Author: More than a Dodo

What’s on the van?… the end of the road

It all started with a question from a member of the public; “What are these things on your van anyway?” Since then, our weekly blog posts have featured the story of 37 specimens from the Museum’s diverse collections.

From the Oxford dodo to Darwin’s dung beetle, a gemstone to a T rex, the ‘What’s on the van?‘ series has covered it all. Each week, expert voices from across the Museum (and beyond) have brought insight and intrigue to the images, explaining the secrets behind the specimens that decorate our van.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the weekly installments and will feel a little bit more knowledgeable if you see us out and about on the road. You can call out “I know what’s on the van!”.

Rachel Parle, Education Officer

What’s on the van? – Ammonite

This week’s What’s on the van? comes from Eliza Howlett of the Museum’s Earth Collections.

This ammonite belongs to the genus Mortoniceras, introduced by the American palaeontologist F. B. Meek in 1876 in honour of his colleague Samuel Morton (1799-1851). The species name rostratum refers to the rostrum, the curved projection near the opening of the shell.

This specimen was collected by William Buckland (1784-1856), Oxford’s first Reader in Geology. It was originally described and illustrated by Buckland’s friend James Sowerby in 1817 in his Mineral Conchology of Great Britain, the earliest work to describe all of the fossil shells then known from the country. The specimen lived during the Cretaceous Period and is approximately 100 million years old. It was found in a marine rock formation called malmstone at the hamlet of Roke, near Benson, 10 miles southeast of Oxford. Malmstone is a distinctive fine-grained grey green rock, widely used in buildings in the area.

Ammonites are an extinct group of molluscs whose closest living relatives are squid and Nautilus. They had an external shell made up largely of mother of pearl. As in Nautilus, the animal’s body moved forwards periodically as the shell grew, and the back end of the body secreted an intricately folded plate called a septum after each move, so that the shell was divided into a series of chambers with the animal’s body in the last chamber. The rostrum of our specimen tells us it was an adult and had stopped growing. Ammonites floated freely in the water column, probably feeding on plankton. Although they are traditionally illustrated with the body chamber at the top, in life they were actually the other way up, with the body chamber at the bottom.

Though originally described from Oxfordshire, Mortoniceras rostratum floated its way around the Cretaceous world, and specimens are known from Texas, Japan, South India, Madagascar, South Africa and elsewhere.

What’s on the van? – Bumble bee

This week’s What’s on the van? comes from Dr. James Hogan, of the Museum’s Hope Entomological Collections.

Bumblebees and honeybees busily working away are one of the iconic visions of summer. Bumblebees and honeybees are also closely related, both belonging to the order Hymenoptera, family Apidae.

In the UK 28 species of bumblebee (species of Bombus) have been recorded, although several species are sadly now extinct or have been seen only a few times.

The short-haired bumblebee (Bombus subterraneus) has been the focus of recent conservation efforts. Although extinct in the UK, descendants of some British short-haired bumblebees still survive– in New Zealand! These bees originate from a deliberate introduction to New Zealand in the late 19^th Century for pollination of clover crops. Unfortunately, attempts to re-introduce these New Zealand bees have been unsuccessful because they are too inbred, but by introducing short-haired bumblebees from Sweden the species is establishing again in Kent (more details about the short-haired bumblebee re-introduction can be found at http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/projects/details/299380-shorthaired-bumblebee-reintroduction )

Although we have lost some species we have recently gained one more, the tree bumblebee (Bombus hypnorum). This species is believed to have colonised the UK naturally from France and since its arrival about 10 years ago is spreading rapidly across Britain. We first became aware of this new bee in Oxford in 2008 when Steven Williams, one of our regular volunteers, brought in a strange-looking bumblebee which none of us recognised. It had a colour pattern unlike any other British species, with a red-brown thorax and a black abdomen with a white tip.

After a bit of detective work (and some help from local bee expert Ivan Wright) the arrival of the tree bumblebee in Oxford was confirmed. This bumblebee is now a common sight in Oxford gardens –look out for it next spring!