Legacy Fall 2015

Though the T-33 “T-Bird” and giant Boré Sugar Kettle are appealing enough, students and visitors don’t need to aimlessly trek LSU’s campus to find such hidden gems. The first Mike the Tiger is not even hidden, but displayed in the LSU Museum of Natural Science, located in Foster Hall.

At the Museum of Natural Science one can look into the empty eye sockets of a cryolophosaurus ellioti dinosaur skull cast or take a stroll to the Howe-Russell Geoscience Complex to find a complete dinosaur skeleton cast.

Hundreds of preserved birds, fish, amphibians, mammals, reptiles, and insects also live in the Museum of Natural Science. There are even small displays about the Arctic, the Indian mounds of Louisiana, and the American mastodon, whose bones are on public display.

Entry into the museum is free, but Museum of Natural Science Outreach Coordinator Valerie Derouen said student attendance is less than she would hope.

“We have the number one genetic resources division and the number three university-based bird collection in the world, so scientists really know about us and we’re getting loan requests all the time, but around campus people just don’t know we exist,” Derouen said.

The LSU Museum of Natural Science not only displays scientific and historic exhibits, but also conducts scientific research by analyzing the DNA of animal collections stored in the museum basement and in other buildings on campus.

“From all of our different vertebrate collections, which are birds, mammals, amphibians, fish, and reptiles, we also take tissue samples. That could be fin clips if it’s a fish. It can be a heart, liver, anything that you can get DNA out of. We keep them in freezers and use them for molecular research,” Derouen said.

Derouen said the research done at the LSU Museum of Natural Science can be useful in a number of applications. She emphasized studies by LSU herpetologist Christopher Austin, on malaria resistant