Each summer the Museum runs its Undergraduate Bursary Scheme to give university students hands-on experience working in a museum of natural history. The scheme accepts applications from students from underrepresented backgrounds who are ordinarily resident in the UK. Here, Helena Rowlstone tells us about her time on the Scheme investigating mammalian limb evolution and scanning bones from the Museum collection.
The structure and shape of different mammals can vary hugely. Consider the differences between dog and a whale, one a land mammal, the other a marine mammal. One of the most dramatic shifts in mammalian evolution originates from the transition from land to water, where some animals evolved flippers and paddles rather than a typical leg. Over six weeks at the Museum, I had the incredible opportunity to explore this aspect of evolution, working on Dr Julia Schwab’s research into the anatomical adaptations of mammals.
During the project I learned how to process CT scans to create digital 3D models in software called Amira; how to use a surface scanner to make 3D models from physical specimens; and how to use programmes such as 3D Slicer and R for analysis. In total, I processed CT scan data for 86 limb bones from species in the Mustelidae family, which includes weasels, combining the information with pre-existing models for other mammal species to allow comparisons to be analysed.
Prior to the placement I was already considering pursuing a career in museums. I believe that they play an important role in educating society about Earth history, current biodiversity, potential future climate change, and information to support and promote conservation – all things that I feel very passionate about. After six weeks here, I am even more confident that this is the pathway I will follow – the community aspect being such an inspiring feature at the Museum. All the staff were incredibly welcoming and gave me so much advice and guidance. Seeing their respective niches and interests has let me experience all aspects of museum life and it is inspiring to see their dedication to their work.
From an academic perspective, this placement has been invaluable. I have developed skills in data collection, processing and analysis, understanding of software, as well as experience in a longer-term research project. These are all qualities that will significantly enhance my future research career and provide me with expertise that I cannot get in the classroom. I have high hopes that this is only the start of my research career, and I sincerely hope that I can one day return to work in this museum. I cannot thank Julia, Hannah and the wider Museum enough for this bursary scheme and all their advice and guidance they have given me.
Are you an undergraduate student in the UK and interested in our paid Undergraduate Bursary Scheme? You can learn more on our website.
In February 2023, the Museum was lucky enough to acquire an important historical archive – a collection of notes, correspondence, artworks, photographs and family documents belonging to geologists William and Mary Buckland. But before the archive can be enjoyed by visitors and researchers, it must first be cared for, ensuring its preservation for generations to come. Thanks to generous funders, the Museum was able to hire a Project Paper Conservator, Anna Espanol Costa. Considering the Museum had not had a paper conservator since the mid-1990s, Anna was incredibly resourceful with her use of tools and materials, utilising everything from makeup sponges and soft brushes to tweezers and dental picks. In this blog post, we share insights from the eight months she spent assessing, cleaning and repairing some of the most at-risk and important material in the archive, as well as some unexpected surprises she found along the way…
Paper can be used to store information for decades, if not centuries, but it is still vulnerable to frequent handling and poor environmental storage conditions. When the Museum acquired the Buckland archive it was around two hundred years old and, unsurprisingly, many of its items needed care and restoration. Over the years, the papers had been housed in the standard file folders and boxes you would use for office documents, rather than an important historical archive. Many of the folders were overcrowded and had been tied together with string. Some manuscripts had been damaged due to too many items being stored in the same folder, and there were places where the string had cut into the larger pieces of paper causing tears. The most fragile and vulnerable items showed signs of chemical and physical damage, including iron-gall ink corrosion; chemicals in the ink had started to eat through the paper, causing cracks and loss of ink, and consequently text, in some areas.
Before treatment: Photographs mounted on an unsuitable bright blue backingBefore treatment: An unsuitably preserved letter with ingrained dirt
Past efforts had been made to restore the documents, but sometimes these had disfigured the original manuscripts: “in-fills” had been made with unsuitable paper, and backing sheets had been added in bright colours like blue or green. The archive was also being held together with unstable and rusty paper clips, and many of the original wax seals had cracks. It would have been a great shame to lose any of the seals, which feature beautiful examples of natural history icons, like ammonites and cephalopods.
