By William Diep, mlive.com
ANN ARBOR, MI — Rodent skulls. Dead caecilians. Beetles. Coral snakes in jars. An extinct anole from Puerto Rico. Cordyceps. Plants that smell like gym socks.
Squeamish readers, look away. This is how the University of Michigan preserves animal and plant specimens at its Museum of Zoology and Herbarium, full of interesting displays of long-conserved life.
During a visit to the University of Michigan Herbarium and Museum of Zoology, staff toured the two collections and highlighted some of the many specimens.
The herbarium, directed by UM professor and naturalist Thais Vasconcelos, has over 1.7 million plant specimens from around the world. The museum of zoology, directed by UM professor and evolutionary biologist Alison Davis Rabosky, has approximately 15 million specimens.
This year marks the first time the museum of zoology and the herbarium, both under the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, have two concurrent female directors since the two units merged with the department in 2010.
At the museum of zoology, Davis Rabosky pulled out a preserved caecilian from a jar full of alcohol and out came the creature.
Its mouth was full of teeth and the dark-gray snake-like amphibian looked vicious. Visitors should know the specimen was preserved in formalin before going into the alcohol jar.
Another gnarly creature is a two-headed yellow trout. It is the size of a human palm and was caught by a fly fisher at Yosemite National Park in California.
Benjamin Nicholas, the collection manager for the division of fishes, explained the creature is full of eggs and has two fully formed brains, stomachs, hearts and digestive systems. He said the fish counts as two specimens in the collection.
Along the tour, Davis Rabosky showcased rows of tanks used to preserve larger fish.
“We have one sturgeon that we had to chop between three tanks and I want a bigger room,” Davis Rabosky said.
Shelves containing jars with coral snakes, frogs and other preserved specimens line up in several collection rooms.
Some hold multiple amphibians floating on top of each other.
The collection uses special number codes to distinguish creatures from one another.
One jar contains the extinct Puerto Rican giant anole, an arboreal American lizard, one of six in collections throughout the world. The specimen is pale in color and Davis Rabosky said herpetologists want to hold it on visits to the museum of zoology.
“It’s a very profound moment and sad really, but if we didn’t have collections it would be invisible,” Davis Rabosky said.
In another room, the skull of a juvenile humpback whale from the Massachusetts coast sits in the back behind larger drawers of dry animal specimens.
One drawer has several hare specimens varying in color. The bones are separated from the carcasses and the collection uses more tags to distinguish the animals.
Proceed with caution with one drawer; the specimen of Hystrix cristata, a crested porcupine, has quills so long the wrong gesture could poke you.
Bug haters, take a breath. The museum has boxes of insects preserved on long needles. The insects range in size, from gnarly pests to some smaller than a half a centimeter.
“We have more insects than anything else in the museum of zoology,” Davis Rabosky said. “The insects are the majority of animal life.”
Moving over to the UM Herbarium, Vasconcelos said the plant collection’s historical diversity in its specimens.
“We discuss things that the original collectors, (who) collected these things, sometimes more than a hundred years ago, never expected,” Vasconcelos said.
Preserved fungi and wasps parasitized by cordyceps, a genus of fungi, are on display. The wasps’ wings and abdomens are intact and attached to the dried leaf.
Fans of the television series “The Last of Us,“ a post-apocalypse drama, might recognize the cordyceps on display.
One cabinet of preserved valerian smelled strongly of gym socks. Aly Baumgartner, collections manager for vascular plants, said she enjoys the smell but recognizes not everyone does.
Rows of plant cabinets fill much of the herbarium. It would take days to go through and sniff out every plant file.
“If you just look at the sheets, I think it’s pretty but it doesn’t have the same appeal as opening the drawer or the mammal collection,” Baumgartner said.
The UM herbarium and museum of zoology are free and open to all residents but a visit appointment must be scheduled in advance.
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