Rediscovering the Hancock Coelacanth

Written by Dan Gordon, Keeper of Biology, The Great North Museum: Hancock.

For as long as I’d worked at the museum, there’d always been a Coelacanth. People referred to it in passing, pointing out the large tub of orange tinted spirit where it lurked. I’d always rather taken it for granted; an interesting but rather mundane specimen, and I’d never been curious enough to fish it out of the murky liquid and examine it.

That is, until 2018, when staff at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall got in touch about an exhibition they were putting together called Monsters of the Deep. They’d asked us about Coelacanth fossils and I mentioned the Coelacanth in the fish collection, which was greeted with some surprise. A real one…Would we consider a loan? And as I thought about this, I came to realise that I knew very little about the Coelacanth at all.

There was next to nothing in the catalogue about it, so I decided, firstly, to get a better look. This was easier said than done. The Coelacanth is over a metre long and weighed over 20kg, sitting in a container of tea coloured alcohol bigger than a bathtub. Reaching in, I ran my gloved fingers over its flanks, which had the texture of coarse sandpaper. Lifting it out was like wrestling an alligator, but eventually it emerged, a gaping mouth with small sharp teeth, a ragged tear through the flesh of its head, and the huge eyes of a deep-water dweller.

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Taking a ‘Leaf’ of Faith: Managing a Forgotten University Herbarium

Written by Anna Robson, Graduate Intern Archaeology and Bioscience Collections, Durham University.

Background to the Collection

At Durham University, an herbarium of international scope has recently been reawakened revealing unique plant specimens and important stories about the Bioscience Collection as a whole. Over the past 18 months, the Archaeology and Bioscience Curator and Intern have undergone a process of conserving, managing, and researching the ex-teaching Bioscience Collection. Once part of the Bioscience Department’s teaching materials, this collection comprises of skeletal material, antler trophy heads, taxidermy, entomology, oology, a spirit collection and an herbarium.

To give a brief history to the collection, Durham University used to teach Zoology (established 1946) and Botany (established 1932), with Botany in the founding four departments of science in the University. The Department of Botany was spearheaded by Benjamin Millard Griffiths (1886-1942), one of the first readers in Botany who is described as a ‘true scientist’ and ‘inspired great affection’. As scientific advances changed from macro to micro to molecular, Durham’s Biosciences current department is an amalgamation of the former Botany and Zoology departments. Due to this shift, hands-on teaching using herbaria and animal osteological specimens gradually halted.

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NatSCA Digital Digest – June 2024

Compiled by Olivia Beavers, Assistant Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at World Museum, National Museums Liverpool.

Welcome to the June edition of NatSCA Digital Digest.

A monthly blog series featuring the latest on where to go, what to see and do in the natural history sector including jobs, exhibitions, conferences, and training opportunities. We are keen to hear from you if you have any top tips and recommendations for our next Digest, please drop an email to blog@natsca.org.

Sector News

From Collections to Connections, May – November 2024

This Changing Chalk commission/ Natural Trust funded project is a collaborative archival art and environment initiative. Artist Pauline Rutter invites Black and minoritised young people, their families and communities to explore the rich history of flora and fauna across several locations of the Changing Chalk area within the South Downs National Park.

‘From Collections to Connections’ offers opportunities for learning and sharing about collections held at the Booth Museum which relate to the Sussex locations of Mill Hill, Truleigh Hill and Devils Dyke. Through walks, talks and creative interventions, opportunities are provided for exploring the museum collections and their related histories. Individuals will be invited to find their own connections between these elements and their experiences within the natural and museum environments. To find out more, follow this link to the summary outline: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cJQh4UYMTeRB_HqsM7EydOmNBLGKYQpb/view

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Unicorns and Baby Dolls: Narwhal Specimens in the Cole Museum.

Written by Amanda Callaghan, Curator/Director of the Cole Museum of Zoology at the University of Reading.

The narwhal Monodon monoceros is one of the rarest and oddest-looking whales. Cousin to the white Beluga whale, narwhal means “corpse whale” in Icelandic, (nar corpse and hvalr whale) a reference to its blotchy grey pallor1. Male narwhals (and a small number of females) have a canine tooth on the left-hand side of the upper jaw that grows through the upper lip into a long spiral “tusk.” The function of this strange tooth is unclear, but the horns are used for duelling or ‘tusking’ when the males compete for females.

From medieval times through to the 17th century, the legend of the mythical horned horse, or unicorn, was reinforced by the spectacular spiralling horns brought to Europe. Those observed live in the seas around Greenland and Iceland were known as “sea unicorns”2. Today, although we know they are not unicorn horns, there remains a fascination and high price for these rare and beautiful teeth.

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Making a Green Gallery – A Leeds Story

By Sara Merritt, Audience Development Officer at Leeds Museums & Galleries.

Us: We want to retro-fit a permanent gallery! As sustainably as possible! With £40k! In two months! And we want to keep the space open to visitors!

Them: Umm, are you sure that’s a good…

Us: Great! We’ll get cracking.

2022 saw us undertake the retro-fit of our permanent Life on Earth gallery at Leeds City Museum, with the aim of making it as sustainable as possible. The gallery required an overhaul to meet current visitor expectations, with innovative design ideas and production methods to reflect our greater understanding of climate change, the biodiversity crisis, and Britain’s colonial history.

Our objectives were threefold and carefully considered:

  • To manage and deliver a sustainable retro-fit with the addition of creating a carbon calculator to measure our C02 output
  • To ensure the interpretation was relevant, and that we had a strong idea of our target audience to attract visitors who were already engaged in making climate-positive changes.
  • To identify robust materials and production methods which would stand up to visitors pulling, prodding, and everything in between.

We were used to working with greener materials for temporary exhibitions and knew the implications around material availability, longevity of eco materials, and higher associated costs. We therefore needed to keep the project resource light and put our efforts into the interpretation, rather than dramatic object moves. We took the bones of what we had, large cases and great objects, and retold the story with the emphasis on using our objects to inspire our visitors to live more sustainably.

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