FEATURE STORY — November/December 2009

 

Wild kingdom

Evolutionary biologist Terry Demos travels to the world’s most remote jungles to discover new species

By David McKay Wilson

Evolutionary biologist Terry Demos extracts rice-kernel-sized pieces of tissue from specimens to study their DNA, which provides clues about the mammals’ evolutionary history. More than 2,300 of his specimens are preserved at the Field Museum.

Working to preserve biodiversity in the world’s dwindling rain forests can be dangerous.
 
Terry Demos, MS ’05 LAS, an evolutionary biologist, learned that lesson while collecting small mammals in remote, high-altitude forests in the Republic of Congo’s Itombwe Mountains.

At dusk one evening, a band of militiamen entered Demos’ camp, interrogated several Congolese members of the research team, and marched two away at gunpoint. The two were only released after the researchers paid the militiamen.

“We left the next day,” recalls Demos, of Manhattan, now a doctoral student at City University of New York’s Queens College. “There are chances that you take in this work. There are always possibilities for problems in very remote areas.”

Although the expedition was cut short, the team returned with scores of specimens from the rain forest, including specimens of one mouse and three shrews that Demos believes are new species.

Demos’ work in Africa builds on the research he conducted as a UIC graduate student, which focused on the biogeography of small mammals living on islands in the northern lakes of Minnesota. There, he collected small mammals, such as voles, mice, squirrels and shrews, to study the Island Rule—which says that small animal species on an island are typically larger than their mainland counterparts.

His research at UIC grew out of his association with the Field Museum, where he volunteered as an undergraduate at Loyola University. At the Field Museum, he mastered the art of snaring small mammals by using snap and pitfall traps.

A prolific collector, Demos estimates that 2,300 of his specimens are preserved at the Field Museum, which serves as the repository for more than 200,000 species.

Demos’ passion for collecting began as a child. He enjoyed catching turtles, frogs and tiger salamanders near his home in Madison, Wis., or at his grandmother’s home in Missouri. “We had a small menagerie at our house,” says Demos.

Demos’ expeditions to Africa—the trip to the Congo was his third in three years—harkens back to the journeys taken by 19th century British naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace, who collected an estimated 125,000 specimens during his exploration of Indonesia, and founded the field of biogeography.

But Demos also brings a 21st century sensibility to his research. He extracts rice-kernel-sized pieces of tissue from his specimens to study their DNA, which provides clues to the mammals’ evolutionary history. The DNA, he explains, “helps us understand how historical, geological, ecological and climatic conditions have influenced the evolutionary history of these populations.”

His last Congo expedition has provided him with an opportunity that’s rare among biologists: he gets to name the species he discovered.

Science grants biologists great latitude in choosing the Latin name for a new species. Some scientists settle on a name that describes the animal, based on its size or habitat. Others might honor a giant in the field of science—or as one scientist did in 2008, name a species after his favorite rock star, Neil Young.

Demos, meanwhile, may auction off the naming rights to his new species, hoping to raise money that could fund further expeditions to remote rain forests teeming with biodiversity.

“I’m considering it,” he says. “There’s never enough money for this work.”