Tag: Cole Museum of Zoology

Working 9-5…

…what a way to make a living!

This photo crossed my path at work this week, which rather took me by surprise! It was taken earlier this year, when I was volunteering at the Cole Museum of Zoology. I’m very carefully cleaning one of the many bullfrog skeletons. I’m going back to the Cole Museum next week, to continue volunteering, and I’m really looking forward to it.

I’ve been volunteering and working in museums now since 2009, and my intention was to get involved in as many different areas as possible, to work out where I wanted to specialise. Most of my work has been in education, with a little foray into marketing, which I really enjoy.

In the long term though, I’m now hoping to train as a conservator, specialising in natural history objects. There’s no straighforward qualification route for this, so I’m trying to gain as much experience as I can by volunteering, and by taking short courses as they come up. In December I’ll be learning about the care of fluid-preserved collections, at the Horniman Museum. I’m also trying to raise the funds to study an MA in Preventive Conservation.

So, if you’ve been wondering why there haven’t been as many making things posts around here as usual, the answer is that I’ve been at work! I took on some extra hours during the summer, and those hours have now been extended for a while longer, so I’m saving all the extra pennies towards the fees for the MA.

I’m also trying to decide whether to blog about SCIENCE THINGS here, or whether to write about them somewhere different. I will be required to keep a blog as part of the MA, but I’m aware that some of you really don’t like to see wobbly things in jars (which is the area I’m hoping to specialise in), and I don’t want to frighten anybody away! Your feedback on this would be very welcome.

Cole Museum: Corvid Skulls

Cole Museum: Corvid Skulls

Four corvid skulls, waiting to be put away in a little box.

The skulls had been part of a temporary exhibition to illustrate the functionality of differing beak shapes in various species of bird.

It was an absolute joy to get out the boxes of bird skulls again, and to have another little look through them as I was putting away the exhibited pieces. Something as simple as seeing the skull of a heron next to the skull of a wren, so fragile that it’s kept in a sealed glass tube, was just magical.

Cole Museum: More Treasures

You might have noticed that there are a lot of photos from the Cole Museum turning up lately. I’m posting them now in a bunch because I wasn’t sure whether or not to talk about them on what was supposed to be a blog about sewing and other crafty pursuits.

But, I’m volunteering at the museum once a week, and each week I take my camera along and try to take a few snaps of whatever I’m working on. A couple of weeks ago we went into the store room of the larger specimens in the spirit collection, and here are a few of the highlights.

You can see all of my photos from the museum over on Flickr, if you’d like to. I’ve only posted small ones here in case people were squeamish. It turns out that skeletons seem to be mostly acceptable, but Things in Jars can make people feel a bit peculiar.

If you’d rather I didn’t post any pictures of Things In Jars at all, please let me know, and I can put them somewhere else – or at least make sure that the pictures are small, or behind a link so that you don’t have to look at them straight away.

I don’t want to put anybody off their dinner, but I’m finding looking at all these specimens absolutely fascinating, and I’d love to be able to share them.

Cole Museum: Rat Skeletons

Rats: with and without milk

Another treasure from the cupboards of the Cole Museum – this time in the form of a pair of rat skeletons, and an accompanying photo of the rats themselves.

There was also a hand-painted sign:

These rats were brothers. This little rat [on top] had fresh milk. This little rat [below] had none. The only difference in their diet was that Specimen “A” received a supplement of milk. Note that milk produces stronger and better developed bones.

And for the unbelievers amongst you – yes, that is me you can see reflected in the glass of the display cases. And yes, I am wearing a lab coat. You may form an orderly queue from which to mock me – right behind my high school science teachers. If I’d realised when I was a kid that biology was interesting, I’d have started doing this kind of thing a long time ago!

Bitten by an Elephant.

Ouch.

That mark on my middle finger? That’s a bruise.

A couple of weeks ago (yes, I am very behind with the blog!) I was helping out at the Cole Museum again. We’ve sorted out most of the smaller specimens, but a few of the larger ones needed moving, so we moved them. The last thing we had to do was move the jawbone of an elephant into the Bone Cupboard. After playing an extended game of Tetris with an assortment of large animal skulls (“if I move this antelope over here, we can probably squeeze that horse into this gap…”) we finally had a space large enough for the elephant.

