Mammal skeletons, plant fossils, and turtle shells donated to Daniel M. Fisk Museum of Natural History

Home News Mammal skeletons, plant fossils, and turtle shells donated to Daniel M. Fisk Museum of Natural History
Mammal skeletons, plant fossils, and turtle shells donated to Daniel M. Fisk Museum of Natural History

turtle shell

Tony Swinehart, professor of biology and curator of the Fisk Museum of Natural History, holds one of the tortoise shells donated by Brian Johnson.
Madeleine Jepsen | Collegian

An array of ornate turtle shells and rare mammal skeletons will soon bedeck the shelves of the Daniel M. Fisk Museum of Natural History for visitors to admire.
The museum, located in Strosacker Science Center, received a sizeable donation from the personal collection of Brian Johnson, an exhibit builder for Indiana State Museum. Johnson’s donation included turtle shells from around the world and skeletons of a marmoset, great fox, badger, and a hornbill bird. Other specimens he donated include zebra and horse skulls, Triassic plant fossils, and a cast of an early human Australopithecus skull.
Johnson said starting a museum with his natural history collection interested him, but he didn’t have the time to undertake such a large project. When he heard about Hillsdale College’s museum of natural history from a colleague, he decided to donate a large portion of his collection.
“Dr. Swinehart showed me the museum, and it was perfect,” he said. “It was headed in the right direction, and he had made a lot of improvements already. I was more excited when I saw it than I was even just hearing about it.”
Anthony Swinehart, professor of biology and museum curator, said a case near the entrance to Strosacker temporarily will display the turtle shells and a few representative skeletons and fossils until the permanent display case in the museum is ready and he and his students have documented all the pieces.
“Each specimen has to be given a unique number, and then that has to be entered into a database,” he said. “That way, if we ever lost the box, or if someone uses it for a class and they don’t know what it is or where it’s from, they can always go to the database and get the location.”
Swinehart said some of the rocks containing fossils may also hold more specimens deeper inside.
“Almost every rock in those boxes is just full of cycads and other early plants,” he said. “A lot of those are just what I call farm fresh — they haven’t been prepped, which means you might see a plant on the surface, but there’s more underneath. We can go into that rock and prep them out, and there may be things in there that we didn’t even know — there might even be early dinosaur teeth in that stuff.”
Swinehart also said the skeletons in the donation are high-quality specimens, which would be very expensive to purchase.
“It is so difficult to get clean skeletons because you have to basically culture your own dermestid beetles, which is a type of beetle that cleans flesh from bone,” he said. “These are all beautifully cleaned. If you were to go out and buy a skeleton, even a skeleton of a rat, it’s not cheap, let alone some of these rare mammals.”
In addition to the paleontological value of the specimens, professors also can use them in the classroom. Professor of Biology Dan York said he plans to use them in his comparative vertebrate anatomy class.
“The strength of comparative anatomy has to do with relating structure with function,” he said in an email. “Seeing variations in the form of such anatomical structures as the skull, vertebrae, or limb bones allows students to better understand the functional significance of how the animals utilize their anatomical parts in their natural environment.”
Swinehart said Johnson’s donation appeals to both visitors and professors in its wide variety of specimens.
“The turtles are great for crowd-pleasing because they’re really neat and colorful, but in terms of value to education and research, I really like the Triassic fossils and skeletons,” he said.
Johnson said he still has a sizeable collection of fossils, which he plans to maintain in future years. He has donated almost all his skeletons and turtle shells to the Fisk Museum.
“I’ve been collecting for 25 or 30 years, and I think I’ve found a good home for it now,” he said.

Johnson

Brian Johnson, exhibit builder at Indiana State’s museum, donated over 10 boxes of specimens from his personal collection to Hillsdale College’s Fisk Museum of Natural History.
Tony Swinehart | Courtesy