Tag: museum collections

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Of Jumping Mice and Megalosaurus

CELEBRATING THE RECENT ACQUISITION OF AN IMPORTANT ARCHIVE

By Danielle Czerkaszyn, Librarian and Archivist and Grace Exley, AHRC Doctoral Student

200 years since the first scientific description of a dinosaur, the Museum has welcomed a significant archival collection relating to the man who introduced us to Megalosaurus, William Buckland (1784-1856). The archive contains over 1,000 items including letters, notebooks, family papers, prints, and artworks. It joins the Museum’s existing Buckland archive, as well as more than 4,000 geological specimens, and helps fill in the knowledge gaps surrounding the life and work of Oxford’s first Reader in Geology and Mineralogy. Not only is there the potential to learn more about Buckland’s early life as a student at Christ Church, there is also material relating to the wider Buckland family, including his son, the zoologist Francis Trevelyan Buckland, and wife, the naturalist Mary Buckland (née Morland, 1797-1857).

Among the 70 letters in the archive that are addressed to Mary, there is correspondence from chemist William Wollaston, Scottish polymath Mary Somerville, and a lively letter from John Ruskin, explaining to Mary his disgust at all things marine:

“I dont [sic] doubt that those double natured or no-natured salt water things are very pretty alive, but they disgust me by their perpetual gobbling and turning themselves inside out and on the whole I think for purple and rose colour & pretty shape, I may do well enough with convolvulus’s [sic] & such things which dont [sic] eat each other up, backwards & forwards all day long.”

Ruskin was clearly teasing his friend, as molluscs happened to be Mary’s specialist subject!

Mary Buckland’s notebook, recently acquired by OUMNH

The collection also contains two sketchbooks belonging to Mary, one of which dates from June 1817, seven years before her marriage to William and contains exquisite ink and watercolour illustrations of natural history specimens. 

Illustration of Megalosaurus type fossil by Mary Morland, used in the original 1824 description of the species.
Fulgurite, or, as Mary called it a ‘vitrified sand tube’. These form when lightning strikes the ground, particularly sandy surfaces. Similar examples are present in the remains of Mary’s mineral collection, held by OUMNH.

The sketchbook gives us a rare glimpse into how a nineteenth-century woman learned about natural history.  The book contains copied passages from natural history texts, enabling us to trace what Mary was reading. Her interests spanned geology and mineralogy, and she also included pieces on zoological curiosities and even polar exploration. She read and copied extracts from a variety of sources, some of which – George Shaw’s Zoological Lectures, for example – were intended to suit a lay-audience (as Shaw put it, intended as a “familiar discourse with Lady-Auditors”). However, other elements of her reading were probably never intended for a woman like Mary — she also copied passages from the Transactions of the Geological Society even though women could not join as Fellows until 1919. As archival materials relating to women are often sparse, this is a truly rare and incredibly valuable insight into how Mary used her connections to access resources and the techniques she used to teach herself about natural history.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the notebook is its intricate, exquisite illustrations. These, done in watercolour, ink, and pencil, are reproductions of the figures from the works Mary copied out. A favourite in the sketchbook is the “Canadian Jumping Mouse”, a long-tailed rodent described in a piece in the Transactions of the Linnaean Society by Major General Thomas Davies in 1797. There are also many representations of molluscs (detailed enough to repulse Ruskin), mineral specimens, and occasional fold-out geological sections. As we flick through the book, we can see Mary experimenting with media and techniques — not only developing as an artist but also honing her skills as a scientific illustrator.

Original Illustration of the Canadian Jumping Mouse (Source: HathiTrust: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044102883824&seq=114 (#114, p.84).)
Mary’s copied illustration of the Jumping Mouse

The skills and knowledge Mary developed in her natural history notebook were crucial to her later collaboration with William, as well as her own independent work as a draughtswoman before her marriage. In 1824, when Buckland presented the jaw of Megalosaurus to the Geological Society, it was “M. Morland” who provided the painstakingly detailed plates. Research has begun to uncover the extent of Mary’s work as a naturalist and illustrator, and now, with the help of the materials in the newly acquired archive, we can explore the origins of her skills. The archive is currently in the hands of a Paper Conservator, Anna Español Costa, to ensure the material is kept in the best condition for many years to come. Items from the archive will feature in the Breaking Ground exhibition, opening in October 2024.

