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Archive for February, 2017

Specimen of the Week 280: Preserved Gharial

By Tannis Davidson, on 24 February 2017

Over the past year, UCL Culture’s conservation team has been undertaking work on a project to conserve many of the Grant Museum’s specimens which are preserved in fluid (read more about ‘Project Pickle’ here). During the ongoing work, specimens have been re-hydrated, remounted, rehoused and re-identified.

Along the way there have also been some new discoveries of specimens that we didn’t know were in the collection. Some of the jars were full of fluid so discoloured that it was impossible to see the animal inside and it was only when the specimen was taken out that the identification could be made. One jar had an astounding 11 different animals inside including this week’s Specimen of the Week…

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Specimen of the week 279: Jar of mole (crickets)

By Will J Richard, on 17 February 2017

Hello! Will Richard here, blogging again for you all. And this time I’ve chosen a specimen that I can’t believe isn’t better known. Everybody loves a jar of moles… so how about a jar of mole crickets?

LDUCZ-L45 European mole cricket

LDUCZ-L45 European mole cricket

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Museums and Virtual Reality: VR in the Grant Museum

By Jack Ashby, on 15 February 2017

Guest post

VR:Cell being tested in the Grant Museum

VR:Cell being tested in the Grant Museum

For those of us who had the opportunity to work with Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR and AR), 2016 was a most exciting year. Notably, a range of new headsets finally reached consumer market and a number of interesting, new applications looked poised to mainstream these technologies. We even saw the world’s first revolutionary AR game in the form of Pokémon Go entering many locations worldwide and arriving to this very place, the Grant Museum of Zoology. It is also becoming apparent that VR and AR are not just opening new opportunities for how we entertain ourselves, but also how we connect, share, and learn, by transforming how we look at content.

VR and AR are emerging as a valuable medium in learning and public engagement

A number of articles, studies and conference presentations have already described the great success of 3D-immersion brought about by VR and AR technologies in hundreds of classrooms in educationally progressive schools and learning labs. Considering that today’s museums are interactive learning environments that encourage engaging with material, VR and AR should be ideally placed to bring museum objects to life and create more dynamic, interesting exhibits and displays. (more…)

Why natural history museums are important. Specimen of the Week 278: The British Antarctic Survey Limpets

By Jack Ashby, on 10 February 2017

There is much more to a natural history museum than meets the eye, and that’s mostly because relatively tiny proportions of their collections are on display. At the Grant Museum of Zoology we are lucky enough to have about 12% of our collection on display. That’s because we have a lot of tiny things in the Micrarium and our collection is relatively small, with 68,000 objects. While we REALLY like to cram as much in our cases as is sensible, these percentages are not realistic for many museums, whose collections run into the millions.

Limpets from South Georgia. LDUCZ-P878 Nacella concinna

Limpets from South Georgia. LDUCZ-P879 Nacella concinna

The vast majority of specimens in natural history museums, ours included, were not intended for display, and that includes this week’s Specimen of the Week… (more…)

Specimen of the Week 277: Hornbill Skull

By Dean W Veall, on 3 February 2017

Black-casqed hornbill LDUCZ-Y1710 Ceratogymna atrata

Black-casqed hornbill LDUCZ-Y1710 Ceratogymna atrata

Hello Specimen of the Week fans, Dean Veall here. This week I’ve chosen a specimen that is a bit of an avian showoff in the animal world (**PLUG PLUG**Join us on Thursday 9 March for more showoffs in Animal Showoff **PLUG PLUG**). That is no mean feat for birds, a group of vertebrates that are known for their showoffy-ness. My Specimen of Week is a hornbill skull and I fear I cannot restrain myself from singing the one song hornbills are famous for. Can’t place the song? Read on….. 

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