World of Discovery series returns

The World of Discovery series is back at the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science.

This spring, the museum will welcome scientists from the University of Delaware’s College of Earth, Ocean and Environment and Delaware Sea Grant to give an overview of their scientific area of interest.

Wednesdays, March 8, April 12 and May 10 | 7 p.m.

Building the Future: Climate Change Adaptation Visions

Wednesday, April 12 | 7 p.m.

Dr. A.R. Siders is director of the Gerard J Mangone Climate Change Science and Policy Hub at the University of Delaware, and faculty in the Biden School of Public Policy, Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences, and the Disaster Research Center. Her research focuses on climate change adaptation decision-making: how communities and governments make decisions about where, when, and how to adapt to climate change. She has recently worked on a Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative, to review adaptation efforts around the world, and as a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report and the U.S. National Climate Assessment.

Adaptation to climate change has, to date, generally sought to maintain the world as it is through small, incremental changes to business-as-usual. But these small changes are likely not enough to deal with future climate change.  Instead, future adaptation could involve radical shifts in society and socio-ecological systems, but what are the pros and cons of such transformations? What does fair, equitable, or just adaptation involve and is it possible? Dr. Siders will describe emerging dilemmas in the debate about adaptation justice and suggest pathways to envision a broader range of futures we can choose. 


Building the Future: Ocean Literacy

Wednesday, May 10 | 7 p.m.

David Christopher, marine education specialist with Delaware Sea Grant, will give a talk on Wednesday, May 10, giving a broad overview of ocean literacy. Ocean literacy is an understanding of the ocean’s influence on you and your influence on the ocean. The Ocean covers over 70% of our planet. It provides food for much of the world’s population, helps regulate the world’s climate, and provides most of the oxygen we breathe. However, the ocean is facing numerous challenges from pollution, marine debris, climate change, and more. Understanding the Ocean and its systems is important to addressing the challenges facing the ocean today and making informed choices about the Ocean in the future. In this session, participants will be introduced to the Ocean Literacy Principles and the Fundamental Concepts and learn how Ocean Literacy is being used to expand the public’s understanding of the Ocean.


Previous events:

Greenland’s Glacier-Driven Ocean Circulation

Wednesday, March 8 | 7 p.m.

Andreas Muenchow, professor in the University of Delaware School of Marine Science and Policy, will talk about his work researching the physics, climate, and earth history of Greenland where tidewater glaciers melt and retreat rapidly as they interact with a dynamic and warming ocean. Muenchow spent more than 365 days sailing the oceans off North-West Greenland over the last 25 years, most recently in 2021 with the Danish Navy and collaborators from Denmark. During his time aboard the Danish research vessel, Muenchow used data from NASA’s Ocean Melts Greenland initiative that dropped ocean probes from an airplane into the ice waters off coastal Greenland to measure ocean temperature and salinity. Muenchow will talk about how Greenland’s coastal glaciers melt, shrink, and add to the globally rising sea level, drive local ocean currents that move icebergs around, and how the glaciers’ melt is cold fresh water while the adjacent ocean is both salty and warm.

Muenchow is a sea-going physical oceanographer whose puzzles range from the physics of river discharges in Argentina, Siberia, and Delaware to ice-ocean interactions and glaciers off northern Greenland and Canada. He also dabbles in statistics, ocean color remote sensing, computer modeling, and writing.

Community Read

This year we join local libraries and community partners for the tenth year of the Longwood Gardens’ Community Read — a program designed to encourage reading for pleasure and start a conversation. In 2023, the Community Read program takes a look at how food is a connector of people — especially for special moments — and how food connects to the world of plants and gardening.
The Delaware Museum of Nature and Science is delighted to be part of Community Read with a special program tailored for our young friends. In the children’s book, Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make you a Pie, by Robbin Gourley, the characters focus on farm-to-table all year round.

Special program for Spring 2023

Longwood Gardens Community Read: Mobile Museum Outreach Program

This program is available beginning March 1, 2023, but you can register now.

