Discovery of new praying mantis species from the time of the dinosaurs
Artist’s interpretation of Labradormantis guilbaulti in liftoff among the leaves of a sycamore tree, Labrador, around 100 million years ago. The interpretation is based on fossils (for the wings) and living and extinct relatives (for the rest of the body). Fossilized sycamore leaves have been found in the same deposits as the mantis wings and show that this new insect species would have lived in a lush warm temperate forest during the Cretaceous. CREDIT: A. Demers-Potvin
Student art exhibition to highlight McGill Bicentennial
The Faculty of Science is celebrating McGill’s 200th anniversary with a student art exhibition on the theme of “Science!”. McGill students at all levels and all faculties are invited to submit works in any medium, expressing what science means to them.
Faculty of Science bicentennial committee member, Torsten Bernhard, says the aim of the exhibition is to celebrate science in all its forms.
When dinosaurs disappeared, forests thrived
It’s known that the primary cause of the mass extinction of dinosaurs, about 66 million years ago, was a meteorite impact. But the exact mechanisms that linked the meteorite impact to mass extinction remain unclear, though climactic changes are thought to have played a part.
Bat-winged dinosaurs that could glide
Despite having bat-like wings, two small dinosaurs, Yi and Ambopteryx, struggled to fly, only managing to glide clumsily between the trees where they lived, according to a new study led by an international team of researchers, including McGill University Professor Hans Larsson.
Virtual Tours in the news!
Our Virtual Tours are talked about in an article on The McGill Tribune!
Read all about it here!
Created by Ingrid Birker of the Redpath Museum and Meghomita Das of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, this tour will take you on an exploration of the fossils found in Montreal on and around the campus.
Support from COVID-19 Emergency Support Fund
Many thanks to the Department of Canadian Heritage, under the Museums Assistance Program (MAP) for generous funding directly to the Redpath Museum!
We are grateful for this generous allocation of $14,083 to help us carry out our activities until the end of fiscal year 2021.
Many thanks to Anthony Howell and Annie Lussier, both collection managers and curatorial staff at the Redpath Museum, for pulling together and submitting the grant application.
Support for STEMM and Diversity at McGill
Congratulations to the team of graduate students who have received funding support from McGill Science Outreach and from an NSERC Student Ambassador Award for the development and implementation of a lesson plan to accompany the popular STEMM Diversity @ McGill colouring and activity book!
Thanks SPF for supporting the Museum!
This summer the McGill Sustainability Projects Fund (SPF) turned ten years old and it marked the occasion by giving the 130 year old Redpath Museum some funding help. Thanks SPF for subsidizing our new outreach project to create a "Museum in a Box" and for help to buy photography equipment so that we could create virtual StoryMap tours such as the McGill Tree Tour and the McGill Stones and fossils tour.
Museum and Dawson family - news from our connections
The Dawson family and McGill have a long and storied connection. Sir John William Dawson, founder of the Museum in 1882 and Principal of McGill for 38 years died in 1899. His great grandaughter Kathleen Godfrey, graduated in 2019 with Masters in Anthropology. You can read about her conservation and social justice work here. On August 10, 2020, Kathleen's grandmother, Joan Harrington, died at the age of 101.
New species of ancient swimming reptile discovered by Museum student
The Hauffiopteryx altera, a new species of Ichthyosaur discovered by a McGill student Dirley Cortés, a PhD candidate in paleontology with Dr. Hans Larsson, Director of the Redpath Museum, has been described iPalaeontologia Electronica, 23(2):a30. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26879/937 here.
Some dinosaurs could fly before they were birds
New research using the most comprehensive study of feathered dinosaurs and early birds has revised the evolutionary relationships of dinosaurs at the origin of birds.
Remembering Henry Reiswig - the sponge specialist
Henry Reiswig, the former Biology professor and curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the Redpath Museum, died on July 4, 2020. You can read his obituary here:
His daughter Amy says: "He died in his lab in the garage, with microscope slides on the warmer, doing what he loved: science."
Rock On! Erin Gibbons
The Redpath Museum Society Vice President External, Erin Gibbons, has won the prestigious Vanier Scholarship.
Museum researcher warns of increased growth in Quebec tick populations
According to Virginie Millien, an assistant professor at McGill and curator of zoology and paleontology at McGill's Redpath Museum, warmer temperatures preferentially benefit one of the Lyme diesease tick's most important hosts, the white-footed mouse, which has expanded its range northwards, and outcompeted other mice. The result is that Lyme disease has become a far more pressing health issue in southeastern Canada than ever before.
Make the Museum VIRTUAL - donate now!
Here at the Redpath Museum, we are wishing you good health during this challenging time as we all learn to manage the significant challenges we’ve faced since the COVID-19 pandemic. Through it all, it has become clear that the world needs its museums to educate and connect us to each other.
We need help from all of our Friends to deliver Redpath to you at home!