Michigan’s oldest college newspaper
Vol. 141 Issue 14 - January 18, 2018
www.hillsdalecollegian.com
Caitlin (third from left) and Tyler (second from left in back row) Horning ‘06 donated Donna the triceratops to Hillsdale College. Anthony Swinehart | Courtesy
‘Donna’ the Triceratops comes to Hillsdale’s Fisk Museum
‘Mostly complete’ skeleton makes Hillsdale the smallest dinosaur museum By | Madeleine Jepsen Science & Tech Editor A 66 million-year-old triceratops skeleton joined the collection of the Daniel M. Fisk Museum of Natural History in the Strosacker Science Center today in an unveiling ceremony at noon. The skeleton, named Donna, is more than 60 percent complete, and joins “Linda” the edmontosaurus in the museum. Professor of Biology Anthony Swinehart, curator of the Fisk Museum, said triceratops bones are relatively common in dinosaur territory, but the bone configuration of this particular skeleton is rare, and there are less than 10 triceratops skeletons like it. The addition of the triceratops makes Hillsdale one of two or three places in the entire state of Michigan where real-bone dinosaurs are on display, Swinehart said. “Most collegiate institutions have gotten rid of their museum collections, while Hillsdale College has been rebuilding its museum and associated collections,” Swinehart said in an email. “That seems fitting to me. While many others naively do away with natural history collections as vestiges of an ‘antiquated discipline,’ Hillsdale College — being the standard-bearer for traditional education — continues to honor this traditional science and recognizes that it still has
great value, both intrinsically and in terms of valuable applications to problem solving.” The skeleton was discovered on private property in North Dakota in 2015 by Jim Braswell, an amateur fossil collector. Swinehart and three Hillsdale students, Lily Carville ’17, Matthew Hoenig ’17, and Randall Rush ’17 helped with the excavation process. The skeleton was donated by Caitlin and Tyler Horning ’06. Although the exact monetary value of the skeleton was not made public, Swinehart said the skeleton is incredibly valuable. Associate Professor of Anthropology Steve Nicklas at the University of North Georgia, a colleague of Swinehart’s, and his students also helped to excavate the skeleton and prepare it for display. “He was the one that cleaned and glued and stabilized the bones and put it in the mount,” Swinehart said. Carville credits Swinehart for allowing students to play a significant role in the excavation of the skeleton. “A big shoutout goes to Dr. Swinehart for bringing students to help him,” Carville said. “He could’ve gone on his own or just brought some of his friends and colleagues, but instead he brought Hillsdale students and made it an incredible learning opportunity.” Carville, who wrote her senior biology thesis on the environmental conditions
Lily Carville, Matthew Hoenig, and Randall Rush (all 2017 alumni) sit around bones covered in plaster jackets while extracting part of the triceratops’ rear foot. Anthony Swinehard | Courtesy
near the skeleton, said half the skeleton was mostly intact, while the other half had eroded away. “A lot of the work was just figuring out where the bones were,” Carville said. “I kind of expected it to be like ‘Jurassic Park,’ where you are brushing off the skeleton with a toothbrush, but a lot of it was just going at a hill with pickaxes.” Carville and Swinehart said the triceratops was most likely at the edge of a river when
it died and was covered by a flash flood event. A variety of conditions must exist for a fossil to form, making their occurence relatively rare, Tyler Horning said. “You think about all the factors that go into having such a well-preserved skeleton,” Horning said. “It’s been in the ground like that for 66 million years, even with all the changes in environment and stone piling on top of it. That’s pretty amazing.”
The Triceratops horridus were plant-eating, horned dinosaurs alive during the last two million years of the Mesozoic Era, called the “Age of Reptiles,” and died off when the impact from a large meteor ended the reign of the dinosaurs, Swinehart said. They lived in what is now Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Alberta, Canada. Triceratops reached a maximum length of about 29 feet
and weighed up to 12 tons. Braswell gave the Triceratops horridus displayed in the Fisk Museum the name Donna in honor of his wife. The skeleton’s skull measures 7 feet across and has a hole in it from injuries during its lifetime, Swinehart said. “The frill that they have on the back of the skull has a hole in it from fighting with another triceratops,” Swinehart said. “Probably it was two males fighting, but we don’t know if it was a male or female dinosaur.” The fossil also contains an articulated arm, meaning that all the bones in one of the forearms were preserved — a rare find that will help paleontologists determine the triceratops’ posture and how it used its limbs to walk, Swinehart said. “We can find a random toe bone and say it’s a toe bone, but sometimes we aren’t able to distinguish which finger it came from or which exact position it is,” Swinehart said. “If we have that and we know exactly which finger it came from and so on, we can look at muscle attachment sites, and that can help us determine exactly how they walked. So it’s a really cool detective story, and there’s only been one paper ever published on it from one specimen that’s at the Black Hills Institute Museum in South Dakota.”
See Skeleton A7
50 Hillsdale students tour Israel
Students on the Dateline Jerusalem trip sponsored by The Philos Project visited the Temple Mount in israel. Josephine von Dohlen | Collegian Follow @HDaleCollegian
said. “Passages wants us to Arranged by Vivian Hugh“I think it’s important for By | Jordyn Pair leave with more questions banks ‘16 and Nicole Foy, a student journalists interestNews Editor than answers. I feel like that reporter at the Idaho Press ed in pursuing a career as a Two groups of Hillsdale was accomplished.” Tribune, the group attended foreign correspondent in the College students attended In addition to the group journalism-specific events in region to have a solid grasp of a 10-day trip to Israel over of Hillsdale students on the addition to visiting locations the geopolitical significance Christmas break to learn general Passages tour of Israel, typical of other groups. The and religious heritage of the about the Israeli-Palestinian a group of Hillsdale College Dateline Jerusalem trip lasted Holy Land,” Hughbanks said conflict and visit biblical sites. journalists were part of the 10 days and was attended by in an email. Coordinated by Passages in first Dateline Jerusalem group. 29 students from 16 schools. In addition to visiting partnership with The Philos locations such Project, 41 students attended as the Garden of the general Passages trip to Gethsemane, the Israel and nine attended a Western Wall, and specialized trip for student Nazareth, the group journalists. also heard from Senior Jonathan Moy said various reporters he attended the general tour and other media both for spiritual reasons contacts, as well as and to absorb the culture in visited a newsroom order to better understand the in Jerusalem. conflict. “Our bus had an “It’s one thing to hear from expanded itinerary,” Americans,” Moy said. “It’s Hughbanks said. better to hear from Israeli and “In addition to the Palestinian citizens.” typical sites and The group visited historical speakers, we met and holy sites like the Garden with journalists of Gethsemane and Hezekiah’s and media watchTunnel, stayed in Jerusalem, dog organizations, and heard from various speaktoured the newsers on the conflict in Israel. room of [Israeli “Everyone in America wire service] thinks they have a solution The Passages group visited the Western Wall. Jordyn Pair | Collegian See Israel A2 for Israel and Palestine,” Moy www.hillsdalecollegian.com Look for The Hillsdale Collegian