Should species like red squirrels be protected in England when they are common in Europe?

This is the newest question we are asking in our QRator iPad displays.

There is a limited amount of money available for conservation. Not everything can be protected. How important is it if an animal goes extinct in one country if they still exist elsewhere? Some species, like red squirrels are common in Europe but declining in the UK – should they be protected here? Do local extinctions affect global biodiversity? (more…)

We have a few weeks to go for our current exhibition, co-curated with the Fish Facility here at UCL, exploring the role of zebrafish in scientific research. It’s in the Museum’s pigeon holes until we close for Christmas on 23rd December.

George Wigmore from UCL Communications came along to give a write-up of the installation on the UCL Evens Blog – it begins…

“Related to the much-maligned minnow, many are unaware that zebrafish are in fact one of the giants of the genetics world. While more-well known, and controversial, model organisms continue to dominate the limelight, the humble zebrafish continues to plod along in the background. But a current exhibition at UCL’s Grant Museum on zebrafish and their role in science aims to change all that.

Well-understood, easily observable, and with many similarities to mammalian physiology, it should be no surprise that zebrafish studies have resulted in such a huge number of advances in a plethora of different fields. Ranging from development biology, to toxicology and evolutionary theory, its composition makes it an ideal model organism for studies of vertebrate development and gene function.”
Read the rest here…

Image credit: Dr Paul Frankel, UCL Division of Medicine and Ark Therapeutics plc and Professor Paul French, Photonics Group, Physics Department, Imperial College London

I am very fond of cryptozoologists. I’m not one myself, but I think they are great. I spent Saturday at the Fortean Times’ annual symposium, UnConvention 2011. This is a weekend of talks about all things paranormal, organised by the magazine Fortean Times (The World of Strange Phenomena), but cryptozoology is the reason I went. Well, the reason I went is because two dear friends of the Grant Museum were speaking and I rarely get to see them. One is Richard Freeman, Zoological Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology (the world’s largest professional cryptozoological organisation) and the other is Brian Regal, an academic historian of science interested in the relationship between science and pseudo-science and the history of Big Foot.

Cryptozoology, for those who don’t know, is the study of hidden animals, or cryptids. The bread and butter of it is animals unknown to science like yetis, sasquatch and Nessie; but also includes animals that are considered extinct, like thylacines; and animals beyond their normal ranges, like big cats on Dartmoor. (more…)

Welcome to the 100th UCL Museums and Collections blog post!!! What an honour! I shall definitely be sharing a wine with scary monkey (see left) later on and he says he gives you all permission to leave work early for the momentous occasion. When you first start writing a weekly blog you suddenly become very aware of time and more to the point, how quickly it whips by! Already it is week four of the new specimen of the week blog. Someone pointed out yesterday it was only seven weeks until the new year. Frightening!

Anywho, this week I have decided to choose one of my most favourite animals to tell you about. It is one of the largest species of the group to which it belongs and famous for its weird appearance. This week’s specimen of the week is… (more…)

Dear readers,

It is with a very heavy heart that I bring you the news that the second subspecies of Javan rhino, the Vietnamese Javan rhino, has been driven to extinction thanks to poachers. The third subspecies, the Indonesian Javan rhino, is now the last remaining representative of this entire species. The loss of the population in Vietnam is called a local extinction for the species and means that Vietnam has now lost all of its rhinos. A sad loss of heritage for the people.

The last individual was found dead, with a bullet hole in its leg and its horn removed.

Rhino horn is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. However, it is made of keratin, the same material as your finger nails and has been repeatedly scientifically proven to have no medicinal value whatsoever. The rhinos are dying for nothing. (more…)

Last night I was at the Natural History Museum’s Science Uncovered event and these are some things I learnt*:

• Female paper natuiluses have been known to leave their shells to climb into ones covered in glitter.
• The NHM has the youngest skin prepratation of a thylacine.
• Slipper limpets mate for life, and do so permanently sat on top of each other.
• Black smokers are mostly made of metal (well, rich ores).
• There probably aren’t any soft tissue samples of Stella’s sea cow.
• A virus has been physically reconstitued from its genetic code in a lab.
• Volcanic Kimberlites have brought diamonds to the surface at tens of kilometres an hour from the mantle.

It was an absolutely fantastic night because it was a unique opportuntity (apart from the same night last year) for the Museum to turn itself inside out: to bring the thing that is best about our national natural history collection – the back of house scientists and collections – out into the galleries. (more…)

Today is world rhino day everyone- wahooooo!!!! What does that mean?! It’s a day dedicated to celebrating our five species of rhinoceros! There are two species in Africa; the white rhino and the black rhino (though both confusingly only come in grey) and three in Asia; the Sumatran rhino (from Sumatra), the Javan rhino (from Java) and the Indian one horned rhino (from Brazil.) Just kidding. All rhinos are uber cool, though my favourite is the Sumatran rhino. It is the smallest of the five but it sports an awesome hairy coat. Not like a lion, or a wolf, more like a middle aged man who’s got a one way ticket to bald-land. The hair is, shall we say, thinned out, but they are definitely significantly hairier than their other rhino friends and, with their massively tufty ears, are subsequently ridiculously cute! (more…)

Elephant who? Not Hollywood.

No. Not the animal stars of the silver screen but a term we use in the Grant Museum to describe a certain set of animals. Hollywood animals* are charismatic animals that are readily identifiable and although the simple classification system of “Hollywood” or “not” doesn’t refer to other taxonomic systems we can see that the possession of  some biological characteristics can significantly improve your chances. In museums, Hollywood animals tend to get used more in education and in exhibitions because they are more readily identifiable and interesting to look at. Hollywood animals also tend to get used more in wider popular culture, in branding for wildlife agencies and in many ways represent wildlife, nature and the rest of the animal kingdom. (more…)

Thylacine: A species that was alive within living memory

Picture this: an animal in a zoo dies of exposure one night because the door allowing it to return to the inside area of its enclosure was accidentally locked shut. It’s early Spring and southern Tasmania gets pretty cold – a wire and concrete cage is no place for a warm-blooded creature to be kept outside. Pretty awful, eh?

Well that’s what happened to the last known thylacine 75 years ago today. The neglect itself would be shocking for any individual, let alone the sole known member of a species – the only remaining taxon in an entire family of animals. That day, a whole branch of the tree of life fell off. Well, in truth it was cut off. (more…)

The Animal

Let’s call a spade a spade. If you look at a rhino I mean *really* look at it, go on don’t be shy there’s one right there, it’s a weird looking beast. Its great big head has tiny little eyes and its massive bulk makes it a formidable animal. The most rhino-y feature is of course the horn. A lot of animals have tusks, antlers, or maybe even horns, but no other species stumbling through evolution on a cold Pliocene day thought “I know, I’ll take this horn of mine and pop it onto my nose, hah haaah, that’ll impress the ladies”. No, they are unique. The rhino is a truly remarkable and remarkable looking animal.

So this horn, what’s it all about? Rhino horn is made of keratin. What’s that you say? Look down at the tips of your fingers (or toes if you’d prefer) and (hopefully) you will be looking at some keratin. Some of you may need to remove nail varnish before you can give your keratin a really good inspection. Yes rhino horn is made of the same stuff as finger nails. (more…)