Life Collections – Page 17 – More Than A Dodo

A Spotlight Specimens special for Oxford Festival of Nature

By Darren Mann, Head of Life Collections

One cow can produce over nine tonnes of dung per year. With a population of about 3.4 million cows in the UK alone, that’s a heck of a lot of dung deposited on our grasslands. Just imagine how much dung is produced every year if we include the output of horses, sheep, pigs, and all the wild animals out there.

Dor Beetle – Geotrupes mutator — Dor Beetle – *Geotrupes mutator*

All of this dung is broken down by a multitude of invertebrates, including flies, worms, and beetles, as well as bacteria, fungi, and weathering. One of the key groups involved in the removal and degradation process is the aptly named ‘dung beetles’.

In the UK there are 61 species of dung beetle, though sadly just over half of these are now in decline and some have already become regionally extinct. UK dung beetles vary in size from just 3 mm to over 25 mm and occur wherever dung is found, though some prefer sandy soils and others like to live in woodlands.

Larvae in dung pile — Dung beetle larvae (*Aphodius fossor*)

As adults, dung beetles feed on the liquid part of dung. The larvae of most of our species live inside the dung pile and are called the dwellers. These munch their way through the solid matter of the dung pile, gradually breaking it down over a few months. Other species such as Geotrupes mutator, pictured above, excavate a tunnel and bury the dung below ground. These tunnellers construct a brood chamber in which their young develop.

Through their actions, dung beetles perform a number of valuable ecosystem services. The most obvious is dung removal and degradation which leads to improved soil health by nutrient cycling and soil movement. By burying the dung they reduce the amount of available breeding habitat for pest flies and livestock parasites too.

All of these important services have been estimated to save the UK cattle industry £367 million per year. The value of dung beetles doesn’t end there as they also provide an important source of food for farmland mammals and birds. So next time you see a pile of dung in a field, just think of all the hard working beetles within…

Staff and associates of the Museum also run the Dung beetle UK Mapping Project – affectionately abbreviated to DUMP!

27 May 20161 June 2016

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Making Microsculpture

Today we are excited to be opening our new special exhibition, Microsculpture: The Insect Photography of Levon Biss. You may well have already heard about Microsculpture, and have perhaps watched the video showing how Levon Biss made these incredible portraits of insects from the Museum’s collection.

As we open the show in the Museum’s main court we wanted to give a little more insight into the process that Dr James Hogan, an entomologist in our Life Collections, went through to select and describe the specimens for the project. So I put a few questions to James to explain the making of Microsculpture from his point of view.

James Hogan (right) selecting specimens with Levon Biss

There are 23 specimens on show in the exhibition: how did you choose these particular ones?
We wanted a wide variety of specimens that would all show some interesting surface detail. Some were also chosen for their spectacular colours, interesting shapes or strange appearance.

Splendid-necked Dung Beetle (Helictopleurus splendidicollis). From Madagascar. Length: 10 mm — Splendid-necked Dung Beetle (*Helictopleurus splendidicollis*) from
Madagascar. Length: 10 mm

But perhaps 95 per cent of the specimens we initially considered were rejected because we had some pretty strict criteria; very hairy specimens, which includes most bees, were out as the image processing was too difficult; the specimens had to be intact, so no broken antennae or legs.

Probably the biggest problem was finding specimens which were clean enough. Because Levon’s technique reveals so much detail, any dirt on the specimen is glaringly obvious. And the whole idea was to look at the surface structures, which are obviously very small and easily obscured by any dirt.

How did you prepare them for their close-ups?
All the specimens needed a bit of preparation work before being ready for Levon’s photography. First they needed to be remounted on the end of long pins to allow more clearance space for the lighting setup. Some of the specimens are very small and fragile and this is the stage where damage is most likely to occur.

After remounting, all the insects needed at least some degree of cleaning under the microscope. For this I used a range of fine paintbrushes; we also make our own tools from micro-pins bent into different points and hooks. Again, I had to be careful to not damage the specimens – easily done by over-enthusiastic cleaning!

Where do the specimens come from?
The specimens in the exhibition are from the Museum’s very large insect collection, stored behind the scenes in many different rooms. The insects in the show are from all over the world, from a back garden in England to a remote island near Antarctica. Some were collected over 150 years ago while others were collected very recently by Museum staff.

Of particular historical significance is the Tricolored Jewel Beetle (Belionota sumptuosa) which was collected by the Victorian naturalist and explorer Alfred Russel Wallace, co-publisher of the theory of evolution with Charles Darwin in 1858.

Tricolored Jewel Beetle (Belionota sumptuosa), collected by Alfred Russel Wallace in Seram Island, Indonesia. Length: 25 mm — Tricolored Jewel Beetle (*Belionota sumptuosa*), collected by Alfred Russel Wallace in Seram Island, Indonesia. Length: 25 mm

How big are the actual specimens in comparison with the photos?
The actual specimens are mostly pretty small, ranging from 6 mm to about 30 mm. Some of the larger printed photographs will be about a thousand times larger than the specimen!

