Natural Sciences Collections Association

To coincide with Leap Day (February 29th) 2012, Manchester Museum is participating in an international event being organised by the Amphibian Ark - Leaping Ahead of Extinction: A celebration of good news for amphibians in 2012.

As part of our activities planned, and in conjunction with our Museum Meets Programme, we have a series of amphibian conservation related talks specially organised for Leap day. These are  amphibian talks aimed at Ages 15+ and are offered free of charge. However, there are limited places available, and these need to be booked in advance to avoid disappointment:

Leap Day talks at The Manchester Museum, and to book a place to attend these.

A super poster has also been created to promote Leap Day, with amphibian art being generously donated by a group of artists. Download the poster for your wall HERE.

Leap Frog 2012     Amphibian Ark      Museum Meets     Personal Presentations

Sometimes* it feels like I have the best job. You may recall my previous musings on whether or not Planet Dinosaur was a documentary or not. This musing did not come from the blue, in fact I have spent more time than most contemplating digital dinosaurs. Today I’m pleased to announce that a book chapter I wrote a loooong time ago has finally been published.

The full reference is

Carnall, M.A (2012) Walking with Dragons: CGIs in Wildlife Documentaries. In Bentowska-Kafel, A., Denard, H. and Baker, D (eds) Paradata and Transparency in Virtual Heritage, Pages 81-95 ISBN 9780754675839

Getting back to why I think my job is the best job it is because researching and writing this book chapter was a lot of fun. I got to (re)watch a lot of CGI ‘documentaries’ with dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures in and was fortunate enough to get the paper published in a volume with many fine colleagues all musing about transparency in using visualisations in heritage. By transparency we mean how do you let other people assess what is based on fact and what has been manipulated, stitched over or artistically created.

The abstract begins:
Following the success of Jurassic Park and the Walking With Dinosaurs series, computer generated imagery and other forms of animation (CGI) are increasingly used in wildlife ‘documentaries’ and nature programmes to illustrate extinct animals and to educate. However, these techniques are part science, part illusion and they are used for edutainment, rather than pure education. Unlike academic courses and peer-reviewed journal articles, these documentaries are not accountable to scientists before they air and as such are not subject to close scrutiny. Audiences are very rarely informed about how reliable reconstructions are or if some parts of the reconstructions are based on only one of a series of equally viable hypotheses.

I won’t spoil the rest of the chapter (it was not the butler this time) but if you are interested in virtual dinosaurs, truth and beauty then you can read the rest of the abstract of the chapter here and you can purchase the volume from here.

* If any of my bosses are reading this I mean ALL OF THE TIME but I’m playing it down for dramatic purposes.

