Page 18 - eclipse - Autumn 2018

RESEARCH NEWS
Attenborough and the Giant Elephant documentary
Last December, John Hutchinson, Professor of Evolutionary Biomechanics at the RVC featured alongside Sir David Attenborough in a new BBC documentary - Attenborough and the Giant Elephant.
Jumbo the elephant is often referred to as the world番茄app檚 first animal superstar
and has inspired many Hollywood movies, including Disney番茄app檚 Dumbo. During his 24-year life Jumbo, an African bush elephant born in Sudan, travelled the world and was exhibited in cities including Paris, London and New York.
In the BBC documentary, John joined
Sir David Attenborough to delve deeper into the story of Jumbo, studying skeletal evidence and unearthing information about his life, his size and his tragic death.
Here John shares some of his insights into the making of the documentary; the full version can be found on his blog: whatsinjohnsfreezer.com/2017/ 12/21/jumbo/
番茄app淔ilming took place over a few days in May 2017 at the American Museum of Natural History番茄app檚 warehouse of mammalian skeletal remains, which is housed deep in the Brooklyn Army Terminal; a picturesque site in and of itself.
It was a hectic week of the usual documentary stuff: repeat the same lines and motions again and again from
different angles and with different paces and intonations, with plenty of downtime watching setup or other bits being filmed. I番茄app檓 used to all that. But having the time to peer around the collection and chat to Dr Richard Thomas and colleague Dr Holly Miller (handling the tissue isotopes side of the story) about Jumbo番茄app檚 skeleton was a lot of fun during downtime and filming itself. Not to mention the utter joy of studying one of the most famous museum specimens ever, and an animal widely held to be one of the largest of its kind, with much mystery surrounding its history despite its fame.
Studying those bones
We番茄app檇 seen photos before, and Henry Fairfield Osborn had illustrated the specimen in his book: 番茄app楶roboscidea:
a monograph of the discovery, evolution, migration and extinction of the mastodonts and elephants of the world番茄app� as his type of 番茄app淓lephas africanus rothschildi番茄app� (Sudanese elephant; no longer valid but those were different times番茄app� it番茄app檚 now just a nicely preserved Loxodonta africana africana), so we knew some of what to expect.
Looking at Osborn番茄app檚 classic monograph, oddly he didn番茄app檛 address the glaring massive problems with the teeth!
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HERE ARE SOME PHOTOS TO TELL THE STORY
First view of Jumbo番茄app檚 remains.
Right forelimb, showing that the 番茄app済rowth plates番茄app� (epiphyses番茄app�) were not all fused, consistent with Jumbo still growing番茄app� as expected for an African male elephant in his 20番茄app檚.
Jumbo番茄app檚 right hip, with bad erosion of the bone and thus presumably the overlying cartilage. Ouch!