Orchid Cuckoo Bee (Exaerete frontalis) from Brazil. Length: 26 mm — Orchid Cuckoo Bee (*Exaerete frontalis*) from Brazil. Length: 26 mm

What do you hope people will get out of the pictures in the exhibition?
To me insects are beautiful creatures and Levon has done an outstanding job of revealing this. I hope the photographs will spark people’s interest in insects and inspire more people to study them.

The photographs certainly pose some interesting questions, and reveal that there is so much we don’t know, particularly about the functions of all their strange and varied adaptations.

Is it valuable to showcase specimens from the collections in this way?
One of the most exciting parts of this exhibition for me was the opportunity to show part of the Museum’s collection which visitors don’t normally see.

The collection is used all the time by scientists, artists and educators, but unfortunately most of it is unsuitable for display because the specimens are so small. Levon’s ultra-high resolution photography has in a way solved this problem, allowing us to showcase some of these spectacular, but tiny and fragile creatures in all their beauty.

18 May 201624 May 2016

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The museums are migrating!

by Hannah Allum, Project Assistant

The film ‘Night at the Museum‘ is not as far from the truth as you might think. Museum specimens may not come back to life at night, but they are moving all the time. Whether we’re putting on a new display, loaning a specimen to another museum or using them for teaching sessions, our collections are very active, despite being long dead.

Amphistium fossil fish; an early relative of the flatfish and part of the Earth collection

The Oxford University museum collections are about to begin a huge migration as they move from various off-site stores to a new facility. Generally, museum stores are not open to the public and often house important reference and research specimens, which make up a huge proportion of natural history collections. These valuable stored collections require specific environmental conditions to make sure that they last for generations to come. Taxidermy and articulated skeletons make for eye-catching displays, but tend to be a relatively small part of the collection. In fact, having just 1% of your natural history specimens on public display is the norm.

Lured in by Life Collection labels; this headless brown bear will soon have a new home.

As well as improving the storage conditions and ease of access for staff and researchers, this will also be the first time that the Oxford University museums have shared a storage space. It will be a challenging but rewarding project to re-home such a huge variety of artefacts and specimens that have come from all over the world; each with their own unique story.

As the new Project Assistant working for the Museum of Natural History, I am the lucky person who gets to discover some of these stories. I will be working with specimens from both Earth and Life collections, as well as some material from the Library and Archives. The first stage will be making a detailed list of everything that needs to be moved, then I can go on to prepare the new store and get the supplies I’ll need to document, pack and transport everything safely.

As you can see, I have already come across some fascinating specimens and look forward to getting stuck in to this project.

There will be blog posts throughout the year to update you on our progress and to reveal some exciting stories from the stores.

You can also follow the hashtag #storiesfromthestores on the Museum’s Twitter feed: @morethanadodo

27 April 201622 June 2018

More than a Dodo1 Comment

Presenting… the wonderful diversity of bees

Since the launch of our Kurt Jackson exhibition in March, the Museum has gone a bit bee mad. We’ve had themed events for all different audiences; expert beekeepers sharing their top tips with adults, right through to little ones trying on beekeeping outfits and building a giant beehive. There’s even more coming soon, including a talk by Kurt, the artist himself, on 12th May.

Now the buzz has spread to the Presenting… case, our changing display that shows off real treasures from the collection. The Jackson exhibition focuses on some of the 270 British bees, but this smaller display gives a different perspective, exploring the amazing variety of bees found around the world.

A selection of specimens from the Museum's collection, which shows how varied bees can be. — A selection of specimens from the Museum’s collection, which shows how varied bees can be.

Bees are one of the major groups of insects, numbering about 20,000 described species. Only a very small proportion of bees are the familiar honeybees or bumblebees that we think of first – most species are actually solitary bees. Bees exist in a great diversity of shapes, sizes and colours. In particular the smaller species do not look like bees at all and are often mistaken for small wasps or flies.

Many bees are specialised as pollinators and have evolved together with flowering plants for over 100 million years. In return for pollination services, plants provide nectar, pollen and other substances to bees.

Although most are specialist pollinators, about 10 per cent of bee species are parasites of other bees, taking advantage of the nectar and pollen collected by their host to feed their own young. These parasitic bees can be quite strange in appearance – not needing to collect pollen they have typically lost most of their hair and appear more like wasps.

The Museum has one of the most important bee collections in the world, containing specimens collected over 200 years ago and from many different countries. The star bee specimen, and one of the Museum’s greatest treasures, has to to be Wallace’s Giant Bee (Megachile pluto). This is the first time it has been on open display to the public.

