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Archive for June, 2015

Underwhelming Fossil Fish of the Month: June 2015

By Mark Carnall, on 30 June 2015

Fresh Prince of Nairnshire. LDUCZ-V1811 fossil masquerading as Will Smith from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

LDUCZ-V1181. Fresh.

Now, this is the story all about how
My life got flipped-turned upside down
And I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there
I’ll tell you how I became an underwhelming fish fossil.

 

 

 

This might be how this month’s underwhelming fossil fish of the month would introduce itself, were it not a fossil fish and if fish could rap in the first place and if fish were keen fans of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and if the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was aired in the Devonian. But unfortunately it is, they can’t, they’re not and it wasn’t. So it’s down to me to introduce yet another monthly underwhelming fossil fish in my mission to increase global fishteracy and to temporarily shine a spotlight on unloved museum specimens.

As you can tell from the flimsy preamble, there’s not much to say about this month’s specimen so back away from the edge of your seat and lower your expectations. We’re in for a uneventful ride.
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Specimen of the Week 194: The Death’s-Head Hawkmoth

By zcqsrti, on 29 June 2015

The pinned Death's-head hawkmoths. LDUCZ-L1438

The pinned Death’s-head hawkmoths. LDUCZ-L1438

I stand before you to beseech absolution. I confess to my unholy bias in favour of the darker and somewhat supernatural beings of the museum, yet I seek no forgiveness. I will endeavour to one day improve this, and talk about some adorable abomination with darling little eyes and a twee silken coat, but to be honestly forthright, I recoil at the thought. I’ve always found delight in those lacking in vertebral column, often simply regarding the spine itself as excess baggage, hence I rejoice to formally announce that I’m keeping with the creepy invertebrate vibe.

This week’s specimen is most agreeable to the palate of those with a less cute-inclined disposition; with the markings of a demon and the scent of bees, this week’s Specimen of the Week is… (more…)

Subversive Millinery workshop

By Jenny M Wedgbury, on 24 June 2015

Subversive Millinery workshop

Subversive Millinery workshop

Last Thursday 18 June UCL Art Museum was the setting for a meeting of the secret subversive millinery group (also known as our annual hat making workshop).

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Specimen of the Week 193: A very confused anemone

By Mark Carnall, on 22 June 2015

Image of LDUCZ-C1445 Amphianthus dohrnii on  Eunicella verrucosa from the Grant Museum of Zoology UCL

Image of LDUCZ-C1445 Amphianthus dohrnii on Eunicella verrucosa from the Grant Museum of Zoology UCL

Specimen of the week is the Grant Museum’s weekly blog series focusing on one of the 68,000 specimens in the collection. When it comes to my turn to write one, I normally try to choose a specimen that otherwise might be overlooked within the crowded cases. Whilst looking for a specimen to focus on this week, I found these lovely specimens, labelled as a fossil ostracod (an amazing group of crustaceans) and on display with the peanut worms and brachipods, whilst resembling anemones. What’s the story here? Hopefully this blog post will cure the case of mistaken identity.

This week’s specimen of the week is… (more…)

Soon turned out we had a heart of papier-mâché

By Mark Carnall, on 16 June 2015

Every year UCL Museum Studies students get to choose an object from each of UCL’s museums and collections to research for a term. This is a guest blog by Jennifer Esposti one of this year’s students looking at a mysterious model. 

LDUCZ-X118 Image of  crocodile heart model at Grant Museum of Zoology UCL

LDUCZ-X118 Auzoux model of crocodile heart

Greetings! My name is Jennifer and I am a postgraduate student in UCL’s Museum Studies program. As part of my MA, I took a course called Collections Curatorship. This course entailed working within a group of students to research a museum object. I was assigned to the natural history group, to investigate an object from the Grant Museum. My group and I were presented with three possible objects and we selected a crocodile heart model known as Object LDUCZ-X118.  Here’s what we found out.
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Specimen of the Week 192: The Harvestman

By zcqsrti, on 15 June 2015

Dried harvestman LDUCZ-J416

Dried harvestman LDUCZ-J416

Case 11: the final resting place of those that once scuttled and dashed between the shadows. Many eagerly feature in our lives, brushing softly against the unaware’s skin, only to dart off as they are noticed, leaving a split second image of many a shambling leg to return as a parting gift at night when the lucidity of dreams kick in. Staring out from the dim stillness a dour creature resides, and an eternal watch it holds.