The Changing Times of Gold Jewellery and Fashion in South Asian CultureA personal comment from Ameena currently an intern on the ‘Voices of Asia’ project at Leeds Museum and Galleries.
In South Asian culture it is customary for the bride to receive gold jewellery in her dowry, as it gives them a ‘measure of economic independence’ and represents their status among the Asian Community. However, jewellery represents much more than this especially to South Asian women. To my mother it was more of a sentimental notion; it deepened the bond between mother and daughter. As on the onset of her wedding, her mother gave her a 24 carat gold set with a deep red, brown carnelian heart shaped stone and gold cutwork around the outer part of the stone. The ring also has a red carnelian stone but is circular and has the same cutwork detailing on the outer part. This set is extremely valuable to my mother not just because it is gold but because of the sentimental value. My grandmother had bought the stone in Saudi Arabia whilst on a religious pilgrimage in 1985 and later, on her arrival in England had the stone set in gold by Asian jewellers on Whetley Hill, Bradford. This set was then given to my mother on the day of her wedding.  The stone, the design was carefully chosen, the heart shaped locket illustrated the strong relationship between mother and daughter and although my mother was leaving her family to be married it showed that the connection with her own family would still be there through this gold set. In later years, my grandmother set the same stone in gold for herself this further suggests that the stone symbolised the relationship between my mother and grandmother.
In Islamic tradition much of the jewellery has a precious stone in it, for example in this gold set it is red carnelian but also turquoise, amethyst, and sapphires are very popular in Saudi Arabia. As according to Muslim belief, stones possess mystic properties and therefore have often been used to inscribe astrological religious or magical inscription on the surface of the stone. Therefore, Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) stamped his foreign letters with a personal seal using a seal ring made out of carnelian stone. Furthermore, the red carnelian is also referred to as the ‘Medina Stone’ and to many South Asians it is known as Aqeeq.  Precious stones are used in the elaborate jewellery of the Mughals, their jewellery was a blend of Islamic, Persian and Hindu influences and more importantly their era changed the design and trends of jewellery in South Asia. For many South Asians today jewellery is seen as a form of insurance and the Mughal’s used their gems as a form of portable wealth. It was used during ‘military campaigns’ as well as bargaining chip with other foreign countries.  My mother’s gold jewellery is influenced by the styles and design of the Mughal period, for instance the deep intense bold carnelian stone, as the Mughal’s adored different bold stones such as emerald and ruby in their jewellery. Also, the heart shaped design is very similar to the yellow heart shaped diamond locket that was given to Mumtaz Mahal by Shah Jahan the Mughal Emperor. This set was remodelled in 2007 when my mother thought it had become a bit outdated. The earrings are no longer dangly and the style of filigree mount has also been changed. The gold set was changed in Pakistan because the jeweller was a part of my families extended network as my mother quotes ‘he is the only jeweller we can trust to give us the same amount of gold and that the purity of the gold will stay the same.’ There are strong kinship networks amongst the South Asian community in both Pakistan and England.  For example my grandmother went to this jeweller and then later my mother and aunty. Traditional gold jewellery sets like this one binds families together as well as illustrate the strong ties to their native country. The price of gold has soared over the years and it has become difficult for many people to buy gold. Furthermore, many newer designs contain more beaded work rather than being just gold. These earrings were given to Leeds Museums and Galleries by Mr Abad Ali and were made in 1975. This design is known as Karanphul jumkha, made of gold wire and is 22 carat gold. The upper part of the earring is in shape of a five petal flower (phul) with pink glass set in the centre. The lower part is a semicircular dome form known as jumkha which means a bunch of flowers. The pendant fringe at the bottom of the dome is known as jhumna. This is a classical Mughal design which is often interpreted in a variety of styles. The beauty, fragrance and attractiveness of a flower in jewellery represent romance in South Asian culture which is similar to the symbolism of the heart shaped stone in my mothers’ gold set.  To South Asian women, jewellery reflects their identity and connects them to their native country. As the design of the earrings and my mothers’ set have been influenced by the Mughal period and South Asian culture. From the 1950s following the influx of South Asians in Britain, jewellery designs developed further, mixing both eastern and western culture.  For instance, at an Asian wedding now, many brides tend to wear more artificial jewellery rather than traditional gold as shown in Asiana magazine.  This is because of a number of reasons, one being the artificial jewellery is more affordable, it can be matched with any outfit and therefore can be wore again. Times have changed; there is a more of contemporary, practical take on traditional styles gold of jewellery, thus creating a new style of jewellery.

It was with great sadness that today I learned Nick Standen, a old friend of mine, had passed away. Nick was a herpetologist with more than 40 years’ experience of reptiles and amphibians, which he had been studying and captive  breeding for over 30 years. He had an extreme passion for the scientific study of his animals and was meticulous in recording all aspects of their behaviour and reproduction.

Nick had a degree in Zoology from Southampton University and spent his formative herpetological years in Newbury, Berkshire. He had travelled extensively to see reptiles in the wild, including going to places such as Australia, South America, Mexico, and Indonesia. More recently he spent time travelling throughout Europe including Spain, Greece, Portugal and also Morocco, to study, film and photograph wildlife.

He was an expert on Spanish reptiles and amphibians, and had written articles and helped out with species identification for the local community after moving to  Benamargosa, near Velez-Malaga.  Here, Nick had dedicated his land as a wildlife oasis to help preserve local European reptiles.  Nick’s Reptiles.

Nick will be missed by all who knew him for his quiet but unassuming manner, his sense of humour, and also his unbounded knowledge and enthusiasm for animals and plants.

Tomorrow is pancake day- hoorah!! I have grand plans of marmite pancakes for my starter, chilli con carne pancakes for my main course, and golden syrup and chocolate pancakes for pudding. Maybe I’ll have a cheese pancake course too? Mmmmm. Whilst salivating over tomorrow’s dinner I decided it only appropriate to choose a seasonally relevant specimen for the blog. This week’s specimen of the week is:

**!!!The Japanese Pancake Devil Fish!!!**

1) The menacingly named Japanese pancake devil fish is actually not a fish. Making it both menacing and a con artist, and thus clearly the villain of any marine action thriller. It is in fact, a type of octopus that has the tendency to flatten itself… like a pancake.