PRESERVING HISTORY
The objective of my work was to stabilise the Buckland archive to ensure its long-term preservation and restore the appearance of the collection so it could be safely handled, digitised and exhibited in future.
One of the most important principles behind conservation is doing the ‘least amount to do the most good’. Conservation aims to slow down the ageing and deterioration process by using treatments that will not damage or disfigure the integrity of the original document. Conservation may be preventative — for instance, moving documents to a new box that creates the right ‘microclimate’ for their preservation. It may also be interventive — e.g. repairing with non-acidic and reversible materials that can be easily removed at any time, and that also can stand the test of time.
During my time at the Museum, I have been able to conserve a number of the most at-risk and important pieces of archival material. In some cases, this involved a light clean with a soft brush and re-housing of the most overcrowded items. In other cases, I performed more interventive and invasive conservation treatments including mechanical surface cleaning with smoke sponges, relaxing folds with paperweights or steam, stabilising iron-gall inks with gelatin to prevent further corrosion, mending tears with different grades of Japanese papers and tissues, and cleaning and consolidating cracks in the wax seals on the letters to prevent further loss. I also tackled some of the previous ‘repairs’ by eliminating old animal glue which had left the manuscripts shiny in places, carefully removing the unsuitable paper, and adding supports where necessary, thus leaving no traces of the bright blue backing paper.
Cleaning a letter to remove ingrained dirtA wax seal on a letter in the archive, featuring an ammonite motif
INTERESTING AND UNEXPECTED STOWAWAYS
As well as undertaking conservation repairs, I also documented the condition of the items; photographing the manuscripts before and after conservation treatments to ensure the Museum, or any other future conservators, have a record of my work. Whilst undertaking conservation treatments, I found some interesting and unexpected stowaways in the archive. What looked to be small holes in one of the pages of a letter ended up being recognised by one of the Museum’s entomologists as spider frass (poop). A moth had also decided to call the papers home at some point in the last two hundred years as I came across a small cocoon that was now long dead, desiccated (dry) and dusty. The most unusual find, however, was a small black dot that I initially thought was an insect. However, employing the help of a microscope and one of the Musuem’s entomologists, we realised that it was actually a seed! What kind of seed, and how or when that seed came to reside in the Buckland archive, we don’t know, but it shows the archive had a life and story of its own long before it came to rest here in the Museum.
A JOB WELL DONE
Overall, I was pleased with the amount of work I was able to accomplish at the Museum. I managed to conserve a significant amount of the archive and was fortunate enough to work with, and learn from, a range of museum staff, including palaeontologists, geologists, zoologists, entomologists and the Life and Earth collections conservators. It has been a privilege to share and exchange knowledge with my colleagues and work collaboratively on the preservation of an important archive. I look forward to hearing about some of the research findings it produces, and to see it shared with the public in future exhibitions and displays.
Bundle of letters before treatmentBundle of letters after treatment
Thank you to the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust and Helen Roll Charity for funding Anna’s work. Items from the Buckland archive will feature in the Museum’s upcoming exhibition ‘Breaking Ground’ opening 18th October 2024.
THE INVISIBLE HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM’S GLASS DISPLAY CASES
Glass cases play an integral role in museums and galleries, but they are designed to be overlooked and ignored. In this blog post, Librarian and Archivist Danielle Czerkaszyn uses research collected by Helen Goulston (AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership PhD Candidate) to uncover the invisible history of OUMNH’s glass display cases and considers how they have evolved alongside the museum during its 160-year history.
Since 2018, the Museum has been working to refresh its Main Court by installing new permanent displays. This morning, we placed the final specimen in our brand new “Open Oceans” display, concluding the latest phase of the redisplay project. The “Open Oceans” display is housed in one of eight new conservation-grade glass cases installed last year. While some visitors have welcomed the new cases, others have mourned the loss of the wooden cases or questioned why they needed to be replaced. Others have wondered why the tops of the new glass cases have roofs with different heights. To answer these questions, we need to dive into the museum archive…
A CASE HISTORY
When visitors arrived at the newly-opened museum in 1860 they would have been greeted by an empty central court, devoid of displays. While the fabric of the building was more or less complete, and preparation for the installation of displays had already begun, the university’s scientific and natural history collections had not yet been transferred to the building.