We lifted the jawbone off the trolley, making sure to mind our backs. Elephant bones are heavy. We put it down carefully on the floor, making sure not to bash it into the wall, or into the shelf above. And when we came to let go, I realised that my finger was trapped.

My finger wasn’t broken – just a bit squished. The bruise came up extremely quickly and was gone again by the next day. Very strange indeed.

I suspect I failed my Large Object Handling Skills Mission right there. Not to mention health & safety.
But at least I didn’t damage the elephant bone…

Cole Museum: Conservation Cleaning

Damaged display

Over the summer I’ve been helping out behind the scenes at the Cole Museum. We’ve been taking an inventory of some of the storage cupboards, and doing a little bit of conservation and cleaning along the way.

This display had been stored unwrapped, and had become rather damaged and dusty. The label says “Canis Familiaris – Cranial Vertebrae”, which is the bones of the head of a dog. There’s also, somewhat inexplicably, a little forelimb of a puppy attached too.

Parts removed for cleaning

First of all I removed all the parts that could be safely removed from the board without damage. The red part is glued on, and the other pieces are held securely into place with pins. I then used a combination of soft brushes, cotton buds, tweezers and smoke sponge to clean off the worst of the dirt. The loose dust on the backing board was brushed into a museum grade vacuum cleaner.

Complicated jigsaw...

These are the rest of the pieces, waiting to be cleaned. They’ve gone back into their cupboard again while I find out how to clean the dust off the bones without also removing the paint. The tube contains some tiny fragments that had broken off. This has been numbered, and will be kept with the rest of the display.

I’ve really enjoyed working on this little piece of conservation – although I have a sneaking suspicion that putting it back together again might be a little more difficult than taking it apart!

Cole Museum: Bat Conservation

Bat, being re-wrapped

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.

New boxes for the bats

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!

She Sells Seashells…

Seashell Collecting Display

These seashells, part of an original Victorian collection, are now on display in the Cole Museum of Zoology. The Museum had recently acquired four new display cases, and the volunteers were asked to fill them! The new cases now contain examples of fossil fish, specialisation in bird skulls, variation in beetles and my Victorian seashells.

Seashell Collecting Display

These are some of the boxes containing the tiniest little shells, complete with original handwriting on the boxes, and newspaper underneath. Some of them list the place and date of collection, others have only the species name.

Seashell Collecting Display

I didn’t manage to get a very good photo of the entire display because of the lights reflecting on the glass, but it shows the difference between amateur and professional collections, and the variety of boxes that the shells were packed into. I wrote a little bit of information about the history of shell collecting, and Amanda (the Cole Museum Curator) added some more about the current laws regarding bringing seashells home from other countries. (If in doubt – don’t!)

I really enjoyed rummaging (carefully!) through the Cole Museum’s shells to pick out just a few for this display case. They’re still in the process of being cleaned and catalogued, and there are some real beauties.

Slender Loris.

Slender Loris Skeleton

This skinny little fellow is the skeleton of a Slender Loris.

One of the projects I’m currently working on as a volunteer is rebuilding the website for the Cole Museum of Zoology, so I thought it would be useful to go and have a look around. I’m so glad I did!

If you’re freaked out by skeletons or things-in-jars then you might not like it, but it’s a fabulously interesting place. The room is dominated by the skeletons of an indian elephant and a false killer whale.

Because I’m a lover of monkeys, I spent most of my time looking at the incredible variety in all of the different primate skeletons on display. The slender loris is a prosimian, which means that he’s related to lemurs. You can tell from those amazing eye sockets that he’s nocturnal. And just look at his adorable little hands and feet!

The slender loris is classed as a “vulnerable” species, but as of yesterday there’s one more – a baby slender loris was born at London Zoo!

Of course a loris in the zoo isn’t the same thing as a loris in the wild – but at least this little fellow can be studied in ways which might be of benefit to his Sri Lankan cousins.

If primates aren’t your preference, you can see plenty of other exhibits at the Cole Museum. I particularly enjoyed looking at the insides of a squid. A warning for the phobic though – there are plenty of snakes and spiders.

If you fancy going and having a look, the museum is on the Whiteknights campus of the University of Reading, on the ground floor of the AMS tower. (The tall one, to the left of the Palmer Building.) There’s a lot of building work going on at the moment, but the museum is still accessible through the right hand door. It’s open Monday to Friday, 9:30-5. Here’s a map.

I really enjoyed my quick visit this morning, and I’ll definitely be going back!