Susie's Pennsylvania Postcards

carnegiemuseumnaturalhistory:

by Marc L. Yergin and Timothy A. Pearce

Yes, some sponges live in freshwater. Before our recent finds, only one species of sponge had been reported from western Pennsylvania.

Figure 1. Ephydatia mulleri found in a run in Somerset County, in the handsof Duquesne University student Emily Simon. In living sponges, water flows in through the small holes called pores and out through the large holes called oscula, visible in the photo.

As you walk along a western Pennsylvania stream, you may notice a tan or brown encrustation on rocks or sticks in the water. The encrustation might superficially look like algae, but if you notice regular holes, you might have found a sponge. Scientists first categorized sponges as plants until it was noticed the organisms were pumping water in and out, which plants don’t do.

Sponges (phylum Porifera) are the simplest multi-cellular animals. They are considered the sister group to all other multi-cellular animals. They don’t have organs or tissues like we do. Nevertheless, we share 70% of our DNA with sponges.

Freshwater sponges account for less than 3 percent of the total 10,000 species of modern sponges on earth, most of which are marine. Only 31 species of freshwater sponges are found in North America.

Our study, so far, found two additional species of freshwater sponges in western Pennsylvania, Ephydatia muelleri (Fig. 1) and Ephydatia fluviatilis. Because our species look alike, we tell them apart by examining their microscopic skeletal elements, called spicules. Spicules are made of silica, the same material found in sand and glass. The shape and form of the spicules are used to identify these sponges.

Figure 2. A microphotograph of spicules from Ephydatia mulleri. The needle-like megascleres are 200 - 350 microns long (0.008 - 0.012 inches) and the smaller dumbbell-shaped gemmuloscleres are 10 microns (0.0004 inches) long. The average width of a human hair is about 100 microns (0.004 inches).

Spicules come in many different sizes and shapes. The larger spicules for the two species we found are called megascleres and look like double-pointed needles. The smaller spicules, called gemmuloscleres, look like dumbbells and provide protection in sponge reproductive structures (Fig. 2).

Sponges eat microorganisms by capturing and ingesting them from the water. Water is circulated through canals lined by cells with flagella (hair-like projections) that trap food particles. The water flows by every cell so oxygen can enter and carbon dioxide can be expelled.

The presence of sponges indicates good water quality with little or no contamination from acid mine drainage or sediment from agricultural field runoff.

Timothy A. Pearce, PhD, is the head of the mollusks section at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

Desiderio Memorial Park & Korean War Memorial featuring “The Rocket”, (as it is called by the locals) and a cannon. The rocket used to say USAF on it, but when it was repainted by the city, they took it upon themselves to change it to USARMY. The plaque reads that Captain Reginald B. Desiderio was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously on July 9, 1918 for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty.

carnegiemuseumnaturalhistory:

by Bonnie Isaac

Recently I received a call from a woman who had bought an estate and discovered a hidden treasure in the basement. The basement contained 28 boxes of herbarium specimens. These boxes contained the private herbarium of Charles Boardman. Boardman was a research associate of Botany here at the museum from 1951 until his death on January 5, 1983. He had built his own herbarium space in his basement. These specimens are already mounted and in remarkably good shape for having been stored in a basement unattended for over 30 years.

Herbarium space built in the basement of Charles Boardman’s house with boxes of specimens.

Amazingly enough, there was also a letter with the collection with some details about his life. Charles Boardman was born in Buffalo, New York in 1903. Mr. Boardman attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and became a professional engineer. Charles was especially interested in mosses which led to his affiliation with Carnegie’s own Otto Jennings. Boardman accompanied Jennings on many field trips and collected specimens for the Manual of Mosses of Western Pennsylvania written and illustrated by Jennings. Boardman’s moss collection was donated to Duke University at his request shortly after his death. His vascular plant collection remained hidden in his basement until just a few weeks ago.

Water lily specimen found in Boardman’s personal herbarium.

Most of the specimens are from the 1930’s and 1940’s collected from Pennsylvania and beyond. In the coming weeks and months, we will process this amazing gift to see how many specimens are in this hidden treasure and put them into the main herbarium here at the museum for researchers to use in the future. You never know where a historic treasure may be lurking.

Bonnie Isaac is the Collection Manager in the Section of Botany. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

It’s been raining nonstop for the past few days…. there’s a lot of flooding all over the area.

These photos via Facebook.

Bust of George Romero in Monroeville Mall.

pittsburghbeautiful:

Zeke’s Take on his First Show with the Counting Crows

All concert photos by Zeke

I made the rare trip to Key Bank, Post Gazette, Star Lake place in Burgettstown. I usually skip shows out there but then I was thinking, I’ve gone to west coast to see shows, this is closer.  I made it there in less than an hour.

I went to see The Counting Crows.  I’ve wanted to hear them live for 25 years.  I’ll admit that I’m not a big fan but love their songs on…

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2018, The Northern Appalachian Folk Festival, September 8, Downtown Indiana, Pennsylvania.