Perfect for schools, libraries, daycares, afterschool groups, community centers, and more!
Fee: $150 per program | Maximum Participants: 40 | Length:  45-60 minutes
Program Title Ages Description
Bring me some apples and I’ll make you a pie: a story about Edna Lewis 4-7 In the children’s book, Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make you a Pie: A story about Edna Lewis, by Robbin Gourley, the characters focus on farm-to-table all year round.
As part of the Longwood Gardens Community Read Program, the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science comes to you to explore how the seasons are unique and their effect on the growth of local crops. Learn why we don’t only get flowers after May showers, but all year long!

This is What a Scientist Looks Like

Outdoor Banner exhibit from the IF/THEN® Collection

This Is What A Scientist Looks Like, a new outdoor banner exhibit featuring 16 women in STEM, is now on display. The banners highlight several IF/THEN® Ambassadors along with local scientists and engineers, including our own Director of Collections and Curator of Mollusks Liz Shea, Ph.D., Kadine Mohomed of W. L. Gore & Associates, Jen Sheran of DuPont, marine scientist Jessica Myers, and Jacqueline Means, Founder of the Wilmington Urban STEM Initiative. The exhibit is funded through a grant awarded by the Association of Science and Technology Centers with support from Lyda Hill Philanthropies and the IF/THEN Initiative and sponsored locally by Bank of America.

Dana Bolles

Spaceflight Engineer

Wears many hats at a space agency, from engineering to communicating about the search for life beyond Earth.
Video

Dr. Jaye Gardiner

Illustrator and Cancer Biologist

Studies the biology behind cancer and uses comics/trading cards to show that science is for everyone.

Sydney Hamilton

Aerospace Engineer & Engineering Manager

Leads a team of structural analysts who support multiple aerospace programs for space crafts and commercial aircraft.
Video

Dr. Ronda Hamm

Entomologist and Educator

Develops and implements strategies and relationships that promote STEM for future generations while showing people that insects are not scary.
Video

Dr. Lataisia C. Jones

Neuroscientist, Advocate and STEM Educator

Advocates for STEM diversity while spreading the joy of studying the brain.
Video

Dr. M. Nia Madison

Biomedical Scientist, Director of HIV Research, Professor, CEO and Author

Engages youth in STEAM community outreach programming through her nonprofit and instructs undergraduate students in microbiology and sustainability practices.
Video

Jacqueline Means

The STEM Queen

Uses her passion for and love of STEM to teach young girls fun, hands-on experiments and empower them to go into the field.

Dr. Kadine Mohomed

Core Technology Scientist

Applies her expertise in materials characterization to understand and promote innovation that enhances performance in products of high societal value.

Dr. Burcin Mutlu-Pakdil

Astrophysicist

Uses the world’s largest telescopes to understand the nature of dark matter and galaxy formation by studying the smallest galaxies.

Jess Myers, M.S.

Marine Scientist

Advocates for healthy oceans and marine life through art, public outreach, and her research on plastic pollution.

Dr. Elizabeth Shea

Director of Collections & Curator of Mollusks

Expands, sustains and uses natural history collections to understand cephalopod biodiversity.

Jen Sheran

Technical Training Program Manager

Creates and implements solutions to keep a global community of engineers in the semiconductor industry on the leading edge of technology.

Dr. Helen Tran

Molecular Architect and Polymer Chemist

Works to make future plastics and electronic products fully degradable.
Video

Dr. Danielle Twum

Cancer Immunologist and Translational Scientist Liaison

Conducts research in oncology and clinical immunology.
Video

Sarah A. Wilson

Mechanical Engineer

Intersects engineering with personal passions like skiing and gardening to make a difference in the health and safety of people and the planet.
Video

The du Pont Trophy

On exhibit in the Community Room: the du Pont Trophy original paintings by artist Lauren J. Sweeney

For more than 50 years, the museum has presented the du Pont Trophy Award to the “overall outstanding exhibit” entered at shell shows around the country. The award honors exceptional citizen scientists having a passion for shells, shell collecting, and the natural history of mollusks.

