UCL Museums & Collections Blog

When in Africa a couple of years ago, I looked high and low for these gorgeous animals. I mean EVERYwhere. When we finally caught up with a clan (clue), another tourist in our jeep attempted to ruin the moment by harping on about how disgusting they were. Sadly, for an unfathomable reason, this animal does appear to generally induce an upturned nose amongst the general public. Which is so UNFAIR!! This animal is amazing and I am going to set the record straight on why. This week’s specimen of the week is… (more…)

Last week the Grant Museum hosted Call My Bluffalo, a panel event in the format of the popular game show Call My Bluff albeit with a zoological twist. The panel was made up of Dr Ian Barnes (Royal Holloway Univeristy), Dr Anjali Goswami (UCL), Professor Kate Jones (UCL, Institute of Zoology) and Dr Victoria Herridge (Natural History Museum). The star-studded panel do what they do best had to put in a lot of effort to contrive science lies and to try to dupe each other into believing made up etymologys of a range of zoological names. A task made difficult by the fact that sometimes the truth is far stranger than fiction. The event went very well judging from the audience reception (and of course the evaluation forms) but we ended up not using a round of questions we had planned. Rather than waste the effort putting them together we thought we’d put them up here for our readers to have a go themselves.
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On the basis of the wonderfully, hot, sunny, and bright bank holiday weekend we are having (I really hope you’re not the kind of audience that doesn’t appreciate extreme levels of sarcasm) I thought we should celebrate one of the most summery animals known to Britain. Never seen in winter (unless it is having a really bad day), this species is furry, beautiful, and is most often seen enjoying the flowers in the sunshine of summer. This week’s specimen of the week is… (more…)

A favourite in my household when I was growing up, these South-Pacific mammals are pleasant once you get to known them despite their bad reputation, only really fight when it comes to women or food, and don’t reach maturity until they are almost middle aged. This week’s specimen of the week is… (more…)

Two years ago rumours spread quickly around UCL that builders working in the Main Quad on Gower Street had discovered human bones while they were digging an access trench. Lots of human bones. As would be expected, theories abound as to what the story behind such a discovery might be.

The police were immediately involved, and they consulted UCL’s own expert forensic anatomist, Dr Wendy Birch, and established that no foul play had taken place, and the remains were not of police interest. Since then, Dr Birch and her colleagues have been researching the remains and trying to piece together (often literally – many of the bones were highly fragmented) what they are and why they were buried.

This is the topic of the Grant Museum’s new exhibition, Buried on Campus, co-curated by Wendy Birch and forensic anthropologist Christine King, our immediate Rockefeller Building neighbours in the UCL Anatomy Lab. (more…)

Ever heard of the chicken frog? What about the tiger shark? If I asked you what these species plus, say, the turtle dove and the spider monkey had in common, what would you say? Well, there are probably quite a few things when you dig deep (they all have eyes, for example), but superficially, it’s all in the name. Or nameS, as it were. This week’s specimen of the week has an equally split personality, as it is… (more…)

No they’re flatworms. Boom boom. Apologies for the awful pun but worm based-jokes are thin on the ground unlike earthworms which are thin and in the ground. Oh dear. This post is a continuation of the occasional series highlighting objects from the stores and recently I’ve turned my attention to Flatworms. (more…)

Up above the cabinet so high, like a reptile in the sky, this week’s specimen of the week is both solid and squishy, it’s both green but white, and it is extremely hard to get down without the help of our 6 and a half foot curator so if you want to see it, you’ll have to look carefully. But it’s well worth the effort. This week’s specimen of the week is…

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IT’S EASTER- YEAH!! I hope you are all suitably hyped up on excess chocolate from yesterday? I for one, had chocolate egg for dinner last night and breakfast this morning. I am going to give you absolutely no clues to today’s specimen because it is Easter and the blog is always topical (sort of) therefore the specimen requires no introduction. (I fear I may have just failed on both the ‘no clues’ and the ‘no introduction’ front.) This week’s specimen of the week is: (more…)

The species that this week’s specimen of the week belongs to is huuuuuuuuuuuuge. The specimen we have in the museum however is teeny tiny, at least by comparison. It is a hatchling and ridiculously cute. The use of the word ‘hatchling’ to describe the juvenile of this species should have you wandering down the right taxonomic path, if still in a very vague direction. So let me help you out, this week’s specimen of the week is… (more…)