Presenting… – Page 5 – More Than A Dodo

Presenting… Bruno’s fossil find

Presenting Bruno's fossil find

Limulus polyphemis You’ve read about it in the press (probably), but now you can see Bruno Debattista’s rare trace fossil find for yourself in our Presenting… display, just inside the entrance of the Museum. Although we are closed, this changing exhibit can be seen by visitors coming through the building to the Pitt Rivers Museum.

On display we have Bruno’s shale rock, found in Bude, Cornwall last year, which shows faint tracks left by a pair of horseshoe crabs as they crawled up an ancient, muddy shore more than 300 million years ago. Although the species of horseshoe crab which made these tracks is long extinct, we are displaying two modern specimens for comparison. One is around the size of the animal which left the original trackway; the other is a full size horseshoe crab which lives in the Atlantic Ocean – Limulus polyphemus.

We should also point out that horseshoe crabs aren’t really crabs at all. Crabs are crustaceans, but horseshoe crabs are more closely related to the arachnids, such as spiders and scorpions. Fossil and horseshoe crab

Scott Billings – Communications coordinator

Presenting…

Presenting… William Burchell display in the Museum

As readers of this blog will be well aware, most of the Museum’s exhibits are closed up and under wraps. But because visitors on their way to the Pitt Rivers Museum still pass through the Museum of Natural History we have decided to install a new changing display of a few treasures from the collection.

The series is called Presenting… and it kicks off with a selection of objects belonging to William John Burchell, a 19th century explorer and naturalist, who died 150 years ago this month. He left a treasure trove of natural history specimens, many of which are now in the Museum.

You can see the display for real just inside the entrance of the Museum, and you can read more about it on our website.

Scott Billings, Communications coordinator