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Archive for June, 2017

Underwhelming Fossil Fish of the Month June 2017

By Mark Carnall, on 30 June 2017

It’s the end of June, which can mean one thing and one thing only. It’s time for another underwhelming fossil fish of the month brought to you from the Grant Museum of Zoology. I know, I know it seems like only the day before yesterday since we featured the last totally underwhelming fish fossil but time waits for no fish so we’re back once again. with the renegade master.

For the uninitiated there’s still time to back out. This blog series aims to look at fossil fish from the Grant Museum of Zoology and ask, why? Why did someone collect this? Why is it still in a museum? Who cares about this stuff and most importantly, is reading this a good use of my time?

No! No it is not dear reader but contemplating the dry and uninteresting world of a fossiliferous fish might just distract you enough from the knowledge that you and everyone you know is made of meat or offer some comfort to the inevitable fact that the heat death of the Universe will render everything we and descendent generations do utterly pointless.

I’ve stalled as much as I can, I’m afraid, it’s now time for this month’s underwhelming fossil fish to be unveiled. This is your last chance to get back to contemplating your inherently meaty nature. (more…)

Specimen of the Week 298: The Preserved Chimpanzee Hand

By zcqsrti, on 30 June 2017

Preserved chimpanzee manus (hand). LDUCZ-Z1146.

Preserved chimpanzee manus (hand). LDUCZ-Z1146.

At the Grant Museum of Zoology we house enough material to comprise at least half a chimpanzee, probably even several halves…

“Half a chimpanzee, philosophically

Must, ipso facto, half not be

But half the chimpanzee has got to be

Vis-a-vis its entity, d’you see?”

I understand that by re-working Eric Idle’s Eric the Half a Bee song to read ‘chimpanzee’ instead of ‘bee’ most of the rhyming joke is lost, but I digress.

This week’s Specimen of the Week is…

 

 

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Specimen of the Week 297: the Giraffe Heart

By Will J Richard, on 23 June 2017

Hello e-folks! Will Richard here bringing you another specimen of the week. A tall story with a lot of heart. That’s right folks it’s the…

Wild giraffes in Niger

Wild giraffes in Niger. Image by Clémence Delmas via Wikimedia Commons; CC BY 3.0

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Focus on Slade Women Artists 2017 – 2018

By Martine Rouleau, on 19 June 2017

 

Paula Rego, Under Milkwood

Paula Rego, Under Milkwood, 1954, Oil on canvas,
UCL Art Museum 5581. © The Artist.
First Prize Equal for Summer
Composition, 1954. All UCL Art
Museum’s paintings can be viewed online at Art UK

Spotlight on the Slade Collections is a research project supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, aimed at increasing access to UCL Art Museum’s Slade Collections through research, cataloguing, digitisation, collaboration and public engagement. Emerging out of this project for 2017 – 2018, UCL Art Museum will focus its research and events programming on a key component of the collection: Slade Women Artists.

Approximately 45% of works in UCL Art Museum’s collection are by women artists. Typically, permanent collections in Europe and the US contain between 3-5% of works by women. For their recent exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, art activists the Guerrilla Girls sent questionnaires to 383 European museums and collections to ascertain the gender and nationality balance within their collections. Of the 101 institutions that responded, only 2 collections contained 40% or more works by women.

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Specimen of the Week 296: Hawksbill turtle taxidermy

By ucwehlc, on 16 June 2017

Specimen of the week this week is big, very shiny and in need of some TLC. Today we bring you the…

LDUCZ-X1580 hawksbill turtle Eretmochelys imbricata

LDUCZ-X1580 hawksbill turtle Eretmochelys imbricata

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Make Taxidermy Great Again! We launch our new conservation project

By Jack Ashby, on 12 June 2017

Taxidermy Elephant shrew in need of treatment. LDUCZ-Z2789

Taxidermy elephant shrew in need of treatment.

This week the Grant Museum is launching a project to conserve our important collection of historic taxidermy, which involves taking these much-loved specimens off display to be treated. In their place, we will be filling the gaps with toy stuffed animals to raise awareness of the project.

The specimens have been on display for over a century, and in that time some of them have begun to split and crack, their filling may be poking out or they are just plain dirty. They require expert museum conservators to repair them, ensuring that they will survive for the long-term future. That is the key aim of this project: Fluff It Up: Make Taxidermy Great Again. (more…)

Specimen of the Week 295: Do we fix the googly-eyed owl?

By Jack Ashby, on 9 June 2017

You do not have to be an expert zoologist to know that this is not what an owl looks like.

Next week we launch a major conservation project called Fluff It Up: Make Taxidermy Great Again, to repair and restore our historic taxidermy collection (check back on the blog on Monday for more about that). This will involve the expert conservation of specimens that have become damaged over their decades or centuries on display. In planning this project, we were faced with the decision of whether to “correct” the absurd but amusing eyes on this owl…

Long eared owl. Should we replace his eyes? LDUCZ-Y1604

Long eared owl. Should we replace his eyes? LDUCZ-Y1604

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Specimen of the Week 294: The Swift

By Dean W Veall, on 2 June 2017

Hello Specimen of the Week fans, Dean Veall here. This week I’ve chosen a specimen I have often got confused by at this time of the year.  This week’s Specimen of the Week is…

Taxidermy swift LDUCZ-Y1552

Taxidermy swift LDUCZ-Y1552

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