Our fundraising campaign saw us receive generous support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, Friends of the National Libraries, Headley Trust, and other private donors. Additionally, in late 2022, we launched the Buckland Papers Appeal, asking members of the public to help us meet our target to purchase the archive. Thank you to all our funders and members of the public who responded to our call. We could not have raised the money so quickly without your support and we are now thrilled to share the archive with you all.

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Wasp Faces: Power Struggles and Royal Drama

By Kristian Suszczenia, Intern

The second you step into the Museum of Natural History you will notice a remarkable thing about nature: its diversity. Instantly, you see huge whale bones, a distant elephant skull, birds, fish, dinosaurs, and a mounted kaleidoscope of colourful insects. This variation is what many of us love most about biology.

But diversity occurs at a much finer scale than the magnitudes of difference that exist between species. Often there is ‘Individual Variation’ — differences that occur within species. Person to person, specimen to specimen, each organism is unique, just like us humans!

Polistes wasps in the Collections at OUMNH

Buried under the 5 million other insects of the HOPE collection is a drawer that houses a species of the genus Polistes, a social paper wasp collected from Brazil. A close look at their faces reveals staggering individual variation. Before getting confirmation from specialists, the Museum staff found it hard to believe that these four faces could even belong to the same species. The question is, why are they so different? Is there an evolutionary benefit to all these wasps having their own style of eyeliner?

Variation in the faces of paper wasps

It is well-known that individual variation can give certain members of a species an edge over others, especially when it comes to dating! From guppies to fruit flies, females often prefer mates that stand out with unique colours and patterns, perhaps because they are simply more noticeable.

Yet dating is not a sufficient explanation for our fashionable paper wasps. They get a very different benefit from their unique looks — not so much standing out, but being memorable. For them, a memorable identity is a way to remember who goes where in a critical pecking order.

Thanks to a lot of elegant work by Polistes specialists, we understand that bespoke face markings tend to evolve in species that have multiple queens in a linear hierarchy. A Polistes queen can start a hive alone but often benefits from forming a group of queens that can all cooperate together in a single hive. In order to cooperate, the queens must decide on a dominance hierarchy amongst themselves. To do this they take part in brutal one-on-one battles as they assess each other’s prowess.

After they establish an initial order, each wasp will constantly test the adjacent ranks (their closest match) with darts and lunges as they try to climb the ladder for extra reward and simultaneously defend their place. Four punishes Three for transgressions and plots against Five’s downfall. It’s a royal reality show.

This part-insect, part-spartan society is certainly fascinating, but what does it have to do with the wasps’ faces?

In order for queens to defend their rank from their adjacent competitors, they need to know exactly who’s who. Unique faces are more recognisable and more memorable. Being able to recognise and recall every individual wasp allows queens to track their rivals based on their faces and avoid a lot of violent misidentification. Imagine if a queen were to look forgettable; every other queen in the hive would see her as a potential challenge to their power. She wouldn’t last long. But having a memorable face allows individuals to avoid unnecessary scraps and make for a more efficient hive overall.

After learning the story of the wasps, it seems plausible that humans may have evolved our fantastically recognisable faces for societal advantages too — perhaps to avoid getting mistaken for an enemy, perhaps so we can trade favours, or maybe just to avoid general confusion. It would certainly make life difficult if all your co-workers had the exact same face. Remembering names is hard enough already!

Four Museum staff willing to volunteer their faces!

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Buckland Papers Appeal

By Danielle Czerkaszyn, Librarian and Archivist

The Museum is currently leading a major fundraising campaign to purchase, catalogue, conserve, and digitise an important collection of archive material related to the geologist William Buckland (1784-1856).

Buckland was an English theologian and one of the greatest geologists of his day, becoming Oxford University’s first Reader in Geology in 1818. When he died in 1856, papers related to his teaching and research, as well as around 4000 specimens, were given to the University. These were later transferred to the Museum when it opened in 1860, and the Buckland collection remains one of the greatest research resources in our collections.

