Hey!

We're in the library filming an Ask Emily video and this Ask Emily is really special because you guys called in and left us messages on our voicemail, so if you have a question for a future Ask Emily video call the hotline! It's supposed - the number will be right here.

Yeah! Okay. Hi Emily!

This is Alex Lundt in Massachusetts Yes! The Field does have a library and librarians. Our reference collection is hugely important because we have titles that are highly specialized and can be very rare like if you need to check out the first annual report of the US geological survey of the territories, "Embracing Nebraska," from 1867, we've got it.

Embracing Nebraska. Hey Nebraska It's okay Since many of our books were written way before the first commercial camera, the illustrations in some volumes, like this German book from 1835 about the description and classification of animals from Ethiopia are the only visual record of an area's wildlife at that time. We filmed our Audobon episode in the rare book room, which is basically exactly what it sounds like: a room full of rare books and in some instances, books that are hundreds of years old Our librarians facilitate our curators, collections managers, and other researchers and members of the public to have access to these resources.

But you can also find a lot of the materials online by searching the Biodiversity Heritage Library. You know, I keep pitching the idea to Lin-Manuel Miranda about turning Carl Akeley's life story into a hip hop album, but I guess he's kind of busy right now. I don't know.

If that doesn't work out, I'm going to hit up the Hamburger Helper glove because his April 1st album was pure gold. It was good. I run a club for girls in STEM at my school and I was wondering what your ideas were when people ask us You know, I get this question a lot and my answer is: you'd be terribly out of touch if you walked into a room with people of all the same gender and race and thought your job diversifying the workplace was finished.

We know from a multitude of studies and surveys on the topic that the best ideas come from collaborations between people with diverse backgrounds, whether that's because of their varied experiences, ages, genders, or race, but in order to achieve diverse work environments, we have to tackle some of the big issues preventing gender-racial minorities from participating in the first place, and the answer isn't because they aren't interested in the topic. One really great way to ensure that girls especially will maintain an interest in these fields is by having specific groups for them to take advantage of their own creativity in a positive and supportive environment, because unfortunately it's still all too often that girls are told they're naturally not gifted or interested in math and science and that's frankly a lot of garbage Hey! Super interested in the Field Museum's insect collection because it sounded like Crystal Maier went out and collected?

The cool thing about Crystal's job is that she gets to both manage the insect collection, as well as contribute her own specimens to it. These days, many collection managers in natural history museums have or are working towards their PhD's, which are ultimately research degrees. This means Crystal doesn't just process loans and facilitate visitors, but that she can get grants and work with collaborators to pursue her own research too.

That being said, a fair number of insects in the insect collection were collected by amateur enthusiasts. You don't have to be a professional to take as serious interest in the invertebrate world around you and even by working in your backyard, you can begin creating an important collection of insects unique to that particular area. If you take good notes and keep it orderly, perhaps some day you can donate it to a museum too.

Alright, here's my dream team: Carl and Delia Akeley for their perseverance and survival aptitude, botanist and author of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter, because she could help us forage for mushrooms and tell us which ones were edible, and Dr. Ruth Patrick, a pioneer who laid the foundation for modern pollution control in streams because we'll need some fresh water and my mom for her medical expertise and because I love my mom Hi Mom. Not that I had to give up and leave, but I did adopt a few cats in February and a few weeks later, one of them jumped in my lap, and when she turned around, I saw a tapeworm poke its head out of her head and then crawl back into her butt.

That was the most grossed out I have been in a really long time. With that being said, parasites are pretty fascinating creatures and the Smithsonian in DC just inherited a sweet new collection of them like 20 million of them and I'm pretty jealous Pronghorn antelopes are actually more closely related to giraffes than they are to the bovines that we call antelopes Pronghorns are members of the family Antilocapridae, which includes a number of extinct, even-toed ungulates that were abundant in North America during the last 2.5 million years all the way to just about 12,000 years ago. Perhaps, we call the North American pronghorn an antelope because it fills a similar niche that is filled by grazers who we also call antelopes, those that are related to bison, goats, and sheep.

North American pronghorns aren't the only species with misleading common names. After all, the horny toad is a lizard, the bay snook is not a snook and doesn't live in a bay and who even knows what a coontie hairstreak is anyway Sounds like a weird rash you would pick up from a dirty porta potty at a music festival. Anyway, feel free to leave your favorite misleading common name in the comments below. like there's this one group called cichlids, and I think they're like super cool.

There's like over 1600 species of cichlids, and I heard that the neotropical ones are really awesome You know, what's funny about this message is that it sounds a lot like Caleb from the clearing and staining video that we did, the collection manager of fishes here who works on cichlids I mean... I work down the hall from you. You could've just... walked by.

You didn't have to leave a message, but... we'll, we'll get on your cichlids video