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Archive for June, 2016

Underwhelming Fossil Fish of the Month: June 2016

By Mark Carnall, on 30 June 2016

It has been a month. That is for sure. But I tell you who won’t be worrying about their future, or screaming into a brown paper bag, or asking if anyone competent is actually in charge of anything at a time when that kind of thing seems very important. Underwhelming fossil fish in museum drawers that’s who.

That’s right, we’re back with our monthly series, taking time away from the chaotic world to look at and if you’re feeling sassy perhaps shrug a shoulder or two at an underwhelming fossil fish from the Grant Museum of Zoology’s collections. The worst a fossil fish has to look forward to is nothing as fossil fish cannot contemplate anything. They are made of stone. Those lucky fishy fossily fellows.

This month’s fossil fish, out of pure chance, is from John o’ Groats. John o’ Groats used to be a man but it is now a village in Scotland. John o’ Groats currently lies on Britain’s northeastern tip and is famous for being one end of the longest trip you could take between two British settlements, the other end being Land’s End in Cornwall. This fossil was once a complete fish but sadly the taphonomic processes have ‘made it great again’ meaning it is now fragmented, no longer whole and far less interesting for it too, fortunately for us.

This month we’ve got overlabelling highlighting historical less-than-best practice in museum labelling which I know is at the forefront of all of our minds at the moment. Let’s have a look shall we?

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Specimen of the Week 245: The peregrine falcon skull

By Will J Richard, on 24 June 2016

Hello folks! Will Richard here bringing you a record breaking specimen of the week. It is part of our Best of the Beasts trail and by the end of this blog I hope you’ll all see why. It’s the…

LDUCZ-Y1721 peregrine falcon skull

LDUCZ-Y1721 peregrine falcon skull

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Specimen of the Week 244: The historic wax flatworm

By Tannis Davidson, on 17 June 2016

LDUCZ-D44 Fasciola hepatica

LDUCZ-D44 Fasciola hepatica

Since its inception in 1828, the Grant Museum of Zoology collections have always been used for teaching. This continues in the present day and the Museum welcomes students from across UCL for a wide variety of specimen-based practicals, course work and research projects.

Today we maintain detailed lists of specimens which are used in classes but I’ve often wondered what the early object-based teaching practicals looked like and which specimens were used.

Fortunately, the Museum has some relevant archives which have identified an extraordinary specimen that had been used in teaching at UCL 130 years ago. It is not only one of the oldest specimens in the collection, but also one of the most beautiful.

Take a journey back in time with this week’s Specimen of the Week…

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Specimen of the Week 243 – Dolphin Foetus

By tcrnrh1, on 10 June 2016

1. Unpredictable as usual

The Grant Museum is a haven for the unexpected. As is often the case with the collection (at least, for me anyway), just when you’re expecting to see an animal that you feel fairly au fait with… the museum presents you with specimens that are: dissected, bisected, exploded, stained, crammed with others in a jar or injected with alizarin. So as a case in point, here is the rinsed skeleton of a dolphin foetus.

LDUCZ-Z3092 - Dolphin Foetus Image

LDUCZ-Z3092 – Dolphin Foetus

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Specimen of the Week 242 – the Marsupial Lion

By Jack Ashby, on 3 June 2016

Thylacoleo skull cast LDUCZ-Z3167

Thylacoleo skull cast LDUCZ-Z3167

1) Large lion-shaped predators were living in Australia until around 50,000 years ago – lion-shaped, but not lions. This is because there were no wild cat species in Australia*, and up until 3-5000 years ago when the dingo arrived with Polynesian traders, all large Australian mammals were marsupials. One such beast was Thylacoleo carnifex, the “marsupial lion”. Alongside this big predator lived “marsupial rhinos” (diprotodons), giant kangaroos, giant echidnas, “marsupial tapirs” (Palorchestes) and giant wombats (Phascolonus). All in all, Australia used to have much bigger animals than it does now.

2) It is believed that marsupial lions diverged from the branch of the marsupial tree that led to wombats and koalas. (more…)

UCL GeoBus at the Grant Museum

By Nick J Booth, on 2 June 2016

For one day during the Easter holidays, the Grant Museum was taken over by the GeoBus, a new and exciting outreach project from UCL Earth Sciences and coming to schools all across London soon.

Making fossil casts for visitors to take home with them.

Making fossil casts for visitors to take home with them.

GeoBus as a concept started out at St Andrews University back in 2011, the brainchild of Dr Ruth Robinson. The main idea behind the project was to create a bridge between schools, higher education institutes and industry, to show how Earth Science is cross curricular and to include current research in fun and exciting workshops visiting schools. GeoBus UCL is about to launch and we decided to give the public a taster of what might be on offer. (more…)