WASHINGTON, D.C. - A little piece of the ArkLaTex is helping tell a much bigger story at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
A Eastern leaf-footed bug that was captured in Hope, Arkansas in 1976 is part of the museum's “From These Lands: Sharing Our Natural and Cultural Heritage” project.
COURTESY: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
The groundbreaking new exhibition is commemorating America’s 250th anniversary through more than 600 rare objects and specimens representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the five U.S. territories. The exhibition explores the people, landscapes, discoveries, traditions, and defining moments that have shaped the United States across millions of years of natural and cultural history.
Representing Louisiana in the exhibition are Brown pelican eggs, one of 11 objects from the state featured in the From These Lands exhibition.
COURTESY: Phillip R. Lee, Smithsonian
The egg on the left, from Florida, contains DDT, while the egg on the right, from Louisiana, is free of the pesticide, showing how populations rebounded after DDT was banned in 1972.
"They nearly disappeared after DDT pesticides were interfering with the formation of their egg shells, and that was making these eggs so thin that many of them were breaking before the chicks could hatch, but it was through museum collections that scientists were able to start connecting the dots between DDT and the impacts on eggshell thinning, and that that crucial science ultimately led to the banning of DDT." said Stewart Edie, co-curator of the “From These Lands: Sharing Our Natural and Cultural Heritage” exhibition and curator in the museum’s Department of Paleobiology.
"Since then, we know brown pelicans have rebounded, and they're thriving today. To me, that's just this simple but striking reminder that good science can lead to informed conservation decisions, and that those decisions in turn bring species back from the brink of extinction."
The “From These Lands: Sharing Our Natural and Cultural Heritage” is open through 2029. You can also check out the museum's website for an interactive experience.
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