2) The males and females can be differentiated based on the number of suckers on each of the arms. The males have far fewer than the females which can have over 50.

3) In another conspiracy to confuse, the Japanese pancake devil fish is not solely found in Japan. They also inhabit the waters off the coastline of California. Which, I grant you, is not far from Japan (if you’re an octopus), but an inappropriate name nevertheless I would suggest.

4) The origin of the word pancake does not come from the pancake devil fish, no no. It in fact originates from a cake-like dish made of eggs, milk, and flour, that is cooked in a pan.

5) Japanese pancake devil fish live waaaaaaaaaaaaay deep down in the sea, normally between 130 – 1100 m with the other weird and scary creatures like the one on Finding Nemo.

This pancake day, either before or after your own delicious golden syrup filled feast, come and see a real pancake in the flesh!

On Friday I gave you this object to identify: I thought it might prove quite tricky, yet several of you managed to work out what it was and which animal it came from. Jake spotted that it was from a young animal – as you can see from the unfused ends of the bone. He [...]

With it being Half-term holidays, this week’s been extremely busy in The Museum and the Vivarium’s been absolutely packed full of families with children. Many of our engagement activities are for kids and we have a fantastic programme of events for them. Apart from supporting learning for children one of the many things we are working hard to develop is support for adult learning and also opportunities to involve and support older people from across the city.

Last week we had a visit from some residents of Shore Green, a specialist service that provides accommodation, support and care to older people with memory loss to enable them to live independent lives for as long as possible. One of my colleagues, Andrea Winn, has been developing our relationship with Shore Green and has been working with them since May 2011. This was initiated through the valuing older people network, a city wide initiative that connects older residents in the city with cultural venues.

Andrea has visited the group in their centre on several occasions, taking different objects from the museums collections out to the group.  These have ranged from objects relating to Manchester’s history, China, allotments, and more recently with me and some of the live animal collection. This essential groundwork has been key to developing the relationship with Shore Green, and led to the their first visit to us. It was such a pleasure to welcome the residents and also Sally and Sophie (pictured), who helped organise and manage the visit last week.

 

A Friday Afternoon Trip           Engagement         Shore Green     Rain forest Rebel

This Friday I’ve decided to really challenge your identification skills with a single bone that I found in the Horniman’s collections. There was no information of any kind with this specimen, although the material it shared a box with was acquired from the King’s College Comparative Zoology collection. That means that it could be from [...]

The Museum reopened nearly a year ago now and we are still happily experimenting with the different things we can do in our new home. One of the big innovations was the QRator programme on our iPads, developed with the wonderful award-winning people in UCL Digital Humanities and UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis.

This week Nature blogged about the QRator project for Social Media Week. It begins…

The Museum and the iPad: how the Grant Museum is using social media to make us all curators

15 Feb 2012 | 19:11 GMT | Posted by Joanna Scott
As part of Social Media Week, Nature London talked to Jack Ashby, Manager of the Grant Museum of Zoology at UCL, about QRator, the pioneering project the Grant Museum is working on to allow the public to engage with museum collections by contributing their own interpretations…

…Hello Jack, welcome to the Nature London blog. Can you tell us about the QRator project you’ve introduced to the Grant Museum?

QRator is a project that allows our visitors to get involved in conversations about the way that museums like ours operate and the role of science in society today. In the Museum are ten iPads which each pose a broad question linked to a changing display of specimens. We are really interested in what our visitors think about some of the challenges that managing a natural history collection brings up, and other issues in the life sciences. They change periodically, but at the moment our current questions include “Is it ever acceptable for museums to lie?”, “Is domestication ethical?”, “Should human and animal remains be treated differently in museums like this?” and “What makes an animal British?”

You can read the whole article here: http://blogs.nature.com/london/2012/02/15/the-museum-and-the-ipad-how-the-grant-museum-is-using-social-media-to-make-us-all-curators

Out on the allotment there has been snow, frost, wind and rain and so not much has changed since January. However, while everything’s quiet on the plant front, the allotment has welcomed lots of visitors to the museum during half-term week. Look how dry the path to the front door is after so many feet have passed by! The allotment volunteers have also been busy behind-the-scenes, planning the year ahead and exciting new developments for the shed.