For the majority of its history, the du Pont Trophy was a simple engraved plaque. As part of the Museum’s 40th anniversary celebration in 2012, Director of Collections and Curator of Mollusks, Liz Shea, Ph.D. re-imagined the award to celebrate the variety in the museum’s vast collection of more than two million mollusks. She turned to long-time museum supporter and local artist, Lauren J. Sweeney, Ph.D. to make this vision a reality. The result is an original watercolor highlighting a different shell from the collection each year. A framed limited-edition, signed print of this commission is presented to the du Pont Trophy winners.

Lauren Sweeney’s paintings are informed by a lifetime of scientific observation. Originally a biologist who focused her talents on research, teaching, and scientific illustrations, Lauren is now a full-time artist. Her attention to detail brings the shape, color, texture, and pattern of her subjects into sharp focus. Lauren has exhibited her work in the greater Philadelphia area, including the Sketch Club, Gallery Twenty Two, and the Main Line Art Center.

For more information about the artist, visit www.inliquid.org.

The original paintings, currently on exhibit, are for sale for $600 to benefit the museum’s collections.

2023 duPont Trophy

Lambis lambis

The 2023 du Pont Trophy features the changing morphology of Lambis lambis. These dramatically different stages are symbolic of the major metamorphosis the museum experienced over the past few years. The Delaware Museum of Nature and Science reopened to the public in May 2022 with completely renovated exhibit spaces.

2022 duPont Trophy

Melongena corona

This painting depicts the marine snail Melongena corona as positioned on Curator of Mollusks Elizabeth Shea, Ph.D.’s kitchen table. The specimen (and setting) was chosen in recognition of the chaotic year ushered in by COVID.

SOLD

2020 du Pont Trophy

Spirula spirula

This painting features the internal shell of Spirula spirula, a deep sea cephalopod commonly referred to as ram’s horn squid. They are more often collected as shells than as live organisms. S. spirula was selected for the painting in recognition of research projects conducted by Widener University students.

2019 du Pont Trophy

Tellina radiata

This specimen of Tellina radiata, a bivalve mollusk commonly known as the Sunrise Tellin, is from the Alison Bradford collection, bequeathed to the museum by Alison Bradford, a longtime volunteer and member of the Board of Trustees. Bradford had been at the museum for over 30 years. She passed away in the summer of 2018 and transferred her collection of more than 1,000 shells to the museum, most collected in Gasparilla Island, Florida, where she owned a home. 

2018 du Pont Trophy

Haliotis fulgens Philippi

The pearlescent marine sea snail abalone is the inspiration for the 2018 du Pont Trophy, featuring two specimens of the green abalone Haliotis fulgens Philippi, 1845 (DMNH 10958). These specimens have a beautiful nacreous layer and were selected by the museum’s first Mollusk Curator, R. Tucker Abbott, for illustration in the second edition of American Seashells. Published in 1974, the book is an essential resource for shell lovers and an important part of the museum’s history.

SOLD

2017 du Pont Trophy

Liguus crenatus variation

The 2017 du Pont trophy was based on shells owned by renowned Delaware illustrator Frank Schoonover, a gift from one of his most well-known clients, Irénée du Pont, owner of Granogue in Delaware and the fabled Xanadu mansion in Cuba, where the shells were collected. The shells were donated to the museum in December 2015 by Schoonover’s grandson John Schoonover.

2016 du Pont Trophy

Anodonta imbecilis from Florida

This year’s shell is a group of freshwater bivalves, commonly known as Paper Pondshells, collected in Lake Talquin, Florida in 1954. Freshwater bivalves are the focus of a recent National Science Foundation grant that will help the museum share its collections on the web.

2015 du Pont Trophy

Leporicypraea mappa variation

The museum’s mollusk collection contains over 250,000 boxes (or “lots”) of shells, making it one of the largest collections in North America. The Map Cowries in this painting highlight the depth of the museum’s holdings and the variation found within a single species.

2014 du Pont Trophy

Spondylus with data label

New collections come into the museum from many sources, often accompanied by old data labels. This specimen of Thorny Oyster is a beautiful and ornate U.S. species, complete with an interesting original data card.

2013 du Pont Trophy

Scaphella junonia on sand

Finding a Junonia on the beaches of the Florida Gulf Coast is cause for celebration. This composition highlights the popular marine snail resting on a background of sand collected from Boca Grande, Florida by long-time museum trustee and volunteer Alison Bradford.