Left: A bust of William Buckland in the Museum of Natural History. Right: A portrait of the young Buckland.

The Museum has recently been offered a unique opportunity to acquire another extremely important collection of archive material related to Buckland. Passed by descent to the current owners, this archive consists of just over 1000 items of correspondence, geological notes, works of art, and other family papers — including a substantial number of items relating to his wife Mary (née Morland) and their eldest son, the naturalist and author Francis (Frank) Buckland.

This ‘new’ material fits beautifully with the existing Buckland archive here, providing missing pieces of the jigsaw and helping to paint a more comprehensive picture of this extraordinary geological pioneer, and the work he did together with Mary. It also offers greater insight into the scientific thinking and institutions of early 19th-century England, and the scientific contributions made by other ‘invisible technicians’ such as quarrymen, collectors, preparators, and replicators, giving us a more accurate, balanced, and inclusive picture of natural history at the time.

The campaign is aiming to raise £557,000 to acquire, conserve, rehouse, and digitise the Buckland archive. We have been fortunate to secure funding from a range of funders towards our goal, and we are now within £75,000 of this target.

The Museum is the obvious home for the ‘new’ archive, given Buckland’s close connection to Oxford University, and our holdings of his specimens and archive. With your help, we will reunite these two archive collections in one place and ensure researchers and the public can utilise these scientifically, historically, and culturally important resources for years to come.

Learn more about the Buckland Papers Appeal

Donate to the Buckland Papers Appeal

Header image: Silhouette of William Buckland and Mary Buckland

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Disappearing Butterflies

HOW TO SOLVE A BIOLOGICAL MYSTERY USING MUSEUM COLLECTIONS AND DNA TECHNOLOGY

By Rebecca Whitla, PhD student at Oxford Brookes University

The Black-veined white butterfly (Aporia crataegi) was a large, charismatic butterfly with distinctive black venation on its wings. Once commonly found in the UK, the species unfortunately went extinct here in around 1925, with the last British specimens collected from Herne Bay in Kent. It isn’t fully understood why the species disappeared from the UK, but climate change, predation, parasites, and disease have all been suggested to have caused its disappearance — perhaps with several of these factors contributing to its decline. Central to solving the mystery of the disappearance of the Black-veined white will be the collections of butterflies that are stored in museums like OUMNH.

Butterflies tend to be well-represented in museum collections, and the Black-veined white is no exception. While the species has now been extinct in the UK for around 100 years, Lepidoptera enthusiasts from previous centuries often captured wild Black-veined white specimens for their personal collections. The abundance of Black-veined white butterflies in museum collections, like the collections at OUMNH, serve as a valuable repository for scientific research — including my own!

Black-veined white butterflies in the collections at OUMNH

Between June and December 2021, I undertook a research project using OUMNH’s Black-veined white butterflies. My task was to extract enough DNA from the butterflies to use for ‘whole genome sequencing’ — in other words, I was attempting to extract DNA from butterfly specimens to decode their complete DNA sequence. Getting DNA sequences from the historical specimens that are kept in Museums is no easy task, as DNA degrades over time. Nonetheless, animal specimens from natural history museums have successfully been used for whole genome sequencing and genetic analysis in the past, including species as diverse as longhorn beetles and least Weasels.

In order to work out how to extract DNA from the specimens, I had to try a variety of methods. This included experimenting to find out whether butterfly legs or abdomen fragments yielded more DNA, and whether non-destructive methods of DNA extraction were as effective as destructive methods. An example of a non-destructive method of DNA extraction would be a process like soaking a sample overnight and using the leftover liquid for DNA extraction, whereas a destructive method might involve mashing a whole leg or abdomen segment to use as a DNA source.

Preparing a DNA sample

Overall, I found that destructively sampling the legs of the butterflies gave the most reliable results, and also had the added benefit of not destroying the wings or abdomen of the specimens. Keeping the wings and abdomens of the butterflies intact will likely prove useful for conducting morphological studies in future.