Here are a couple shots behind the scenes today.  Above, a pile of herbarium sheets to be filed away.  These ones are Rubus specimens (brambles or blackberries) – there are hundreds of species around the world.

This is the East Corridor.  The herbarium sheets are stored in the green boxes (they had to green, for botany) and are sorted into geographical areas.  This section of the corridor holds European specimens.  The bench along the centre should be empty, for working space, but we had to empty out three large store rooms when dry rot was found in the floorboards, so our benches are currently storage areas.  Not for too much longer, I hope.

 

With the generous help of The Friends of Leeds City Museums, we have recently purchased a silver snuff box. We already have several in the museum collection, but this one stood out – not for its decorative qualities – but because it was owned by J. Hainsworth.




Hainsworth was a police inspector in Leeds, having been appointed by the Watch Committee. He is referred to in Leeds trade directories relating to 1837, 1839, 1842 and 1843. To the modern citizen, this is nothing new or exciting – we have police all over the city. The difference with Hainsworth and his contemporaries is that they were the original police. The Leeds City Police force was first formed in 1836, with as few as 20 day officers and a chief constable. The force disappeared in 1974, when it underwent a merger to become part of the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police.

By 1841, the Leeds City Police had reached 133 officers. The book ‘The Leeds Police 1836-1974’, lists for 1841 “the arms, accoutrements, clothing and other necessaries for the Day Police”:
“1 Constable’s staff, 1 pair of handcuffs, 1 walking stick (note, this is paid for by the Constable himself), 1 dark blue top coat, 1 blue dress coat or body coat, 1 black stock or collar and clasp, 1 box of Crumb’s yellow, 1 button brush, 1 oil cape case, 2 pairs of shoes per annum, 1 pair of blue pantaloons, 2 pairs of white drill pantaloons, 1 hat, 1 armlet to denote when on duty (note: the armlet is not worn by the Inspector but only by the Sergeants and Policemen), 1 printed book on instructions, 1 leather waist belt, 1 pair of white cotton gloves, 1 button stick”
Most items on the list are familiar, but others such as Crumb’s yellow are more of a mystery. We have not found out exactly what it is, but are leaning towards a cleaning substance as it is listed next to the button brush. There were also 40 cutlasses available if needed, but these were more for appearances than everyday use.


A 1974 postcard from when the Leeds City Police were merged with other forces.  It represents a policeman from the period 1836-1860.
The sorts of incidents dealt with by Hainsworth have been recorded in the local press. Not every crime was recorded in this way, but the occasional report appears in the Leeds Mercury or other local papers from the time. For example, this piece, taken from the Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser, April 27th 1839, goes under the heading of Sunday gambling:

Three young men were brought up at the Court House, on Monday, charged by the churchwardens of the parish with having been found gambling on the previous day, in a lane in Burmantofts. Inspector Hainsworth stated that one of them, on his approach, drew a knife from his pocket, with which he threatened to stab any one who should lay hands on him. They were reprimanded by the Bench, and liberated on entering into their own recognizances for their good behaviour for six months.”
Whilst there are undoubtedly familiar aspects to this statement, there are some obvious differences. Nowadays, football matches are just one of the many organised sports played on Sundays, with people being able to bet as they are any other day of the week, and I doubt that any criminal would be let off on a good behaviour bond for threatening a modern police officer with a knife.
As well as small incidents like the one above, there were far more serious issues that Hainsworth and his colleagues would have had to deal with – for instance in August 1842, they had to deal with the Holbeck and Hunslet Chartist Riots. Around 1,600 special constables were sworn in to assist the regular police, alongside soldiers from the Yorkshire Regiment and 17th Lancers and even horse artillery. They had to contend with a mob travelling from one mill to the next, where violent disturbances quickly followed.

Events came to a head when Chief Constable Read managed to beat most of the mob to a mill on Dewsbury Road, and locked a few inside the mill whilst ensuring the others could not get in. A large number of the special constables then caught up with the mob where the Riot Act was read, the crowd told to disperse and 38 people were arrested. Sentences for those convicted ranged from being bound over to keep the peace, to being deported for several years.


