Once a week I’ve been helping out at the Cole Museum of Zoology as a volunteer. A couple of us have been checking the inventory of some of the store cupboards, and we’ve started to do a bit of conservation work as we go along.
This little bat was wrapped up in a plastic bag, which is a bad idea as condensation can develop inside and damage the specimen. I carefully unwrapped it and prepared some little cushions of acid-free tissue paper so that it wouldn’t get squashed.
There were two bats which belonged together (mounted to show the front and the back), so I wrapped them up carefully and popped them each into a little box. This was then labelled with the specimen number and a brief description, so that the next person to come looking for these bats can find them nice and easily.
There are quite a number of bats in the Cole Museum’s cupboards, including a huge vampire bat that I pulled out on a day I didn’t have my camera with me. I think we’re going to need a lot more tissue paper and a bigger box to keep him safe!