A sketch in the archive dated 16 October 1858 by architect Benjamin Woodward shows an early plan for the display cases to be arranged between the iron columns in the Main Court, allowing visitors to circulate among the exhibits, with display cases echoing the Gothic revival architecture. The right of the document shows grand double-height displays with a central balustrade that were never realised, but cases similar to those on the left would be ordered in January 1862.
The empty Main Court of the Museum when it opened in 1860, London Illustrated NewsSketch by Benjamin Woodward showing an early plan for the arrangement of displays in the Main Court, 16th October 1858Close-up from Benjamin Woodward’s 1858 sketch envisaging similar display cases to those that would be ordered in January 1862
The 1862 tender document written by William Bramwell, Clerk of Works at the Museum, shows two types of upright display cases ordered for installation between the iron columns — some with pitched roofs and others with flat tops, which were considerably cheaper. Though the design of the cases resembles Woodward’s original sketches, the tender included detailed specifications that addressed the practicalities of displaying specimens, such as cotton velvet door linings to stop dust from getting in.
In addition to the upright centre court cases, ten table cases were ordered from the high-end London cabinet makers, Jackson and Graham, at a cost of £344.10. The same firm was also commissioned to fit the tall wall cases in the outer corridors. Plans and photographs from the archive show that the installation of these cases was piecemeal and it wasn’t until 1866 that all the display cases were fully in place.
A tender document written for the Museum’s first display cases, written by William Bramwell in 1862The Main Court of the Museum prior to 1864
WHY REPLACE THE CASES?
The wooden display cases that we have been replacing may look old, but few of the original cases from 1866 survive. While some of the old display cases were moved behind the scenes for preservation, others found homes in different museums or were disposed of when they were beyond repair. The most recent timber-framed cases in the Main Court are 20th-century replicas that have been heavily modified, particularly in the late 1960s-early 1970s, and again in the early 2000s when the clear acrylic roofs were added. Some of these modifications affected the stability of the cases, particularly when the doors were opened, making them unsafe for staff to access. Other modifications meant the cases were no longer dust or pest-proof, which poses a risk to specimens.
Main Court in 1870s, by Henry Taunt, showing roofed display cases with alternating pitchesMain Court in 1990s, with un-roofed display casesMain Court in 2017 with acrylic roofs re-added to the display cases
As these wooden display cases neared the end of their life, the museum and Oxford University Estates worked with Oxford City Council and Historic England to approve the replacement of the cases and ensure the redevelopment was historically sensitive to our Grade 1 listed Victorian building.
For this reason, the new cases retain the original 1866 arrangement and are built to the same dimensions. We have also returned to the original form, including outer aisle cases with alternating pitched and flat roofs. It was decided early on that the new cases would not be lined in wood because timber can be detrimental to the conservation of certain specimens. However, the design of the edges of the new cases sought to mirror the craftmanship of the 1866 cases by emulating the beading on the edges – albeit much more subtly, and in bronze rather than timber – complementing the colours of the ironwork in the museum roof.
New display cases, photographed in 2024Close-up of bronze beading on the new display cases
A CASE FOR THE FUTURE
The new glass cases are built by museum showcase experts ClickNetherfield and provide a stable, pest-proof environment for our delicate and historically important specimens. Their design artfully captures the character of the museum building, while still focusing the visitor’s attention on their contents. It is hoped that the new displays will last for at least another two decades, and the cases even longer. During that time, millions of eyes will be cast over our displays, but the glass cases that protect them may barely even be noticed.
MAKING ART WITH SWIFTS FROM THE MUSEUM’S COLLECTIONS
Between 14th May and 21st July, the mixed media artwork Fly Over My City was on display at the Museum of Natural History, delighting visitors with a visual and auditory exploration of swifts and the threats they face in urban environments. In this blog post, artist Becca Jeffree discusses working with Museum collections to create the piece, and the value of museums as venues for combining art and sciences.