An example of a police sword from the museum collection - probably a little after Joseph Hainsworth's time as it was used in the 1889 Gas Riots.
Overall, some aspects of modern policing would be unrecognisable to their predecessors such as Hainsworth, but in some ways the challenge remains the same – maintaining law and order and keeping the people of Leeds safe and riot free.
Written by Nicola, researched by our placement student Hollie Scott from Leeds Trinity University College.


Melissa Happy Valentines Day! Tagged: bones, love, Valentine

“The First Kiss of Love” from La Nouvelle Héloïse

By Cathrine Alice Liberg

Discover the sentimental side of Rousseau (and yourself!) at UCL Art Museum.

Come Valentine’s Day, we wish to highlight Rousseau’s epistolary novels, most notably his sentimental work La Nouvelle Héloïse which became a predecessor to modern Romantic novels, and was a bestseller back in its days. As for Rousseau himself, he never married, but did manage to father a significant number of children. His writings however, have been interpreted even in the realm of love as a guide to finding happiness. The long running dating show for farmers, “Boer zoekt vrouw”, is based on Rousseau’s philosophies on “the natural state” in which he praises the simple life as the source of joy and satisfaction. In this Dutch television programme, the love-hungry farmers all work side by side in nature, away from the morally corrupt city of selfishness and greed while trying to win each other’s hearts. Can this be the key to eternal bliss?

Whether or not you wish to use Rousseau as a guide to your own dating life, we wish to spread the love by encouraging visitors to share their own love declarations on our pin board for the coming two weeks! Whether to a person or a passion – let us know what makes your heart tick!

Starting off with the more affective side in these days of romance, every two weeks we will be highlighting new aspects of Rousseau in order to showcase the multiple talents of his fascinating character. While Rousseau is well-known for his political and social theories which inspired the leaders of the French Revolution, very few people realise just what a multifaceted person he was. Many of our visitors are not aware that not only did Rousseau have strong opinions on education and inequality, but he also found time to write gripping operas and novels such as La Nouvelle Héloïse!

Our hope is to encourage visitor interaction and to allow you to share your thoughts on the man – what aspects of him are still relevant today, and is there even a point in marking his tercentenary?

Look out for new displays and activities on Rousseau in the following weeks to come!

 

The panther chameleon will bob his head
And make his colour intense.
A broody ringtail lemur girl,
Will attract her mate with scents.

Peacocks fan their tail feathers,
Spreading blue and green.
The Asian tortoise follows his girl
With persistance to show he’s keen.

Semaphore, believe it or not,
Attracts girl wolf spider to boy.
A fruit fly has his work cut out,
These girls like acting coy.

Imagination goes to bower birds,
Who pimp their pads with colours.
A ram will ram to get his girl,
And see off other fellas.

Cave salamanders like it simple,
Just exchanging the required bits.
A kakapo on the other hand,
Will boom from self-made pits.

The colossal males of the humpback whales
Will sing for days on end.
A female swift finds a life-long mate,
On whom she can depend.

The Mangaia kingfisher can breed in pairs,
But threesomes also work.
Giant pandas emit a scent from glands,
Then to spread it, they frolic in dirt.

Female Anatolian newts,
Get fanned by their loved one’s tails.
But female bonobos have the best time of all,
Surrounded by their choice of males.

It’s a Monday, which is always a tough day, as the emails have had all weekend to pile up and all the things you didn’t manage to do last week now need to be done even more urgently this week. So maybe this is a good day to share some of my personal candidates for a museums’ version of Room 101.

Things that rattle my curatorial cage

1. Intrusive sampling of an object, with absolutely no documentation to tell us a) why it was done, b) when it was done, c) who the irresponsible bastards responsible for having it done were, or d) what they learned from the experience. The result? Beautiful objects with ugly scars slicing through their bodies, now of absolutely no use for display and an embarrassment to teach with, except when trying to train future researchers about what not to do.

Destructive sampling at its least sensitive

2. People who cut off part of the identifying markings on objects when they sample them. You know who you are.

3. Accession numbers written on objects that are either a) too small to read without a microscope – crazy, I know, but I don’t keep one in my office – b) written in black ink on a black object, c) written so they don’t look anything like the number they represent, or d) written beautifully, then covered up with a bubbly layer of varnish that completely obscures the number and makes it impossible to read.

4. Incomplete or obscure accession book entries – because obviously, everyone knows the donor, so you don’t need to give their full name. Particularly helpful when the donor is an unmarried woman, and all we are told is her surname – as there’s a good chance she went on to change her name and therefore become untraceable on the information given.