Now that I have a reliable DNA extraction method, the next step in my research will be to analyse more Black-veined white specimens from a span of different time periods leading up to the species’ disappearance. I will then compare samples collected from each time period to calculate the genetic diversity of the species at each point in time, leading up to its disappearance. If I find a steady decline in the species’ genetic diversity over time, this may indicate a gradual extinction of the species. This is because we expect that, as numbers of a species decrease, inbreeding will become common, resulting in less diversity in the species’ DNA. However, if the populations of Black-veined white butterflies went extinct very suddenly, the decline in genetic diversity will probably be less pronounced. Learning more about the fate of the Black-veined White could not only help us unlock the historical mystery of the species’ decline in Britain, but will also help us understand more about the species’ decline in other parts of the world.

British Insect Collections: HOPE for the Future is an ambitious project to protect and share the Museum of Natural History’s unique and irreplaceable British insect collection. Containing over one million specimens – including dozens of iconic species now considered extinct in the UK – it offers us an extraordinary window into the natural world and the ways it has changed over the last 200 years. The HOPE for the Future project is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players.

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Re-Collections: Jane Willis Kirkaldy

By Evie Granat, Project Officer Trainee with the Freshwater Habitats Trust and Museum volunteer

The Museum is lucky enough to house several specimens presented by Jane Willis Kirkaldy (1867/9 – 1932). They serve as a reminder of a passionate and dedicated tutor, and of a key figure behind the development of women’s education at Oxford University.

Jane Willis Kirkaldy was born somewhere between 1867 and 1869, and spent her youth in London with her parents and five siblings. After completing her secondary education at Wimbledon High School, Kirkaldy gained entry to Somerville College (Oxford) on an exhibition scholarship in 1887. She finished her degree in 1891, becoming one of the first women to achieve a First Class Hons in Natural Sciences (Zoology). However, since the University didn’t award women degrees in the nineteenth century, it wasn’t until 1920 that Kirkaldy received her MA.

Upon completing her undergraduate studies, Kirkaldy worked for a short period as a private tutor in Castle Howard before returning to Oxford in 1894. Whilst researching at the University, she produced two papers for the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, including an article entitled “On the Head Kidney of Myxine”. This study of the renal systems of hagfish was written with the aid of experimental work carried out by renowned zoologist Walter Weldon at his UCL laboratory. She also studied lancelets under the Oxford Linacre Professor of Zoology, publishing “A Revision of the Genera and Species of Branchiostomdae” in 1895.

Middle Devonian fossils from Eifel, presented to the Museum by Jane Willis Kirkaldy.

Kirkaldy’s achievements are especially noteworthy given how few women studied Natural Sciences at Oxford during the nineteenth century. In addition to her contributions to the scientific field, she also helped advance women’s education at Oxford University. In 1894, The Association of the Education of Women named Kirkaldy a tutor to female students in the School of Natural Sciences. The following year she ceased all research to concentrate fully on teaching, co-authoring ‘Text Book of Zoology’ with Miss E.C. Pollard in 1896, and Introduction to the Study of Biology with I. M. Drummond in 1907. She eventually became a tutor or lecturer at all of Oxford’s Women’s Societies, and a Director of Studies at all five of the women’s colleges. Amongst the many female scientists that came under her care was the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin.

Left: Page from one of our donations books listing Jane Willis Kirkaldy as the donor of a series of Middle Devonian fossils (from the Eifel) to the Museum in October 1901. Right: Chromite from East Africa, also donated to the Museum by Kirkaldy.

Beyond the Department of Natural Sciences, Kirkaldy was an important figure at Oxford — she served as a member of the Council of St. Hugh’s College for 14 years, and was made an honorary fellow of Somerville College in 1929. At the Museum of Natural History, she presented beetles from New Guinea (1890), Devonian Fossils from the Eiffel (1901), and Chromite from near Beira, Mozambique (1924).

Kirkaldy retired from the University in 1930 due to ill health, before passing away in a London care home in 1932. Oxford University subsequently dedicated the junior and senior ‘Jane Willis Kirkakdy Prizes’ in her memory, which still exist to this day.

