Eight blogs away from the big 1-0-0! In the run up to the 100th blog I am going to bring to you the top ten specimens at the Grant Museum, as voted for by…. me. I have employed strict criteria with which to segregate the top ten from the other 67,990 specimens that we have in our care…

1) It must not be on permanent display, giving you a little behind-the-scenes magic, if you will, as the specimen will then go on display for the week of which it has been named ‘Specimen’. Oh yes. That’s almost as good as our exhibition It Came From The Stores. Almost.

2) It must have at some point in the past made me say ‘woooo’ out loud (given my childlike disposition for expressing wonderment at the world at large, this is not necessarily a hard qualification for the specimen to achieve)

3) I must know (at least in a vague sort of a way) what species the specimen is, as SotW is researched and written within a strict one hour time frame.

With that in mind, at Number Nine, this week’s Specimen of the Week is… (more…)

The specimen that I have for you this week is extremely cool. You could be easily forgiven for thinking this species started life as an illustration in a book on fossils, from where it puffed itself up to being a 3D creature and jumped right off the page. Not related at all to what you’d think it should be, this week’s Specimen of the Week is… (more…)