VW Bugged by Mussels

From May, 1997 (Update #30)

A Volkswagon Bug (absent engine and potentially polluting parts) that was intentionally placed in Lake Erie this past June was retrieved on October 21 for transportation to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. In March, the Bug became part of "Endangered!", a 6-month exhibition on at-risk species (see ZMU #28). It would have taken up to two years to get the thick layer of zebra mussels the museum would have liked for the exhibit. So in order to illustrate the scale of biofouling in Lake Erie and get the exhibit up and running, Fred Snyder, Ohio Sea Grant extension agent, and another diver dove to the car and dumped a tub of live zebra mussels over it three weeks before it was lifted from the water, said John Hageman, OSU Stone Laboratory manager. Most of these mussels were firmly attached to the VW when it was removed. After removing the car from the water, it was left to dry for a week then sprayed with polyurethane. The exhibit includes computer imagery showing what the vehicle would have looked like after one and two years of additional colonization. Ross MacPhee, AMNH exibit organizer, said that "adding the tub of mussels might be seen as a misrepresentation, but anyone who has seen the scale of biofouling in Lake Erie due to zebra mussels knows that this is no misrepresentation. The VW is just a prop, a shocker to get people to realize the problems introduced species are causing worldwide." He said that only one unforseen problem arose when the car was retrieved, "Flies got to the dying mussels, and we had a rather substantial maggot problem.".

ID: 199705-5.

The Zebra Mussel Update was a 4- to 8-page quarterly national newsletter published by the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute from May 1990 through May 1997. The ZMU documented the spread of the zebra mussel -- an exotic nuisance mussel -- through North America's freshwater environments, especially the Great Lakes, and on efforts to control it.