Module 13: New discoveries

The message
New discoveries advance our understanding of biodiversity in a region—and life on our planet.

The experience
A modular space provides display cases for specimens, hook-ups for live web-cams, monitors for videos, and optional seating for visitors. Some components in the gallery would be semi-permanent, while other features might rotate in on a monthly basis. In live or pre-recorded videos, scientists show visitors how they conduct research revolving around new discoveries or retell their “A-Ha!” moment of discovery.

Permanent displays feature instruments used by science staff, as well as the wide variety of specimen types held in the collection—skins, skeletons, spirit jars, stomach samples, DNA samples, herbarium sheets, and more. Museum publications describing new species might be included in hard copy, to show their sheer volume, or digitized for visitors to browse. The space is framed by a photo mural with images or field illustrations of every new species identified by Museum scientists over the institution’s history.

One semi-permanent display might include a kipunji skull, part of the voucher specimen collected by Bill Stanley and his team in Tanzania. Another semi-permanent station could feature tiny liverworts from Matt Von Konrat’s work in the South Pacific. Visitors view the nearly identical specimens under a microscope and sample each one’s distinctive smell.

The story
Visitors should leave the exhibition with a new awareness of the Field as an active, vital hub of conservation research. New discoveries are one area where content should be updated regularly to maintain the institution’s “pulse.” New discoveries can demonstrate how conservation efforts are embedded in the research of all divisions.

Bill Stanley’s research on the kipunji involves DNA analysis to track this new species’ evolution and solve a mating mystery: How could kipunji on one mountain range show signs of mating with baboons, while kipunji on another mountain range—but of the same species—not have this link to baboon DNA? This story connects to conservation stories about endemism and habitat loss, but also connects to the broader evolution narratives presented elsewhere in the Museum.

Matt Von Konrat’s work involves the Prizker Lab and research labs in Japan. The distinctive smell of seemingly commonplace liverwort species was the first clue that they might have unique active compounds. These are now being analyzed as cancer-fighting agents.
New specimens in these displays would need to be accessible to research staff; removal signage could highlight active research happening in the building.