It was captured by the Victorian explorer and naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace in 1859. Only found on the Indonesian island of Bacan and its two neighbouring islands, this giant was believed to be extinct until it was re-discovered in 1981. The massively enlarged mandibles of the female are used for collecting tree resin and excavating tunnels in termite nests. To give an impression of scale, Wallace’s Giant Bee is shown here next to a familiar honeybee (Apis mellifera).

You have just a couple of weeks left to appreciate the wonderful diversity of bees, before it closes on 16th May.

14 April 201618 April 2016

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Introducing the Dodo Crew

by Carly Smith-Huggins, Education Officer

Over the past six months we’ve been trying something new at the Museum, working with an enthusiastic group of young people who have come to call themselves The Dodo Crew. Otherwise known as the Museum Youth Forum, the group meets up with us once a month to discuss ideas, plan events, see the collections, and generally have a dialogue about the Museum and its activity.

The Crew is made up of eleven 14-19 year olds who are already passionate about natural history and we’re really pleased to have them on board. Many museums across the UK run youth forums to engage the young people within their community, who are often underrepresented in museum audiences.

In fact, I was on a Museum Youth Forum at Norwich Castle Museum and found the experience very valuable as I had the opportunity to express my opinion, contribute and be part of a community, and make new friends. The group also enabled me to find my passion for working in museums, which I did not get from formal education or at home.

By joining the forum our Dodo Crew gets a chance to be involved in what we do as a museum, which I think is very important. And it will hopefully help us to be more successful in attracting people aged 14-19 years.

Going behind the scenes is great- seeing objects and talking to people.

It really felt like a unique opportunity and made me feel special.

Members of the Dodo Crew get down to some planning in the Museum court

So what exactly have we been doing? The Crew has been enjoying taking part in various activities, from live animal handling and taxidermy demos, to planning events and meeting scientists. They will also be helping with programmed events, designing their own events, contributing to temporary exhibitions, and much more.

And their very first event is this Saturday 16 April, all about skin and bones. Everyone is welcome between 2-4pm, so come and meet the Dodo Crew and see their great ideas in action (and if that doesn’t entice you, there will also be a live chameleon!).

Getting up close and personal with a friendly skunk

11 April 201614 April 2016

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When is a kiwi not a kiwi?

by Mark Carnall, Collections Manager, Life Collections

When is a kiwi not a kiwi? Aside from when it is a fruit, of course. I was prompted to ask myself this question when I received an email from Rod Forder after a visit to the Museum last year. Rod and his wife were visiting from New Zealand on holiday and described the Museum as perfect, with one exception:

Unfortunately I must take issue with one exhibit, the New Zealand Kiwi bird.

It is displayed standing up straight up in the air. This posture is totally wrong for a Kiwi. If you were ever lucky enough see one in real life or on any photo of one, they are always bending down with their beak in the ground searching for food.

Below is an image of the Southern Brown Kiwi taxidermy we have on display and a photo of a living one for reference. As Rod points out, it has been mounted in a very un-kiwi-like pose, resembling a wingless heron or a penguin more than the animal it’s supposed to represent.

The Museum's Southern Brown Kiwi — The Museum’s Southern Brown Kiwi

By Glen Fergus (Own work, Stewart Island, New Zealand) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons — Southern Brown Kiwi in the wild. Credit: Glen Fergus (Own work, Stewart Island, New Zealand) via Wikimedia Commons

Why might this be? The reason might be because a lot of early taxidermy, particularly animals new to science from Australia, New Zealand and South America, had never been seen by the taxidermists in Europe who were making these preparations. A quick search on the Internet today will bring up hundreds of images of kiwis in their natural habitat, but in the past taxidermists would have been working from written descriptions, drawings and widely reproduced prints of exotic animals, which themselves may not have been made from life study of the animal.

This specimen was given to the museum in 1934 from the Natural History Museum in London and sadly we don’t have any further information about when this specimen was prepared or who prepared it. But the position almost perfectly matches widely circulated illustrations of the kiwi from the 1830s. Interestingly, in the book A History of the Birds of New Zealand, one of the seminal volumes of New Zealand birds, published in 1873, kiwis are illustrated in much more lifelike positions. Presumably, this specimen must date back to before then.

In particular, older museum preparations of Australasian animals tend to be very oddly shaped, as the strange animals were so unlike the European fauna that it was hard to fathom birds and mammals. This is why you might find rabbit-like kangaroos, dog-like wombats and indeed heron-like kiwis.

However, this example and Rod’s email raise some interesting questions about how we display historically inaccurate animals in the Museum, if at all? Is the history of reconstructing animals as important as the facts we normally present? Is this specimen misleading even if we carefully label it as inaccurate? Should a natural history museum only display accurate specimens, in which case what should we do with the grimacing bats, boss-eyed badgers and podgy armadillos?

Category: Life Collections

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