While studying at London’s Natural History Museum years ago, another student had become upset with a group of artists who were drawing from the floor of the birds gallery, blocking his way. Studying birds in a cabinet was not as worthwhile, he felt, as studying in the field. Moreover, drawing seemed to him out of place within a science museum. Yet sketching specimens has historically played an important role in learning about biodiversity, and is particularly important for those whose access to wildlife is restricted.
Perhaps it is unsurprising that this discord arose in a natural history museum. Art is often separated from science in society and culture, with science tending to dominate debates about understanding nature. Museums, however, are rare places where art and science are welcomed equally and beautifully combined. Few places embody this better than Oxford University Museum of Natural History — a work of Victorian art shaped by the idea that art and science can take one another to higher levels. As historian John Holmes puts it in The PreRaphaelites and Science, the building expresses the “true nature of nature itself” through its architecture. It is a place where the study and interpretation of the natural world are cross-disciplinary.
Fly Over My City (2023) by Becca Jeffree, on display at the Museum of Natural History
I recently collaborated with the Museum when making my artwork about the built environment and the common swift (Apus apus). Swifts are transient animals and as they rarely land they are difficult to see up close. They are found in the UK for only a short time each summer, fly fast, and are in decline. Through access to the Museum’s avian collections, I had a unique opportunity to see swift bodies up close and observe them in detail through drawing. Most of the specimens are bird skins; the skin, plumage, wing bones, skull and feet are preserved but not the internal organs, and they are not mounted like the ones we often see in cabinets. When I handled the swifts, I was asked to wear gloves to protect the specimens and avoid exposure to any harmful chemicals that may have been used to preserve them. Even though I couldn’t touch the swifts directly, I could still get to know their weight, size, colour, and notice interesting details like the shape of their chest feathers which are similar to their hummingbird relatives’.
Photographing, sketching and studying swifts from the Museum’s collections
Having physical access to museum specimens allowed me to root my artwork more in science, but also to draw out further layers of meaning, by responding to my own feelings and senses. The materials I included in the work – charcoal and tracing paper – were inspired by the swifts’ weightlessness, their texture, colour and the urban environment they often inhabit. The PreRaphaelites, whose worldview infuses the Museum building, regarded art as a valid investigative method. As John Holmes puts it, “if observation yields a true knowledge of nature, then making art that records and synthesises these observations is at once a disciplined method for conducting research and the best means to convey that knowledge.” I am grateful that the Museum continues to embrace this idea today, and for the value placed on artists as researchers and communicators of its collections.
Charcoal sketch of swifts, made using Museum specimens. From Fly Over My City (2023)
Dr Emma Nicholls and colleagues discuss some of the fascinating stories behind the species and specimens featured on these stamps.
Megalosaurus stamps
Two of the stamps in the Age of Dinosaurs stamp set include artistic reconstructions of Megalosaurus by the palaeo-artist Joshua Dunlop. The animal that nineteenth-century naturalists once understood to be a lumbering long-legged lizard is now depicted as a fearsome Jurassic predator that ran on its hind legs and tore into prey with its large serrated teeth. Dunlop shows Megalosaurus wading through shallow coastal waters, preparing to pounce on Cryptoclidus¸ a plesiosaur that lived alongside Megalosaurus in Jurassic Britain. The artwork also shows Megalosaurus covered in feathers. Although we don’t have any direct evidence that Megalosaurus was a feathered dinosaur, feather-like filaments have been found among the fossils of other dinosaurs such as Sciurumimus, meaning it is highly possible that Megalosaurus had feathers too.
OUMNH’s famous Megalosaurus type specimen, a lower-right jawbone with teethMegalosaurus stamp from the Age of Dinosaurs series
Dapediumstamps
OUMNH collaborated directly with Royal Mail to help produce the Age of Dinosaurs miniature sheet, which showcases fossils collected by Mary Anning. One of the stamps in this collection features a photograph of the fossil of an extinct Jurassic fish, Dapedium, which is housed at OUMNH.
Despite Anning’s illustrious reputation, it wasn’t always known that this Dapedium specimen was connected to her — all that was known about it was that it had probably once belonged to William Buckland and had been collected from Lyme Regis.