SOLD

2012 du Pont Trophy

Festilyria duponti holotype

The subject of the first watercolor is Festilyria duponti, a shell named by Clifton Stokes Weaver in honor of Delaware Museum of Natural History founder, John E. du Pont. The background is a representation of a technical book on shells, co-authored by du Pont and Weaver.

New species discovered using museum’s online collection data

Introducing Bourciera ovata

In the summer of 2020 — the first year of the pandemic — a team of European scientists began compiling a checklist of known terrestrial and fresh water mollusks of mainland Ecuador. The effort included occurrences recorded in past scientific reports or literature, museum datasets available online, and verified observations from citizen science projects like iNaturalist.

In reviewing our records, one of the scientists, Marijn Roosen of the Natural History Museum of Rotterdam, noticed some unusual records of a unique land snail in the Andes Mountains. Marijn requested more information about the snails and photographs to confirm their identifications. It turned out that some of the specimens from Puyo, Ecuador represented species previously unknown to researchers, including the newly-named Bourciera ovata.

With high resolution photographs of different aspects of the snail’s shell, Marijn was able to describe it as a new species, demonstrating a greater diversity of Ecuadorian land snails and the importance of having museum collection data accessible, as surely there are many more new species to be discovered. The research was published in September in the journal Folia Malacologica.

DMNH 151926, formerly thought to be Bourciera fraseri, is now the type specimen for the newly-discovered species Bourciera ovata. A type specimen is the specific specimen on which a new species is based. The museum’s mollusk collection already included around 1,200 type specimens. Photos by Alex Kittle.

Roosen, M. and Dorado, C. Revision of the genus Bourciera Pfeiffer, 1852 (Gastropoda: Helicinidae), with the description of six new species from Ecuador and Peru. Folia Malacologica, 30(3), 155–167. https://doi.org/10.12657/folmal.030.018

Taxonomy changes reflected in new specimen organization

The introduction of Bourciera ovata is just one example of how what scientists know about species and their taxonomy continues to develop. While working from home during the pandemic in 2020, Collections Manager Alex Kittle began reorganizing the mollusk collection based on updated information and species names, and later moved the actual specimens to reflect these changes. Information about our entire mollusk collection is now publicly available on the Symbiota portal, InvertEBase. Our collection profile shows 233,603 records are available online, representing 500 families and 15,658 species; 32% are georeferenced to specific locations.

Collection Manager of Mollusks Alex Kittle in the DelMNS scientific collections.

MOTUS detects Lesser Yellowlegs

A bird species that migrates through our area — a Lesser Yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes) — was detected by the Motus Wildlife Tracking System (MOTUS) tower on the museum’s roof, installed by University of Delaware scientists in early 2021 to track movement of Purple Martins (Progne subis).

Lesser Yellowlegs © U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Region

MOTUS is an international collaborative research network dedicated to tracking the migration of small birds, made possible by radio telemetry towers, which read the transmitter tags carried by birds that fly within about 15 km of the tower. Since our tower was installed, it has logged more than 3,200 readings.

The MOTUS tower was installed in early 2021.

The vast majority of detections are of banded Purple Martins, with some individual birds detected many times. The tower has also detected a few American Kestrels (Falco sparverius).

The tower detected the Lesser Yellowlegs on July 13, 2022. According to Dr. Nicholas Bayly, it had been banded in late April near Cali, Colombia, by researchers associated with Audubon Colombia and Asociación Selva, a non-profit organization supporting research and conservation in the Neotropics (selva.org.co).

After it was banded, the bird flew north and was detected by three towers in Missouri, and one in Michigan, before heading to our area. Five other MOTUS towers in our region also detected the bird, including Longwood Gardens. Dr. Matthew Halley, the museum’s Interim Curator of Birds, says the detection highlights the value of projects like the MOTUS program, which enable scientists all over the world to collaborate on migratory research.

This map shows the flight path of the Lesser Yellowlegs detected near DelMNS.