5. Conservators who work on objects, make wonderfully extensive records about the treatments given, and neglect to record the object’s provenance or any identifying numbers. Except their own lab number, of course.

6. People who take an object out for drawing or photography and use blue-tac to keep it nice and steady while they record it. With a nice, steady, greasy mark left on the object afterwards. Sometimes they even leave the blue-tac in place, just to make sure we notice.

7. Lecturers who turn up without warning and want to have objects out for a class, right away. What do you mean you can’t do it? You’re so unhelpful!

8. Staff who think the artefact store is a good place to dump all their research material. It’s essential research material, and it will only be for a short time.  Yeah, right. They never come back to look at it, and then they retire without taking it away. Hugely important material, obviously.

9. Going through the offices of former staff, who leave piles of rubbish for someone else to deal with. And who turn out to have several of your missing artefacts stashed in their filing cabinets. Actually, let me widen that a little. Going into the offices of existing staff, and seeing your missing objects tottering on the top of a filing cabinet. Next to a half-eaten sandwich and a pile of unmarked essays.

I could go on, but I might lose the will to live.

Has a curator ever snapped and gone on a collections rampage? Or are inappropriate sampling, dodgy object markings and impenetrable accession book entries really a form of passive resistance to the pressures of the job? One can only wonder at the feelings that led a museum guard to smash the beautiful Francois vase into hundreds of pieces, or a drunken British Museum visitor to use a sculpture to violently disassemble the Portland vase. So far as I know, none of the UCL Museums & Collections curatorial staff have yet reached this peak of inventiveness; we just get together and grumble from time to time.

Perhaps some of you have your own items to add?  Or a rival list from the research or teaching staff point of view? Either way, just remember that what doesn’t break us (or our artefacts) makes us strong.

Whilst breaking my back hauling around panels of thick glass this week, I had just enough puff left in me to utter a ‘wow’ when I saw the specimen I subsequently chose for this week’s blog, for the first time. Although I have worked at the Grant Museum for quite some time everyday brings new discoveries. Beautiful and grotesque all at the same time, this week’s specimen of the week is:

 

**!!!The common starfish!!!**… mid-regeneration!

 

1) The common starfish can have between four and six arms (the majority stick to tradition and have five). Each arm sports a row of spines along the top for protection and several rows of ‘tube-feet’ along the bottom for locomotion. The tube feet (see image right) work by hydraulics controlled by the water-vascular system, and are adorned with suckers for grip.

 

2) The suckers are also used to prise open the shell of their prey. Then, in a tribute to the most grotesque Hammer Horror, they insert lobes of their stomach into the prey and digest it whilst it is still alive. Sounds messy. Not a guest to invite to formal occasions methinks.

 

3) Although the Grant Museum of Zoology has a number of specimens of the common starfish, the specific specimen highlighted this week is very special. It is an arm. Not very impressive? Ok- it is an arm… that has started to grow its own body. There is no need to re-read it, you read it correctly the first time. If a starfish’s arm finds itself without a body, it can regenerate an entire animal, so long as it has been careful to retain at least a 5th of the central disc. The process takes up to a year to complete. Some species use this as a method of asexual reproduction. They will cast off one of their arms which will, over time, grow itself a new body. The ‘offspring’ is genetically identical.

 

4) Common starfish are compact killing machines. They hunt down brittlestars, molluscs, sea urchins and worms. They even ‘keep it in the family’ by partaking in a little pseudo-cannibalism and eating other species of starfish.

 

5) Hear the one about the dog with no nose? How does he smell? Awful. The same is true for the common starfish. Whilst they have a good sense of smell themselves (despite no obvious hooter), many of their prey species can smell the starfish coming and having done so, bolt in the other direction. Quite right too given their stomach projecting, eat-me-while-I’m-still-alive, table manners.

 

Our starfish arm, with body attached, is available for your viewing pleasure at the Grant Museum near you. See if you can spot it through our shiny new glass fronted display cases, complete with twinkly spot lights. I’m not sure which is more beautiful.

On Friday I gave you a very nice specimen from the Horniman Museum to identify: I chose this partly because it’s a great mount and partly because I needed to check the identification, which was out of date. You all did a great job of breaking down the various options – and there were a [...]