Spend Sundays with scientists

LINCOLN — Curious eyes scanned the walls and cases, looking past the free-standing bones and jagged tusks. The children fixed their gaze on the huge “rock'' in front of them and the scientist standing over it with a scalpel.

He is Shane Tucker, a mammalian paleontologist at the University of Nebraska State Museum.

His discovery of a giant tortoise shell fossil near Kimball, Neb., has helped relaunch the museum's monthly “Sunday with a Scientist'' program, which had been extinct for more than a decade.

Dozens of children and parents turned out earlier this month for Tucker's Sunday presentation on his discovery. Tucker fielded questions while meticulously removing a foot of sand caked to the shell.

Kathy French, education coordinator for the State Museum, said there's something special about one Sunday a month in which people can interact with scientists face to face, not feel threatened and just ask questions.

“It's a good way to start learning about our natural world in a fun way, not a lab-coat-sterile way,” she said. “We bring it down to a level where people can understand.”

In the past, the presentations and activities on natural history proved popular Sunday attractions, drawing more than 4,000 at the program's peak.

But interest gradually faded with the loss of grant money and repeat presenters, French said, and the museum dropped the program in 1996 after a decade.

“Sunday with a Scientist'' is a collaboration between the museum and various departments at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, but it will also feature presenters from other institutions.

Museumgoers can plan on interesting subjects and presentations every third Sunday of the month, with upcoming topics being nanoscience, water, endangered species and Nebraska climate. The next installment will be Feb. 21.

At Tucker's presentation, 4-year-old Jacob Kodad stuck his face inches away from the nearly 2,500-pound jacket encasing the fossil.

Tucker told the children stories about pirates taking tortoises on board their ships to keep as fresh meat, because tortoises can survive without food or water for a whole year. So they made turtle soup.

Their eyes bulged as their jaws dropped.

“It took a lot of time and sweat in the field just getting this out of the ground,” Tucker said. “It's a big, huge beast.”

Estimated to be between 6 million and 9 million years old, the giant land tortoise shell is 2.25 feet wide and 3.4 feet long, rivaling others in the collection and making it one of the largest giant tortoises to have lived in Nebraska.

Boasting a century-long life span, this 500-pound-animal lived and breathed in the Panhandle area during the Late Miocene period, in an ancient climate that never froze, similar to that of the African Savanna today.

“It's pretty exciting to find in the field,” Tucker said. “Because we're filling in a time interval that's poorly known.”

Thirty species have been found at the Kimball site, ranging from three-toed horses, lions, rhinos and small llamas to species of camel, horned rodents, a wolf-sized bone-crushing dog and a tusk from a four-tusked elephant.

Five other giant tortoises were also discovered, but most had been damaged by heavy machinery, he said.

Tucker has been with the museum since 1995, and he started working for its highway salvage paleontology program in 1999. The program has recovered over 200,000 fossils in 90 counties since the 1960s.

Tucker said his job is to follow behind the massive machines at the dig sites, and flag down the drivers when he thinks he sees bones. Less than 1 percent of bones on the surface will become fossils, because most gradually deteriorate from exposure to the elements, Tucker said.

Being nestled in a stream deposit allowed these colorful animals to be buried very rapidly in sand bars, similar to those of the Platte River, preserving them perfectly for millions of years.

“Children are super interested and absorb everything you tell them,” Tucker said. “Plus, if you get them enthused, they're the next generation coming through.”

Abbi Poppleton, 7, of Bellevue smiled in admiration as she rounded the exhibit, her curly golden hair shining, waiting to get the scientist's attention.

“You know what I want to be when I grow up?” she asked Tucker, her cheeks rosy and pink.

“A paleontologist.”

Contact the writer:

444-1304, news@owh.com

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