Map data © 2022 Google, INEGI Imagery © 2022 NASA

A Whale of a Tale

In September 2018, staff from the Delaware Museum of Natural History brought the skull of a juvenile humpback whale, as well as several other pieces of the skeleton, to the museum for exhibit and educational use. The bones were all that remained of a young humpback whale that died at sea and washed ashore in April 2017 at Port Mahon, DE. Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control moved the corpse to coastal state land near Pickering Beach, where it could decompose undisturbed.

When museum staff heard about the whale, they thought it would make an interesting addition to the reimagined museum. Bringing a piece of this size to the museum was a task with equally large challenges, which many of the staff never imagined they would undertake. Starting in mid-2017, museum staff kept an eye on the whale, secured permits, and starting in June 2018 began bringing a portion of the skeleton back to the Museum as new additions to the exhibit collection.

Because the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act federally protects whales, in order to bring the bones to the Museum, the staff had to obtain a permit from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

“We are holding the bones in trust for the public,” says Shea. “If we decide in the future not to interpret them or to not do whale programming, then we have to give them back. They go back to NOAA.”

Museum scientists inspected and measured the whale’s bones in June 2018.

The Logistics of Moving a Whale

Deciding to bring the whale to the museum raised a series of questions. How would the staff move a several hundred pound skull? How would they clean the bones? And how would the bones be exhibited?

Most of the whale’s vertebrae were easy for them to obtain because these bones hadn’t sunk very deep into the sand near Pickering Beach over the course of the year. However, in order to obtain the skull, the staff would need to leverage it out of the sand. How much flesh would still be attached to underside of the skull when they did so was something Shea says they couldn’t predict.

Learn more about how museum staff moved the whale skull to the Museum from the Delaware State NewsDelawareonline and Delmarva NowWBOCWDEL, and Delaware Public Media.

Over the course of many weeks and multiple site visits, the staff developed a plan to move the skull, including wedging pieces of wood under the skull to lift it out of the sand and onto its side. Then, they used a pressure washer powered by a generator to wash the skull’s underside before moving it to a clean location on the beach where it could finish decaying. Chris Hayden, the Museum’s Director of Maintenance and the key architect behind the plan to move the skull, set up a pump system to draw water from the Delaware Bay into a filtration system to supply the pressure washer. Once the skull was free of the sand and clean, it was carried across the beach to a wood palette where the skull sat while waiting to be finally moved to the museum.

Chris Hayden, the museum’s Director of Facilities, created a system using bay water to clean the skull.

At 8 by 11 feet, the skull was too large to fit in an ordinary pickup truck. To bring it the sixty miles to the museum, Hayden and his team moved the skull onto a flat trailer pulled by a truck. On the way north, the team stopped at the Cartanza Grain Elevator to weigh the skull: 280 lbs., not counting the jawbones.

We wanted to know how much the skull weighed, but our scales weren’t big enough. On the way back from Pickering Beach, we took it to Cartanza Farms to weigh. The result: 280 lbs.

The bones needed to be cleaned and prepared before being used for exhibits, educational programs, or storage within the collections. While museum staff had experience cleaning and treating smaller bones, none of them had worked with a whale skeleton before. “We have learned that whale bones can leak oils for many, many years,” said Elizabeth Shea, Ph.D., the museum’s Director of Collections and Curator of Mollusks. “So we need to do what we can to minimize that.”

To help make these challenges more manageable, the staff decided to only obtain a portion of the skeleton, including the skull, the right jawbone, vertebrae from three different sections of the spine, and several pieces from the flipper. Shea says they chose pieces that could be used for education and what would captivate visitors.

The smaller bones, such as the vertebrae, were stored in freezers to rid them of insects that could damage the collections and later cleaned by museum staff.

The jawbone and skull were too large to fit in either the freezers or the bug room and were temporarily stored in a shed built specifically to hold the bones. In March 2021, the museum brought in an expert, Dan DenDanto from Whales and Nails, who took both pieces back to his facility in Maine to clean and prepare them for exhibit. Whales and Nails articulates whale skeletons for museums and educational institutions.

Telling a Whale’s Story…and a Delaware Story

Bringing the whale to the museum involved more than just physically transporting it to its new home.  Museum staff wanted to tell the whale’s story through exhibits and interpretation.

