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During our first field trip to Bozeman, Montana we met
with Paleohistology Lab manager Dr. Ellen-Thérèse Lamm
who showed us the fascinating world inside of fossilized bones.
But we also visited Amy Atwater, who is a Collections Manager, like me.
She’s in charge of the Vertebrate Paleontology Collection, located in the basement of the Museum.
With a backdrop of Edmontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex bones,
she describes her job and the collection she manages.
Hey everybody it's
Kallie here again I'm at the Museum of the Rockies in the Vert Paleo collection
talking to the new Collections Manager Amy Atwater. Thank you so much for
having us here today in this amazing collection. What is your paleontological
background like what's your specialty?
So I most recently completed my master's
degree at the University of Texas at Austin where I focused on Eocene mammals
and specifically Eocene primates so it's something that not a lot of folks know
that around forty five million years ago actually like 56 to about 43 million
years ago we had little prosimian lemur-like tarsier-like primates jumping
around hopping around North America, the United States. We mostly focus on their
teeth and they're extremely small my biggest sample had teeth that were about
two millimeters by one millimeter so in length by width so.
Lots of microscope work, huh?
Everything under a microscope absolutely on everything
So this is kind of
interesting....you manage this massive dinosaur collection and you
study teeny tiny little mammals.
I always had place for the big megafauna in
my heart and it's been exciting to have an opportunity to protect and take care
of all sizes of fossils here at thr Museum the Rockies
The Museum of the
Rockies has among the largest collections of North American dinosaurs
in the United States. It also holds the largest collection of T. Rex and
Triceratops fossils in the world. Managing a large collection of massive
million year old bones is a surprisingly delicate task.
So I'm a collections
manager at the University of Montana just like three hours to the west of here but can
you describe to our audience what is a collections manager what do
you do? What's your role?
I do a lot of things and try to take care of all of
the fossils. I usually deal with fossils after they have been removed from the
field taken out in the field jacket and usually after they've been prepared by
our preparators and then they make their way to me and my office and it's my job
to take the fossil, make sure we have all the necessary information, make sure that
it's labeled properly. John has often referred to collection managing is kind
of like being a librarian which I'm sure you can relate to.
Fossil Librarian!
Exactly and that's true we take care of these objects and then make sure that as
they're in their final long-term storage, that they're still in a safe place that
they have a nice cradle to protect them, that they have some foam around them if
they need that, that we have all the right information on them and make sure
that they're taken care of and also available to visiting researchers.
And you mentioned the cradles and we have some lovely cradles behind us here can
you elaborate a little bit of what the purpose of one of these cradles is?
Sure of course. Fossils have been in the ground for millions of years as you
know and when we bring them to the surface, this is not the most stable
environment for them. So we want to make sure that they have everything to be as
protected as possible to minimize any amount of damage that could take place
and it really just helps maintain the long-term safety of these finite
resources. We don't want to screw it up we don't want one of these things --yeah
you can't just like go out and collect another one--well sometimes maybe but--
--nothing that is of that individual right --yeah ---exactly so we talked about that a
lot. Some folks will say just go get another t-rex and well they're not all
the same and I wish I could just go find another that'd be great--that'd be great
We'd all be out of a job is that easy just go out find me another one!
Exactly so every fossil that comes in is unique it's finite it's the only one
of its specific type. It's already fragile. It is
millions of years old so that is a lot to ask of anything and we want to do
everything we can to make sure that we can research them for hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds of years.
Now you mentioned prep and prepping a
fossil what do you do when you prep a fossil?
When a fossil is discovered in
the field it is rarely in a pristine ready to go on display state. You know we
don't find a perfectly articulated t-rex standing there waiting to be found that
just isn't how geology works so when we bring them out of the field, they're
usually still within a lot of sediment that they were found with and that's
part of their jacket and so the preparators job is to get the jacket off
from the field and work away all of that sediment and stabilizing the bone at the
exact same time. It's just about getting them to being there they're true bone
instead of being still partially excavated if you will. And then while
you're doing that you frequently will use a variety of glues and putties to
get everything to stick together and to hold together correctly so that it will
be stable and so that it could go on exhibit someday as well.
So there are a lot of amazing things in this collection I can imagine, what is like the most
special or unique or rare thing that's here at the MOR
Something that really
put Museum of the Rockies on the map was eggs and dinosaurs in embryos and
nestlings and this idea of some dinosaurs caring for their young. I
personally think that for me the most exciting and unique thing that I've
learned about and been really excited about is a specific t-rex specimen
MOR 1125 which we call "B-Rex"--It was found by Bob Harmon one of our
preparators so it's called B-Rex in his honor. And Dr. Mary Schweitzer has done a
lot of work with this B-Rex individual and she looks at soft tissues in bone
they were able to identify what the soft tissue in the femur was and it's
medullary tissue and that is something we only see today in female birds that
are preparing to lay eggs. It's a source of calcium. So because of
that by using the comparative method we can conclusively say that B-Rex was
female and she is the first t-rex to be conclusively shown to be of one sex or
the other. One of my other favorites has been this incredibly beautiful Borophaginae
skull and a Borophaginae is a bone-crushing dog so they have these
incredible teeth that were just---
they are ridiculous---
just insane and it's the most
beautiful skull and jaw I've ever ever had the joy of looking at.
So this was
super cool Amy thank you so much for having us here today and talking about
your amazing job is there anything you want to end with or sign off?
I just want to encourage everybody out there to go visit the Museum of the Rockies
Heck yeah, Great thanks so much!
Thank you
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I want to send a
special thank you to the Museum of the Rockies for allowing us to film at their
facilities. Also, I want to thank viewers like you for joining me again on our
visit to the museum. We're already planning more trips to the field but
while you wait for these let me know in the comments where you want Eons to
visit next and don't forget to go to YouTube.com/Eons and subcribe