I got to take data in the caveman mask!
Freshman year I was itching to get into a lab. Now everyone knows the world famous work done by John Marzluff, particularly his face recognition study. This is a study where an individual with a cave man mask, over 8 years ago, captured campus crows. To this day, they recognize and scold and mob this mask without any bit of negative reinforcement. I was dying to work with the crow man and reached out to him several times through email. He final agreed to meet with me, and ever since I have been part of his lab!
I got to take data in the cave man mask! Walking around campus got many weird looks from crows and people alike. And then I did it once more with a Dick Chaney mask for a control. You will also notice in the slideshow to the right, that there are some pictures of a genetic lab. These represent my other affair with American Crows. As an add on to my work at the Burke Museum, I did a research poster for the Klicka Lab and Undergraduate Research Symposium on the hybridization between the American Crow and Northwest Crow. It’s interesting because my results show that by looking at the mitochondrial DNA that there are two species of crow, one coastal Alaskan crow that meets the continental species right here in the Puget Sound! Since then, more nuclear DNA data from a graduate student in the lab has revealed that there is in fact one species of crow. Can’t wait to see the final results! |
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