Oxford University Museum of Natural History Blog
This article is taken from European research magazine Horizon as part of our partnership to share natural environment science stories with readers of More than a Dodo. Armed with sensitive antennae and wide-angled compound eyes, bees have a sophisticated set of senses to help them search out pollen and nectar as they buzz from flower to flower.… Continue reading →
By Tuuli Kasso, PhD in Science Fellow at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen. Tuuli is a visiting researcher, who has used the Museum’s collection to help her understanding of beeswax. When working on the dissertation for my MSc in Archaeological Science last year, I explored the medieval craftsmanship of sealing wax. I… Continue reading →
Our conservator Bethany Palumbo tells us how she restored a beautiful 19th-century papier-mâché model of a honeybee hive, created by master model-maker and anatomist Louis Thomas Jérôme Auzoux Although the Museum’s collections are mostly of organic specimens, we also hold a fascinating collection of scientific models made to represent the natural world, made from all… Continue reading →
This article is taken from European research magazine Horizon as part of our partnership to share natural environment science stories with readers of More than a Dodo. Unravelling one of the most elaborate forms of non-human communication – the honeybee’s waggle dance – could help researchers better understand insect brains and make farming more environmentally friendly.… Continue reading →
by Darren Mann, Head of Life Collections Many years ago, when re-identifying dung beetles in the collections of the British Entomological and Natural History Society, I found a specimen that I didn’t immediately recognise. So I borrowed it, and after a few hours of checking the European literature back in Oxford, I realised that I’d found… Continue reading →
The latest display in our changing Presenting… case showcases a wonderful array of dung beetles. Darren Mann, head of our Life Collections, tells us why they are so important. Worshipped during ancient Egyptian times, dung beetles have a long history of human appreciation. Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-1915), one of the first to popularise insects in his… Continue reading →
Thanks to the work of our Head of Life Collections Darren Mann, and the Dung Beetle UK Mapping Project team, the conservation status of the UK’s dung beetles, chafers, and stag beetles (Scarabaeoidea) is currently undergoing a comprehensive review. Contributing to this effort, Jack Davies, one of our summer interns, has been on the trail… Continue reading →
Young volunteers Genevieve Kiero Watson and Poppy Stanton tell the tale of the Museum’s resident Wool Carder Bee and their investigative bee work in our Life Collections… A small guardian patrols its territory among the luscious bed of Lamb’s-ears that grow at the front of the Museum. This feisty critter, the Wool Carder Bee (Anthidium manicatum), is just one of… Continue reading →
To celebrate National Insect Week 2016 we thought we would introduce you to the custodians of the Hope Entomology Collection here at the Museum. Our insect collection is made up of a whopping 6 million specimens, so our resident entomologists definitely have their work cut out. However, they have taken a little time out to tell us all… Continue reading →
A Spotlight Specimens special for Oxford Festival of Nature By Amoret Spooner, Life Collections Within the order of insects Coleoptera – the beetles – is a family called Histeridae, also known as the Clown Beetles. This family is found worldwide and so far around 3,900 species have been discovered. Of these, 52 species are found in the… Continue reading →
