Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, and mammals gotta reproduce–all in the name of evolution

Charles Darwin’s finches ain’t got nothing on Missy Hawkins’ mammals. Sure, Darwin may be only one of the most impactful biologists in all of modern history, having refined his theory of evolution by natural selection after studying the finches on the Galapagos Islands. But according to Missy, finches evolved fairly recently. And relatively speaking, mammals are a lot more diverse.

Of course, Missy herself would never sniff at Darwin or his famous finches but she did tell Eye on Science that what she studies is much more exciting.

Missy (short for Melissa) Hawkins works for the National Museum of Natural History as its terrestrial mammal curator, studying how ancient mammals adapted to their environments and evolved into the diverse assortment of mammal species we have today. “Some of the mammal groups I study are more diverse and fill a lot more roles in the ecosystem than the Galapagos finches,” Missy said. “I study much older radiations.” (“Radiations” being the points where animals diverge into several new species.)

Cool, so the evolution of mammals over millennia is more interesting than that of finches over generations. Got it. (To be fair to Darwin, he really didn’t have the opportunity to observe evolution first-hand over zillions of years.)

A selfie Missy took in the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary in Uganda May 2023. You can see a white rhino standing behind Missy. She participated in a guided walk in a protected area. (Courtesy Missy Hawkins)

You might think that someone with such decided opinions grew up debating scientific theories at the dinner table. But that’s not Missy’s origin story. “I am a first-generation college student,” Missy told Eye on Science. “Most people assume all of us (scientists) come from families of doctors and lawyers—that was definitely not the case for me. My family doesn’t even like the outdoors. My mom thought that camping meant going to a hotel. When my parents said I was going to go to college, they had no idea I’d go to all the college and get a Ph.D.”

Missy may not have grown up exploring the outdoors, but her affinity for the animals and specimens she studies is obvious in the care she takes with them. Her work involves studying the genetic relationships between mammals from around the world, and to do that, she needs animals to study. Fortunately, working at the National Museum of Natural History, Missy has access to a treasure trove of specimens. “I can get a career’s worth of data without leaving the building,” she said.

Missy Hawkins is front andd center in this selfie with, with molecular technician Mary Faith Flores (left) and postdoc Arlo Hinckley (right) after gearing up in Tyvek suits to process samples in the NMNH Historic DNA laboratory at the Museum Support Center in Suitland, MD in 2022. “We wear the Tyvek suits to keep our DNA from contaminating the delicate samples we recover DNA from. These samples come from museum around the world, and many are over 100 years old.” (courtesy Missy Hawkins)

The mammals in the Smithsonian’s collection help Missy understand how animal populations have shifted in response to human activity. “Humans are changing our planet faster than ever before. In a lot of areas of the world, we don’t even know how many species of animals live there. Mammals are one of the more studied groups of animals in the world and they can be an indicator of change. We need to be where they are to find out what is where and when.” Museum specimens are often perfect for this kind of meticulous comparison, but no museum’s collection is complete, which means Missy also complements the collections with data collected in the wild.

Missy Hawkins on Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia. This photo was taken in 2013 at 3,200 meters above sea level, where Missy was camping while trapping small mammals.

Missy’s first research expedition brought her to Malaysian Borneo, one of the oldest and most pristine tropical rainforests in the word. “The diversity of animals there is really cool,” she said. “There are all kinds of different geological formations that affect the plants that live there, which affect the mammals that live there. There are some very weird ones,” she told Eye on Science, such as the Sunda flying lemur, which looks like a squirrel wearing a large trench coat. Missy recently returned to Borneo, where she collected small mammals such as mice, rats and shrews indigenous to Asia.

Collecting animals from the wild carries ethical responsibilities neither Missy nor her team take lightly. “We always work with the local communities to trap animals,” she said. “We always share specimens with local collaborators. We pay for everything—to prepare the specimens properly and with high quality, storing lots of tissue. We’ll be hauling liquid nitrogen up and down mountains so we can preserve specimens as best we can.” Missy’s team also repatriates about half what they collect to the country of origin, and they often work with local scientists to train them and co-advise their students.

A volunteer with the Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership captured this image of Missy holding a greater bamboo lemur (Prolemur simus). “The lemur was sedated so we could change his tracking collar. This was in January 2017 in Kianjavato, Madagascar.”

But, why study small, everyday mammals such as rodents when there are far more glamorous animals out there? (Ed. note: Lions and tigers and bears! Oh my!)

Missy has a good answer. “They reproduce quickly,” she says. “The population shifts for only as long as we are there: Soon after we leave, the populations recover. By the time one shrew is removed, another will have offspring that will move in and replace it.” Missy and her team are careful not to allow scientific collecting to have any negative effects on the local animal populations. But why must actual animals be collected at all?

Missy explains, “Some ecologists suggest, ‘Oh, we can just take pictures,’” but “these little brown species all look the same pictures.  Pictures can’t tell you everything. It’s impossible to do the work we do with just photographs.” Instead, she says, “We take a carefully limited number of specimens; we don’t want to come to a field to decimate animal populations. We love these animals. Trapping is important for making them available for future studies, and to categorize the diversity of our planet.”

In fact, Missy and her colleagues don’t have to trap as many animals as were once required because technology allows them to collect more and higher quality data from each specimen. Not unlike the old country saying about using “every part of the pig except the squeal,” each specimen supplies anywhere from 15 to 20 samples for individual analysis.

“Each individual is now worth a lot more than our older ones. We do everything from whole-animal CAT scanning to genome sequencing. We can look at parasites. We can look at what they’re eating. Since the Covid pandemic, we’ve started taking oral and rectal swabs. We’re taking individual organ tissue and freezing it so people can sequence the DNA and preserving the samples for the future.”

This photo of Missy Hawkins and her team was taken after finishing field work April 2023 in Nokesville, VA, trapping small mammals and swabbing them for COVID-19. All of the swabs came back negative! From left: Katie Sayers, Darrin Lunde, Megan Viera, Morgane Dromby, Missy Hawkins, Michael McGowen, John Ososky, Mary Faith Flores, Waleska Gravena, Anna Penna, Arlo Hinckley. (Courtesy Missy Hawkins)

Missy’s interest in animals extends to her hobbies, as well. Before her kids came along, she spent a lot of time running and hiking with her dogs. Now, she makes sure her two daughters have more opportunities to explore nature than she did growing up. “I like to show and inspire creativity in nature. I do craft projects with acorns. We paint rocks,” she said.

Next year, Missy hopes to bring her oldest daughter on a field trip to Uganda. “She started doing field work with me when she was seven months old, catching chipmunks in the redwoods in California.

“I’m trying to bring some of my global experience on my kids. The first time I left the country, I went to Costa Rica, which is quite wealthy compared to much of the world. But when I went to Malaysia, I learned much more about what life is like for most people. I saw that some of the happiest people in the world often have the fewest material things. Our Malaysian assistants in the field would always invite us to their houses. They’d feed us fruits and vegetables that don’t grow on their small family farm. There was just so much respect and genuine happiness. As an American, it’s a very different perspective to spend time with people who live with so much less.”

Our bi-weekly series, Eye on Science, shines a light on our vast and varied body of work by bringing Smithsonian science into sharper focus. Eye on Science tells the stories of the people behind the research, the discoveries they make and their inspiration. We explore their passions, celebrate their contributions, and look more closely at how questions become solutions that can inform environmental policy, spur technological innovation, and promote community and collaboration across the globe.

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