Several WSU scientists are gearing up to use stable isotope analysis to ask new questions of the Conner’s specimens. Physiologists Ray Lee and Hubert Schwabl joined Dick Johnson and visiting scientist Elizabeth Yohannes of Germany’s Max Planck Institute to do stable isotope analysis on hairs from small mammals collected on the Palouse over the past hundred years. Their study lays the groundwork for explorations of habitat and dietary changes in mammals, similar to those done with marbled murrelets and other birds. Yohannes has also outlined plans to do SIA with elephant teeth that former WSU zoologist Irven O. Buss donated to the Conner Museum in 1992. That analysis could reveal patterns of mass elephant migrations driven by drought—events biologists would have documented had they been on the scene in Africa when the migrations were going on.