It was at first the near-symmetry of this specimen that drew me to it while bumbling around the Grant Museum; but after doing a little research, only then did it become apparent that this creature is far deserving of a week-long bask in the limelight. These critters are easily mistaken for spiders, both having eight spindly legs, but in fact they are far cuter, and much to the ire of arachnophobes. Many aspects of their biology and their cultural influence make them the spider’s rather well-appreciated cousin, and rightfully so.

So thus begins my job to convince you, dear literary companion, of this creature’s cause, lest it be cast off back to the tenebrous corners where the resting beasts of Case 11 do creep and surge. This week’s Specimen of the Week is…

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Some favourite PanoptiCam views

By Nick J Booth, on 10 June 2015

Several months ago saw the launch of the Panopticam Project, a joint UCL Centre for Digital HumanitiesUCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, Bentham Project and UCL Museums project.

The Panopticam (see what we did there?) involved the installation of a webcam on top of the auto-icons box to give us a Bentham eyed view of the world. The camera takes a photo every 5 seconds (shown whenever the red light flashes on the camera) which updates the photo on the website here. At the end of each day all the photos are joined together to form a time-lapse recording of the days events, which are made available on YouTube, check out this one from 6 minutes in to see UCL Dance Soc is action. Finally every hour (at 1 minute past) the view is tweeted by @Panopticam.

It’s been going for about 3 months now, and recently the project blog decided to show some choice images from the project so far – http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/panopticam/2015/06/02/some-choice-views-from-bentham/. I thought I’d follow suit and share some of my favourites with you too.

Enjoy!

UCL PACE Marketing Manager Meg and I hard at work.

UCL PACE Marketing Manager Meg Dobson and I hard at work.

PanoptiCam4

Student engagement.

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100 Years of the Petrie Museum

By Debbie J Challis, on 9 June 2015

Petrie Pocket diary

Flinders Petrie’s ‘Pocket Diary’ entry for 7 June 1915. Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology Archives.

On  7 June 1915 the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology opened its doors at UCL for the first time. On the day Petrie wrote in his pocket diary ‘exhibitions of whole collection finally arranged’. There was plenty else going on in the world, not least in London and Egypt. (more…)

UCL Museums Student Events Team

By tcrnrh1, on 8 June 2015

Rachel again…

Back in February this year, UCL Museums ran a very special late night opening at the Grant Museum of Zoology around Valentine’s Day, called Animal Instincts: Sex and the Senses. Much fun and merriment was had by all with special lusty-themed cocktails, an animal photobooth, crafts and some particularly pungent ‘animal’ smelling boxes. Over the years UCL Museums have built up a reputation for putting on events such as these; however, for Animal Instincts, they handed over the reigns to the events programme to some of us UCL students.

A shot of the busy bar at our event "Animal Instincts: Sex and the Senses".

Farrah serving up a cocktail storm at the bar during the evening.

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Specimen of the Week 191 : Rhamphorhynchus wing cast

By Tannis Davidson, on 8 June 2015

LDUCZ-X842 Rhamphorhynchus wing cast

LDUCZ-X842 Rhamphorhynchus wing cast

One of my favourite pastimes is to do a bit of research – on just about anything. I enjoy investigative work and the process of discovery.  Luckily, the nature of my work at the Grant Museum ensures that there are plenty of opportunities to do museum-detective work. It could be a case of matching up an archival record with an unaccessioned specimen or figuring out a valid taxonomic name for a mysterious beast in a jar.

It is both a burden and a blessing to work with historic collections which have varying degrees of documentary information: while it would be preferable to have more/most/all information about an object, gaps in the data allow for additional research and new discoveries.

Recently I was doing some research on another Grant Museum Rhamphorhynchus specimen and one thing led to another…and another…and another. It turns out that there is a lot of history behind this week’s SOTW – and although it is ‘only’ a plaster cast – it is part of a famous lineage of one of the most famous fossil finds!

This week’s Specimen of the Week is… (more…)