MELISSA BLOCK, host:
It's being billed as Conway's big move. We're talking about Conway, the Mastodon skeleton at the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus. Starting today, a team of workers is disassembling Conway and reassembling him in a new position.
And even though he dates from the Pleistocene Epoch, Conway the Mastodon has his own Facebook page. In his most recent post about his big move, Conway says, this is so exciting. I hope I don't go all to pieces. Just kidding.
Well, Bob Glotzhober, is overseeing the mastodon move. He is senior curator of natural history at the Ohio Historical Society. Bob, how's it going today?
Mr. BOB GLOTZHOBER (Senior Curator of Natural History, Ohio Historical Society): It's going pretty well. We've got the four legs already removed. We started at 10 a.m. and we had those done by about 11:30. The left rear leg gave us some tense moments. This skeleton was mounted in 1894. They drilled holes through the bones to run bolts between them to hold it together - something no curator would ever dream of doing today. That's the way it was done back then.
The left leg, the bolt was twisted and you couldn't take it straight out. We had to lower it a little bit and twist it and lower it and twist it. And meanwhile we're holding probably about 200 pounds worth of leg bones while we're trying to do this. And if we get it wrong, the bolt could rub against the bone and fragment or damage the bone. So we had to be very careful.
BLOCK: Well, tell us a bit more about Conway - when he lived, how big he is, anything we should know.
Mr. GLOTZHOBER: When he was alive would have been during the Ice Age, as you mentioned, somewhere between 10 and 18,000 years ago here in Ohio, and he would've been four to five ton and nine to 10 feet tall. So, about the size of a, you know, a modern elephant. Actually, maybe just a little bit smaller than a large African elephant, but in that same range.
BLOCK: And why is he named Conway?
Mr. GLOTZHOBER: He's named Conway because he was discovered by a farmer named Newton Conway, who lived out west of Columbus in Clark County, in Champaign County of Ohio. And he had a wet spot in the field that he wanted to drain so he could plant crops there. And he started digging in the wet spot and he hit bone. And so the mastodon is named in honor of the landowner that discovered him.
BLOCK: Well, Mr. Glotzhober, why does Conway need to be moved? Why are you taking him apart and putting him back together?
Mr. GLOTZHOBER: Well, we put him together where he is right now 17 years ago. And in those days, the entrance to the museum, when you parked in the parking lot you had to go up a long series of stairways into the second floor of the museum and then down a series of stairs with a grand entranceway and he was posed to face that entrance in a very magnificent pose.
A few years later, people started thinking about ADA, you know, taking care of handicapped people and not making them climb steps, and so we redid the entrance. As people come in now, the ground floor entrance, they're greeted by his derriere.
BLOCK: Oh, I see. Not his best side, huh?
Mr. GLOTZHOBER: And many people have said for 14 or 15 years, gee, it would be nice to move him so we're not greeted that way.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. GLOTZHOBER: But because of the degree of difficultly, we held off. Now we're getting ready to enlarge the entranceway even more and make it more visitor friendly and we're also redoing a whole bunch of other exhibits in here. And so we thought, all right, now's the time. We'll get the crew together and we'll take the time and the energy to do it and get it done right.
BLOCK: Well, Bob Glotzhober, thanks for telling us about Conway's big move and good luck with the rest.
Mr. GLOTZHOBER: Thank you.
BLOCK: Bob Glotzhober is senior curator of natural history at the Ohio Historical Society.