“My hope is that we can have a story to go with the whale,” says Helen Bilinski, the museum’s Director of Exhibits. The museum’s humpback whale was one of five that washed ashore in Delaware between 2016 and 2017. Understanding how it died is one place for the staff to start in uncovering the whale’s story. Shea says they’ve requested the whale’s autopsy from the Marine Education, Research, and Rehabilitation Institute (MERR), who attended to the whale when it washed ashore.

Shortly after the whale was found, NOAA declared that an “unusual mortality event” had occurred for humpback whales near the Atlantic coast. The designation was prompted because, starting in 2016, an abnormal number of them had washed up dead along the United States’ east coast.

When NOAA designates an “unusual mortality event,” they organize a group of outside scientists to help NOAA’s Working Group on Marine Mammal Unusual Mortality Events research the cause for the event. The Atlantic humpback whale study is still ongoing. Our whale is one of eight in Delaware who died during this UME.

Beyond a closer look at these deaths, Bilinski says the whale can also tell a story of “life happening off the coast of Delaware that few people know about.”

Populations of humpback whales from Maine and Canada pass offshore the entire east coast as they migrate to the West Indies to breed and give birth and back north to feed. However, in a 2002 study published in the Journal of Cetacean Research and Management, a group of scientists suggested that the Mid-Atlantic could also act as an additional feeding ground for humpback whales.

The museum staff hopes the whale will help them better tell the story of Delaware’s coastal waterways. “The estuary we live on—the Delaware Bay—is a really important estuary,” says Shea. “The land masses we all live on are a third of what the world has to offer. So there’s a lot out there in the oceans we need to be talking about.”

Take a look at the Oceans exhibits, featuring our juvenile humpback whale skull, in the Alison K. Bradford Global Journey Gallery. The whale exhibit is sponsored by M&T Bank.

This is an updated version of an article written by Lindsay Townsend, originally published on the Delaware Museum of Natural History website in October 2018.

Gala & Glow

A heartfelt thank you to all who celebrated the museum’s 50th anniversary — and the completion of our metamorphosis into the new Delaware Museum of Nature and Science — at our Gala and Glow on Friday, May 13, 2022.

Research Headquarters

How we know what we know:

In the Research Headquarters, sponsored by DuPont, explore stories about scientific research and related projects from our local area and beyond.

Scientists help us better understand the world around us. They conduct research in all kinds of environments: in the field, in the laboratory, and even in the museum’s natural history collections. They observe animals and plants in the air, on the land, and in the water. They conduct experiments and collect data to test their observations. Over time, they draw conclusions based on what they find, helping us make sense of what’s happening on the planet. What we know changes as scientists gather and share new information.

Tucked into the Regional Journey Gallery, the Research Headquarters currently includes stories about the Delaware Shorebird Project and the juvenile humpback whale collected by museum scientists in 2018. Other stories currently on view also include some of the research behind DuPont’s Kalrez® technology, citizen science project Coast Snap by Delaware Sea Grant, and exploring with carnivore ecologist Rae Wynn-Grant, courtesy of the IF/THEN® Collection.

On the back end, the stories in the Research Headquarters are installed in a content management system created by digital design studio RLMG. It’s set up so new stories can be uploaded seasonally.

Stories involving museum scientists

The juvenile humpback whale skull was weighed on its way to the museum.

A tale of a whale

A juvenile humpback whale died at sea and washed ashore near Port Mahon, Delaware. The whale, one of 34 humpback whales stranded on the East Coast in 2017, presented an opportunity to tell this important story at the Delaware Museum of Nature & Science. But first, museum staff had to determine how to retrieve the 280 lbs. skull from the beach.

Shorebirds at Mispillion Harbor.

Shorebirds on the bay

Each spring millions of horseshoe crabs migrate into Delaware Bay to lay their eggs on sandy beaches. At the same time, nearly half a million shorebirds arrive to rest and refuel on their way to breed on the Arctic Tundra. Their primary food is horseshoe crab eggs. The Delaware Shorebird Project studies the birds and the importance of the bay to their survival. Learn more about the Delaware Shorebird Project.

