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Conservators, curators and taxidermists developed novel techniques to preserve the past with an eye to the future as they restored aging animal dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History
November 16, 2012 | 8
Restored wapiti diorama after the American Museum of Natural History's Hall of North American Mammals reopened to the public in October.
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Taxidermist Robert Rockwell shapes the clay model for the Alaska brown bear in 1940, before the AMNH's Hall of North American Mammals dioramas opened in 1942.
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An artist at work painting the background (by Belmore Browne and George Browne) of the Alaska brown bear diorama.
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Museum artist Stephen Quinn airbrushes a special, reversible stable dye mixture to restore the original coloring to the Alaska brown bear.
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Completed restoration of the Alaska brown bear diorama.
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Museum artists paint the background and preparators install native grasses typical of the 1850s Great Plains for the American bison and pronghorn antelope diorama before the hall's opening....[More]
Photographs document the fading that had occurred in the American bison under the bright light of the Great Plains diorama.
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A pre- and post-restoration contrast of the faded and recolored pronghorn antelope.
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The competed and restored American bison and pronghorn antelope diorama.
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A detail of the newly restored snow in the Canada lynx and snowshoe hare diorama.
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Museum artist Stephen Quinn makes pigments to overcome new shadows cast by the updated energy-efficient and UV-filtered lights in the wolf diorama.
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The recolored snow in the wolf diorama once again displays an illusory moon shadow.
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8 Comments
Add CommentThis article is supposedly about dioramas, remember, to preface my comments below.
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"This enables researchers to track changes in coloring and habitat due to, for example, rapidly advancing climate change." - Don't you just love how each and every supposedly scientific article, no matter what the purported and/or stated theme of it supposedly is these days, just never fails to get its dig in about "manmade global warming" aka "[global] "climate change?" And so now it's again evolved further (for the dramatic purposes of this article) into "rapidly advancing" "climate change!" I swear! An article could be about string theory or polar auroras, and I honestly wouldn't be in the least bit surprised to hear global warming (or any variant) be given a "shout out," even in an article such as those! Give it a rest for God's sake! This is the exact reason I finally CANCELLED my Scientific American magazine. If you want to discuss it (climate change) rationally, (you remember rationally, don't you?) and in a focused and pointed manner within a story of relevance,, then fine, but to have it repeatedly infiltrate, in such a sub-rosa fashion, each and every article published, as a superfluous, incongruous component to the stated purpose of the story,, well then sorry, I can't, don't and won't buy it, and I am no longer going to be buying from you either...
Upon reading "rapidly advancing climate change" I jumped to comment, only to discover that you did it for me already!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientific American must have an employee responsible for ensuring that some variation of the phrases "global warming" or "climate change" occur in every other article.
Well, Nagnostic and Lewtheprof, have you guys ever had a subscription with Objective reality and by the way, it is free!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst of all, I was a long time PAYING customer of the hard copy of Scientific American. I did finally )in disgust) switch to Science News, and honestly, it is a lot better (in this respect we are discussing),, not perfect but better. Finally though, just why would you think that opinion, editorializing and proselytizing should be [allowed to be] a part of the articles within any such a "hard news" or supposedly fact based science journal. If you knew anything at all about the history of this magazine, you'd know it is not (never been) the norm for it, historically speaking. This is clearly a path into sensationalism for them, at best,, into politically driven, advocacy/propaganda journalism at worst. They've sullied themselves with this, and my guess is that in some way (probably credibility) it'll ultimately hurt them. It's clear that they are unconcerned with that possibility right now, or are but another willing sacrificial lamb for the cause of pseudo-scientific advocacy for that which is politically expedient in our time.
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BTW, free or not, it's still propaganda and propagandizing. You and others like you, are enabling them and those like them by rationalizing and so by default, defending them. Is that really the right thing to do, whatever the topic? Just remember, "Opinion Journalism" is an oxymoron!
Hmmm...I did not read them to say 'manmade' global warming. If you do not believe in global warming, whether manmade or otherwise, it seems to me you are the one who is not being objective, it is a fact, not an opinion. The fact of the matter is, the changes caused by global warming are relevant to the discussion, and therefore appropriate to the article. You might be a denier of global warming, just as you might be a denier of earthlings having walked on the moon, or the earth being round...the fact you want to continue to believe something that has no scientific objectivity, does not make you objective, just irrational. There is a difference between healthy skepticism, which is in my view a virtue, and wearing blinders to any fact that does not support 'your opinion'. As they say, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own 'facts'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's rather surprising to see an article in a scientific magazine refer to "pronghorn antelope" in a natural history article. I had thought that pronghorns were not antelopes, but a completely independent species. Was I wrong?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPronghorns are members of the family Antilocapridae, while "antelopes" are members of several different subfamilies of the family Bovidae. The term "antelope" is used to indicate a tropical or subtropical bovid, usually from Africa, that has a particular general size, temperament, shape, build, or head/horn shape. For example, the eland, an oxlike bovid, is considered an antelope based on habitat, head shape, temperament, and build. Such distinctions are often rather arbitrary.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you are going to give before and after shots, as with the Bison, please try to use comparable lighting and exposure. I would also be curious (a) what happened the Bison's "before" bird and (b) why was the "after" bison given a vigorous hair blow out (looks like 60s dos)? I would have expected the bison was originally given somewhat matted head hair as more likely in nature (rain, sweat, lack of combing, etc.).
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