Oh boy.

Tamar: Yes, we have--why do you think we have a collection of poop at the university?

Pam: I think it's because it's a great way to study what the animal ate.

Tamar: Not just what the animal ate but our students in one of their classes have to learn to identify the animal from the poop.

And so if you're out, say, your job is a wildlife biologist and you're surveying animals.

You wanna know which animals are around, well, most mammals are nocturnal.

They come out at night and so they're hard to see.

So you might put out cameras, but you also might see their poop and so, if you know whose poop it is, you know who's been there.

Let's see if you can identify any right.

This one might look familiar to you.

It's big and I think it looks like it has blackberries in it.

Pam: Okay, I think it's a bear.

Tamar: It is a bear.

Pam: So I'm looking at this one and it looks like there's a lot of hair in it.

Tamar: It does look like there's a lot of hair.

So you think that one ate something with all that hair?

Pam: Yes, and I'm guessing that it's not an herbivore.

A fox?

Tamar: It's a little bit big for a fox.

Pam: Little big for a fox, okay.

Tamar: But you're close.

Pam: Oh my goodness.

Okay, is it a--is it dog or cat?

Tamar: It's in the dog family.

Pam: Coyote?

Tamar: Yup.

Yeah, so that's coyote and I believe this is also coyote.

So you can see all the hair in there, so that's something that's eating another mammal.

Pam: Yup, yup.

That looks like a plop from a cow or something.

Tamar: Well, it's actually another bear.

Pam: Oh my goodness, it depends on what the bear ate.

Tamar: But this bear is a bigger bear.

Pam: Ooh, a grizzly.

Tamar: It is a grizzly bear, yeah.

Pam: Wow, and it looks like he/she ate, I mean, you know, it's vegetation.

Tamar: Yeah, I mean, vegetation mixed in with it.

'Cause bears are omnivores as we saw when we looked at their teeth, so they will eat meat.

This is a bear from Alaska.

They probably eat a lot of fish there.

But they're also probably even mixing it with vegetation.

Pam: So there could be bones in this, even, then?

Tamar: There could be.

There could be.

We didn't pick through it to see what was there, yeah.

Pam: Well, that's pretty cool.

Tamar: You know, poop smells and so that smell for animals, it tells them things.

It tells them who's there, who's been here.

So they share information with each other by pooping in very specific locations.

Pam: That makes sense.

Tamar: Yeah, so what do you think of my poop collection?

Pam: I think it's impressive and I really learned a lot.

Thanks, Tamar.

Tamar: You're so welcome.

Come back anytime.

Pam: Thank you very much.

I really had a great visit.

Pam: We hope you enjoyed your time here at the Wildlife Museum.

Thanks for watching "Field Trip."

Tamar: So this is the museum and--I should have something to say about it.

Tamar: You're solving mysteries.

Pam: Sherlock Holmes.

No, Sherlock Holmes, well, I mean, is he--what's a better--Dora the Explorer?

Did she do something like that?

Pam: Is that like the weaker of the babies that comes-- Tamar: I don't know.

Pam: I just wondered.

Tamar: I don't know.

Don't ask me questions I don't know the answer to on camera, Pam, okay?

♪♪♪