Stamp from the Age of Dinosaurs series featuring a portrait of Mary AnningStamp from the Age of Dinosaurs series featuring a Dapedium fossil from OUMNH
Although Anning is one of the most prolific fossil collectors to have worked in Lyme Regis, naturalists like Buckland often visited Anning to go “fossicking” together, or purchase fossils from her. There are very few archival records of transactions between Anning and other fossil collectors from this time, making it difficult to decipher exactly who extracted fossils such as this, found in nineteenth-century Dorset.
Fortuitously, while Dr Sue Newell was conducting research for her PhD on the Buckland Collection in 2021, she found an exciting letter in OUMNH Archive, dated 3rd September 1829. It was from a former student of Buckland’s, Beriah Botfield, and contained details of two fossils that Buckland had bought from Anning to present to the University of Oxford. Using evidence in the letter, Sue was able to work out that Botfield was referring to a Dapedium fossil which she later recognised tucked away in OUMNH’s fossil store.
Botfield had had the fossil mounted in an expensive (and very heavy!) stone frame, with “Presented by Beriah Botfield Esq. Dapedium politum. Lyme, Dorset” beautifully inscribed on the front surface. At the time, the identity of Anning as the fossil’s original finder, identifier, preparator and vendor, was probably common knowledge and, typically, Botfield did not consider these facts important enough to record on his presentation frame.
The Dapedium fossil is a near-complete example of this Jurassic fish, in which scale patterns and delicate fin structures are preserved in breathtaking detail. Dapedium is the first OUMNH object to grace a Royal Mail stamp – an ideal choice given its scientific and historic importance.
Visit the Museum to see the Dapedium fossil as well as temporary displays about the new stamp collection.
By Jordan Wernyj – Deputy Visitor Services Manager
If you happen to encounter one of the 50+ ant types in Britain, observe their hurried activities and interactions with each other. One cannot help but compare the complex functioning of an ant society to our own, and consider its advanced societal structures in relation to humans. The way an ant colony organises itself is highly industrial and commanding, subdivided into castes including queens, males, and worker ants, the latter of which contribute to their colony through roles as diverse as tending to larvae, foraging, or attacking rival threats.
Having worked at the Museum of Natural History for a few months, my interactions with specimens and discussions with the entomology department have reignited an intrigue in myrmecology, the study of ants. This began with locating the ant case on the Upper Gallery on the south side of the Museum. You can find fantastic British insects on display, selected from our ginormous British Insect Collection. Specimens include Lasius fuliginosus (Jet Black Ant) and Formica saunguinea (Slave-Making Ant) —the latter aptly named given its tendency to attack ants from other colonies and force its victims to work for them.
Slave-making Ant and Jet Black Ant on display in the Museum
Outside of the Museum, a viral video of a group of ants following each other in a circle led me to the even more surprising discovery that ants can mistakenly cause their own demise. The name of this circular march is an ‘ant mill’ which, rather morbidly, is a circle of death. Ants use pheromones to communicate with and organise each other during normal behaviour. However, these chemical trails can be lost, which for worker or army ants that leave the colony to forage or attack, it is a prominent risk. Ants follow one another, and if the leading ant loses the trail and begins to follow an ant behind, a rotational spiral motion occurs. Sadly, an ant mill can cause tragic consequences, with either the ants picking up the trail back to the colony, or continuing in the rotation until they die of exhaustion.
Having expressed curiosity in myrmecology, an entomologist at the Museum provided me with a fascinating book Tales of the Ant World by Edward O. Wilson. Wilson’s enlightening work within myrmecology and ecology gave him the nickname ‘Dr. Ant’. Wilson, highlighting his scholarship on the ant species Camponotus femoratus – one of the most aggressive in the world.
These intriguing invertebrates are located within the depths of the Amazon rainforest and are largely arboreal, territorial, and scary! Nonetheless, the intrepid Wilson decided to test out the ants’ offensive tactics. A mere brush up against an inhabited tree would provoke swarming formations, snapping mandibles and, if the pain wasn’t already discomforting enough, a release of formic acid. Edward Osbourne Wilson sadly passed away on Boxing Day 2021, while I was halfway through reading this book. It is a fascinating work that not only informs the reader of ant facts, but tells the most interesting story of a myrmecologist’s life and his discovery of ant species.
