Animal bones offer clues to evolution
NAHANT - It's not just about the skeletons and skins, Gwil Jones said. It's what they can tell you about life on this planet.
He uses the example of evolution and how new discoveries led to new thinking about the relationships of different species, determined by patterns observed in skeletal remains gathered over many years.
"The more fossils that are found, the more complicated that pattern becomes," said the Northeastern University professor, whose collection inhabits the corridors and side rooms of the former World War II bunkers that house part of the university's Marine Science Center on East Point.
What scientists once "thought was related at one time is more distantly related or more closely related now, simply based on more evidence coming forth," he said.
For more than 30 years, Jones has collected bones, large and small. A collection he built while studying diseases in Vietnam, Taiwan, and Indonesia for the US Navy is kept at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
He estimates that there are nearly 40,000 specimens of mammals in his collection, which makes it the third-largest collection in Massachusetts, behind only Harvard and the University of Massachusetts. His collection features more skeletal remains of North Atlantic minke whales than the Smithsonian has.
Skulls from animals as exotic as elephants, giraffes, and rhinoceroses are lined up in display cases inside the bunker corridor.
Some large whale bones are stacked on heavy-duty shelves in a store room.
There are also drawers full of skins from small terrestrial mammals (shrews and mice, etc.), and the remains of small- to medium-sized fish, frogs, eels, and rays kept in jars on shelves.
The head and hide of a crocodile is folded on a countertop. One display case features only the skulls of seals.
"People will find a road-killed mink and call me and say, 'Do you want this?' " Jones said. "We'll take it. And we'll process it. There's ecology and systematics here. We'll take the parasites off, we'll take the stomach out and see what the stomach has in it. We'll learn as much as we can from it before we make it a skeleton."
The animals come from a variety of sources. A walrus skull came to the university after someone who knew Jones found it in a Lenox barn. A large waterhead turtle skull came into the collection after a Northeastern student dug it out of the trash in Cambridge. The giraffe came from the Stone Zoo in Stoneham, and zoo staffers cried as the Northeastern team took it away.
"They got very close," he said. "Apparently, they're very affectionate animals."
The collection includes an assembled but not articulated (meaning the bones are not connected) fin whale that measures 52 feet. Assembled along the floor of one of the bunker corridors, the large whale is a particular favorite of those on field trips.
A Northeastern professor since 1976, Jones has also served as the director of the marine science center since 2007.
When he moved his work from Boston to Nahant, he brought his bones - officially called The Center for Vertebrate Studies - with him.
That move has exposed the bones to a whole new world.
"It's been a great addition," said Tracy Hajduk, outreach coordinator for the center, which hosts field trips for students in K-12 as well as a summer program for high school students.
"It's something that kids can see here that they can't see anywhere else. It really hits home at how large some of these animals are, and some students really get interested because they can see it firsthand. We've had very positive feedback from both teachers and students."
Jones noted that approximately 900 people have visited the collection (all by appointment and with college permission) since the beginning of the year.
"A good way to look at a collection is to realize that it's virtually the same thing as a library," Jones said.
"Whether it's a library of CDs or a library of books, whatever, it's a life library," he said. 