1961-1962 - American Museum of Natural History

Dr. Koopman, formerly on the staff of the Chicago Natural
History Museum, joined the department in August. He has devoted
the major portion of his time since his appointment to
studies of the bats of Africa, particularly of the Sudan and the
Congo. He also spent two weeks in the Virgin Islands in search
of specimens of Stenoderma, a bat that had previously been
believed to be extinct but is now known to persist on St. John.
Although he was unsuccessful in this endeavor, he collected a
number of other interesting bats and obtained sufficient data for
the preparation of a paper.
Mr. Hobart M. Van Deusen continued his investigations of
the mammals of New Guinea based primarily on material collected
by the 1953, 1956, and 1959 Archbold Expeditions to
New Guinea. He also devoted considerable time to collaborative
work with investigators from other institutions. This included
identifying, for the Department of Health in Trenton,
New Jersey, local bats that were suspected of carrying rabies.
Mr. George G. Goodwin, who retired from active duty in
October, 1961, continues to devote full time to his study of the
mammals of Oaxaca, Mexico. He also pursues his interest in
the mammals of Trinidad and Tobago and published several
papers on the bats of these islands of the West Indies, supplementing
the major study, published last year, on which he collaborated
with Mr. Arthur M. Greenhall.
With the exhibits for the Corridor of Small North American
Mammals virtually completed, new exhibition projects to which
staff members devoted attention included the Hall of Ocean
Life, the Primate Hall, the polar bear group in the Eskimo
Hall, the Saiga antelope group in the North Asiatic Mammal
Alcove, and the proposed African Small Mammal Corridor.
Notable among the 2983 specimens acquired by the depart-
This is the sieve-plate in a single pore of a foraminifer magnified 140,000
times under the electron microscope. These minute organisms are studied
in the Department of Micropaleontology. Photograph: Kenneth M. Towe.
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