Dina's Travels: Museum of Natural History, Cambridge

I got back from Rome and Israel on Saturday night after a two day delay in Rome and the next afternoon I joined Nadav, Leah, and the boys and some friends to get a bit of a behind the scenes tour of the Harvard Museum of Natural History--where a friend who is a herpetologist took us around. The word herpetologist comes from the Greek word "herpeton" which means "creepy thing" and herpetology is the scientific study of reptiles and amphibians.

Hi friend!

Our friend took us around the "working" side of the museum where many people work.

First we saw a big leatherback turtle on the wall. There was a puddle on the floor from tar that had covered the turtle for protection and was dripping off over time.

Then we passed a huge wall and Colin asked us what we thought was in it? It had very old petrified animals.

We were all surprised to learn that they were salamanders. Now they are small but about 200 million years ago, they were huge!

And another big turtle on the wall: This one is the same kind as Myrtle the turtle at the local New England Aquarium.

Then we went into the library, but instead of books, they had lots and lots of specimens of reptiles and amphibians collected around the world. Each one is stored in alcohol to preserve them with multiple specimens in many bottles. The researchers have to be very very careful because alcohol is flammable--that means it can burn easily.

The kids enjoyed moving the rows. They were set up so that more could be stored in big rooms.

Some of the jars have red or blue bands on them.

Red bands means that the specimen was the first of its species (kind) to be discovered by scientists. The blue tags means that others were discovered in the same place and time as the red-tagged ones. All the jars are carefully labeled with the area and date they were discovered and their scientific names.

You can see the small lizards in the jars above and below.

We also saw larger examples and some that were captured when brought into this country--dead for collections. This was an alligator lizard, from about 1950.

This museum has the largest collection of amphibians and reptiles of a university in the US, especially with specimens from South America.

We saw lots of alligator skins. One we saw was from Madagascar. They might have been collected years ago by Harvard researchers or confiscated when brought into this country.

The room is kept at low humidity and temperature around 60 degrees F to preserve these skins.

There was also a great chart of alligators and crocodiles. Here is part of it.

And look at those teeth! We could not touch them as they were very fragile. some of the teeth we saw were very pointy. Our guide told us that they didn't need pointed teeth as the jaw bight was so strong that they could crush the animal that they wanted to eat.

A midget alligator or croc.

This was a real animal, killed and stuffed and brought into this country for a collection, which is illegal. It was taken by police at Boston's Logan airport and is now in this museum library.

Looking at small turtles.

Doggie looked too.

Huge Turtle skeletons

And one with a huge head similar to one I saw on the Amazon alive--Mata Mata

And then we saw snake skeletons and snakes preserved in alcohol. Some were so large that they were stored in special metal drawers.

Some snakes were too big to put in jars so they were put in big metal drawers that were hard to open because they were so heavy.

I thought I saw rust in the lower bottom of the drawer below but it wasn't rust. It was scales that lad sluffed offed the snakes in the alcohol over time.

The kids asked why there were so many specimens in this library. We learned that they are used by scientists, often to measure them and then compare them to the same species now, 50 or 100 years later. They are also there to keep a record of what has existed. They were also worried about how they were killed so that they could be preserved.

We then saw part of the main museum, a 5 year old tarantula who has always lived here. The tips of her hairs have something poisonous that can make you itch so we did not touch her. Was her name Grace?