Stories from our partners

DuPont’s Kalrez® technology

From aerospace and chemical processing to chip manufacturing and oil and gas applications, DuPont™ Kalrez® elastomers are engineered to provide more stability, more resistance, and more effective sealing. Learn more about this technology from DuPont scientists. Learn more about Kalrez®. 

Coast Snap by Delaware Sea Grant

To manage coastlines, we need to understand how they behave. Delaware Sea Grant’s CoastSnap is a citizen science program harnessing smartphones and orthophotogrammetry to help scientists learn more about the shoreline. By using CoastSnap, the community becomes an integral part of the science team. Learn more about CoastSnap.

From the IF/THEN® Collection

Image by Tsalani Lassiter, courtesy of the IF/THEN® Collection

Carnivore ecologist Rae Wynn-Grant, courtesy of the IF/THEN® Collection

Rae Wynn-Grant, Ph.D. might just have the coolest job on the planet. As a carnivore ecologist working for National Geographic, she researches how endangered species are impacted by human interaction. Her work currently focuses on grizzly bears in Montana, but has previously taken her around the world — including to Tanzania and Kenya to study lions. The If/Then Collection is a digital asset library of women STEM innovators. Learn more about the If/Then® Collection.

The Research Headquarters is sponsored by DuPont

Oceans

Vast moving waters give life to our blue planet. Oceans cover two-thirds of our planet and include the largest unexplored areas on Earth. They also affect life here on land. Like the rainforests, oceans produce oxygen for the world and regulate our climates. Protecting them is vital for our survival.

Beneath the water’s surface, mountains, valleys, and plains shape a variety of ecosystems: sunny and shallow coastal waters, vast expanses of dimly lit mid-water, and the inky darkness of the deepest sea, all providing habitats for diverse marine life. World Ocean Day is designated to bring awareness to the importance of our oceans and the need to protect them. At the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science, guests may explore three different marine ecosystems — shallow, mid-water, and deep sea — today and every day.

Mid-Water

Sunlight fades away in the ocean’s twilight realm

The mid-water exhibit is generously sponsored in honor of Leila Saavalinen Steele

Most of the world’s oceans are mid-water, located between the surface shallows and the seafloor far below. Here, in the largest expanse of unexplored space left on Earth, immense whales and giant squid swim alongside fishes and invertebrates of all sizes.

The Mid-Water Ocean exhibit includes the juvenile humpback whale skull collected by DelMNS staff in 2018.
The whale exhibit is sponsored by M&T Bank | Wilmington Trust

Deep in the mid-water, light is scarce, temperatures are low, and pressure is high. Sea life has found survival strategies for this harsh environment.

The Nightly Commute: Every night as the sun sets, many ocean residents commute up towards surface waters in search of food. As the sun rises, they return to deeper waters, where darkness helps them hide from predators. This behavior, called diel vertical migration, varies depending on the species and its life stage. Some organisms travel long distances while others stay mostly at one depth.

Deep-Sea Dive

Take the plunge into an ocean canyon expedition

The ocean’s canyons are deep and dramatic, just like those on land. Marine scientists explore these mysterious realms with remotely operated vehicles or ROVs – small submersible vessels launched from research ships.

Scientists and engineers remain on the ship, guiding the ROV’s descent to roam the canyon floor. As the vessel’s cameras record the trip, engineers use its robotic arms to collect specimens of sea life.

These dives provide valuable glimpses into our vast and unexplored oceans.

Ocean canyons are narrow valleys with steep sides cut into the edges of continents under oceans. They can be several thousand meters deep. This video shows a dive into Kinlan Canyon, located in the Atlantic Ocean about 600 kilometers (375 miles) east of New York City.

Museum scientists collected these specimens from canyons in the North Atlantic using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). The jars were hand-blown by At-Mar Glass in Kennett Square, PA. Each jar has a glass armature created specifically to hold each specimen.

Shallow Water

The ocean’s shallow, clear waters are full of life.

Around the edges of continents, the oceans are shallow and sunlight can reach down to the seafloor. Fishes, crustaceans, and many other organisms browse on submerged grasses and swim among kelp forests.

In warm, shallow seas, tiny coral polyps make stony skeletons that gradually build up into immense structures. These coral reefs overflow with diverse plant and animal life.