via, Madagascar, Chile, the Philippines, and Borneo, 

 Museum scientists have been working with host gov- 

 ernments, conservation agencies, and other museums 

 and universities. The Museum seeks to document biolo- 

 gical diversity and its significance for conservation on a 

 global scale, promote the use of its unique tropical col- 

 lections, and collaborate on the training students and pro- 

 fessionals in host countries. 



Among the Field Museum researchers who contri- 

 buted important work on the flora and fauna of tropical for- 

 ests is the late chairman of the Department of Botany, 

 Timothy C. Plowman. His death in January 1989 is much 

 mourned by his colleagues, who have established the 

 Timothy Plowman Fund for South American Research and 

 Travel to assist future generations of tropical botanists. Dr. 

 Plowman was the world's leading authority on taxonomy of 

 the family Erythroxylaceae, which includes coca, and he 

 collaborated closely with ethnobotanists working to iden- 

 tify plants known to heal, feed, and house indigenous peo- 

 ples. The Museum's large and historically significant col- 

 lection of plant-derived waxes, oils, herbs, medicines, 

 woods, fibers, seeds, and bark, including many items no 

 longer produced in the modern world, has been renamed 

 the Timothy Plowman Economic Botany Collection. 



In Venezuela's Orinoco Basin, extensive deforesta- 

 tion and river diversion threaten the habitats of numerous 

 fish communities, and the Museum's associate curator of 

 fishes, Barry Chernoff, has contributed detailed data from 

 his studies of South American freshwater fishes in hopes 

 that a management plan can be devised to save them. 

 Similarly, Lawrence Heaney, recently appointed assistant 

 curator of mammals, has been working in the Philippines, 



where his data on rare and increasingly endangered 

 species is being used to redesign the national park 

 system. 



Scott Lanyon, associate curator of birds, led expedi- 

 tions to Bolivia, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela to 

 track the biochemical, morphological, and behavioral 

 evolution of the New World blackbirds. Lanyon was 

 recently appointed representative of the American Orni- 

 thologists' Union to the International Council for Bird Pre- 

 servation. John Fitzpatrick, chairman of the Department of 

 Zoology, who has been inventorying bird communities in 

 Peru, visited Madagascar to investigate the possibility of 

 conducting similar studies in that extremely threatened 

 area. 



Other Field Museum scientists working in the tropics 

 include William Burger (botanical studies in Costa Rica), 

 Michael Dillon (vascular plants, Peru), Bruce Patterson 

 (mammalian studies, Chile), and Robert Inger and Harold 

 Voris (amphibians and reptiles, Borneo). 



Geology and Paleontology 



Understanding evolutionary diversity is also the province 

 of those who study the world of the geological past. That 

 work will be significantly advanced by the new 

 paleomagnetic laboratory developed by John Flynn, 

 associate curator of fossil mammals. During the 4.6 billion 

 years of the Earth's existence, its magnetic poles have 

 changed orientation many times, and fossil-bearing rocks 

 often reveal evidence of their magnetic orientation at the 

 time they were formed. Paleomagnetic comparison of 

 geographically remote specimens can show how the 



Ron Testa, head photogra- 

 pher, and Diane Alexander 

 White, photographer, record 

 on film one of the Museum's 

 great treasures, a bronze 

 Egyptian cat collected by 

 Edward E. Ayer in 1 895, In 

 addition to photographing 

 artifacts and specimens of ev- 

 ery description, for record as 

 well as publication, they 

 'shoot' activities as well: public 

 performances, workshops, 

 formal celebrations, building 

 renovation, and curatorial 

 work in the laboratory and in 

 the field. 



11 



Nina Cummings 84489 



