The Grant Museum is currently closed this summer for some refurbishment works but we still have plenty of exciting stories to tell from the collection.

Today’s blog is by visiting researcher Dr Andrew McCarthy from Canterbury College, UK.

Initially this short piece was planned to be solely about the identification of specimens of an intestinal parasite of an endangered species of deep-water shark Echinorhinus brucus, the Bramble Shark, from the collections of the museum.

Echinorhinus brucus, the Bramble Shark.
(Goode & Bean (1896) Oceanic Ichthyology. Public Domain via Wiki Commons)

However, by strange coincidence as will be explained, it is being written on the day that the United Nations in New York announced in its new global marine biodiversity conservation initiative “The High Seas Treaty”. Embracing almost two thirds of the World’s oceans that lie outside national boundaries the treaty provides a legal framework for the establishment of vast Marine Protected Areas (MPA’s) to protect against loss of marine biodiversity. The coincidence is that the specimens under discussion here are thought, ultimately, to have their origin associated with the work of a British pioneer of marine conservation of well over one hundred years ago. He was namely Professor Sir Edwin Ray Lankester FRS, a past Director of the Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy (1874-1890), Jodrell Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at University College London, and Linacre Professor of Comparative Anatomy at the University of Oxford. A larger-than-life figure, some believe him to be one of the inspirations for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger of “The Lost World”.

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Specimen of the Week this week was collected from the seas off Naples where it jetted around the Mediterranean breaking records and enjoying a remarkably complicated love life. Specimen of the Week is….

LDUCZ-T23 the salp Salpa maxima

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The cost that museums have to dedicate to caring for individual objects is determined by a number of factors. If it’s particularly fragile or susceptible to the elements it might need to be housed in a controlled climate or stored in specialist materials. If it’s particularly desirable it may need souped up security measures. If it’s particularly large then museums have a whole feast of troubles – one giant object will take up the same space as dozens of smaller ones; they are very difficult to move; and they require huge amounts of equipment to prepare and store. This is why you don’t get 30m blue whales stored in jars – just think how much alcohol that would take, and how thick the glass would have to be.

Fortunately for natural history museums, most big animals start off pretty small, so there’s a way we can cheat the system. If we use baby animals in our collections we can avoid the problems caused by largeness, and still have the species represented. This week’s specimen of the week is… (more…)

Have you ever looked at something you’ve not seen before and thought “What on earth is THAT?” I pride myself on my zoological knowledge, but no matter how much you know, every day is a school day. When I first started at the Grant Museum I was busy putting a thousand specimens on the floor in the middle of the museum, when I came across something quite unfamiliar. I could tell from its structure roughly what group of animal it was, but had never seen this particular thing before. It was beautiful, fragile and… dirty. (Some building work going on next door had been shaking dust down on to some of our specimens, tsk.) I am happy to say it is now beautiful, fragile and clean. This week’s Specimen of the Week is… (more…)