References

https://www.firstwomenatoxford.ox.ac.uk/article/principals-and-tutors

https://archive.org/details/internationalwom00hain/page/160/mode/2up

https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/reso/022/06/0517-0524

http://wimbledonhighschool.daisy.websds.net/Filename.ashx?tableName=ta_publications&columnName=filename&recordId=72

http://wimbledonhighschool.daisy.websds.net/Filename.ashx?tableName=ta_publications&columnName=filename&recordId=71

https://archive.org/details/internationalwom00hain/page/160/mode/2up

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin: Patterns, Proteins and Peace: A Life in Science, by Georgina Ferry

Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science

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people: amo spooner

Meet Amo Spooner, Collections Manager for Coleoptera, Hemiptera and Small Orders.  Her job, here at the Museum of Natural History, indulges her love of both insect collections and animals in general.   I met up with Amo to find out what sparked her interest in the natural world, how she began working at the Museum of Natural History and what her current job involves.

How did you first become interested in insects?

“Emerging Dragonfly” by Johan J.Ingles-Le Nobel is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

I have always loved the natural world and have a very vivid memory of being woken up in the early morning by my Grandad who wanted to show me some dragonflies emerging from their nymphs in our pond.  We rushed out to the pond where dragonflies were pulling their bodies out of the last of their nymph exoskeletons and emerging as adults. I kept the nymph skins as a souvenir and even have a tattoo of an adult dragonfly emerging from its nymph stage to remind me of that time.

How did you come to work in entomology?

After leaving school, I went to college to do a First Diploma and a BTEC National Diploma in Animal Management.  At college, I learnt how to care for a wide range of animals from guinea pigs to geckos and helped to run the Exotic Unit.  Once I had completed my qualifications, I decided to train as a Veterinary Nurse.  It was during the final year of my degree that I first volunteered at the Museum of Natural History and by the time I finished University, I realised that I really wanted to work at the museum, particularly with the insect collection.  I moved to Oxford, volunteered at the museum during the day and worked at Waitrose in the evenings to fund my time at the museum. 

After volunteering for around 1000 hours, I got my first paid job at the museum! This was working on a collection of entomological specimens that Oxfordshire County Council had donated to the museum.   Much of the collection was damaged, but it was possible to save some specimens and incorporate them into the wider museum collection. 

What is your role here at the Museum?

I have now worked at the museum for around 11 years and have had several different roles during that time, including re-curating the World Coleoptera collection housed in the Huxley Room.  Now, I am on secondment from my Collections Manager role for Coleoptera (beetles), Hemiptera (true bugs) and Small Orders (Dragonflies, praying mantis, cockroaches, lacewings, grasshoppers and allies), leading the collections team responsible for re-curating the British insect collection as part of the HOPE for the Future project.

(See our blog post on Tom Greenway to find out more about this re-curation.)

Together with one of my team, I am also responsible for looking after the museum’s collection of live insects and other invertebrates.  These include Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches, Tarantulas, Stick insects and a Peacock Mantis.  I enjoyed designing and working with an expert to build their new tanks a couple of years ago. 

Madagascan Hissing Cockroach

Can you tell us about any particularly challenging aspects of your role?

One of the most challenging aspects of my job is the battle to protect the specimens from insect pests!  When live insects infest specimen drawers they can cause considerable damage and it is part of my job to ensure that drawers are checked on a regular schedule to ensure any infestations do not get out of control.  This has been particularly challenging during the pandemic when the museum has been closed and access to the collections, even for those of us who work here, has been limited.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

I am fascinated by the history of the collections.  For example, my favourite entomology collection in the museum is the Baden-Sommer collection which dates back to the early 1900s.  It is housed in its original furniture, and is really rich in a wide variety of species, including an incredible number of type specimens.  I really enjoy understanding how specimen data labels and pinning techniques have changed over time.  For example, when faced with an undated specimen, the handwriting on labels and how an insect is pinned can give you clues about its age. It’s like being an insect detective!

I take great pride and comfort in the fact that my work helps to keep the collection safe for future generations.  The work that I am currently undertaking on the British Insect collection as part of the HOPE for the Future project is a great example of this, and will result in the collection being accessible to the public online, and available for teaching and research for many years to come. 

Thank you so much, Amo, for some fascinating insights into your role at the museum. Good luck with the Hope for the Future project!