Mr. Russel McCarty

Vertebrate Paleontology Preparator
cormac (Please add "@flmnh.ufl.edu" to "cormac" for full email address.)

Russ McCarty began working for the Florida State Museum (now known as the Florida Museum of Natural History) in 1967 when the museum was still housed in the Seagle Building in downtown Gainesville. Courtesy of Uncle Sam, Russ left the FSM for a trip to Vietnam. Upon discharge from the Army in 1969, and after a couple of years of college in New Jersey, Russ returned to Gainesville where he finished his undergraduate degree in Archaeology/Anthropology at UF. While attending school, Russ worked in exhibits production and mold making for the FLMNH's traveling museum program. In 1973, he graduated from UF, and in 1974 became a graduate student of Bill Maples in UF's Physical Anthropology program. He later did graduate work in the Public History/Museum Studies Department. In 1980, Russ was hired by FLMNH's Vertebrate Paleontology Department to assist Howard Converse in the prep lab. Russ became head of the prep lab in 1985, and since then, has had the pleasure of working on many interesting fossil animals including a new species of horse that he found (and had named after him), Calippus maccartyi.