This is a reproduction of one of my earliest #FossilFriday posts on this platform (foolishly, I let them all auto-delete). It's the Missouri Leviathan. Aka the American Mastodon.

Now housed in the central hall of #NHMLondon, this fossil was unearthed as part of a 'graveyard' of Mastodon fossils by Albert Koch in 1840.

It's fair to say that Koch, being a showman interested in making money, took some liberties with his reconstruction of the fossilised animals he had found...

(1/5)

United Kingdom returns as GBIF Voting Participant 🎉 🥳 🇬🇧

With its renewed commitment, the UK rejoins 42 other countries that fund GBIF’s core global budget and signals support of national stakeholder community led by #NBNAtlas #NHMLondon #Kew #JNCC #Defra
https://www.gbif.org/news/11u1bN9BR32mDEhPLAgAYi/

@u0421793 @futurebird @haaadr @klara Even live butterfly exhibits at natural history museums (looking at you #NHMLondon) feature tropical butterflies and no native ones. What a missed opportunity every single year.

@TheDinosaurDave More on the discovery of Baryonyx in the UK from #NHMLondon https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/how-did-baryonyx-change-what-we-knew-about-spinosaurs.html

My last boost has reminded me of the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, where one man took not just one but several in the name of science.

#NHMLondon provides a sampling of his poetic observations of what it's like to be stung by various venomous insects:

'Torture. You are chained in the flow of an active volcano. Why did I start this list?'

Indeed.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/scroller-schmidt-painscale

I'll confess I know practically nothing about my #FossilFriday for today, but it's one of my favourites at the #NHMLondon, solely because of the quality of the preservation of the whole animal as seen in this close up (of what I assume is a high-quality cast).

The label is potentially inaccurate because it's in the Fossil Marine Reptiles gallery, and I don't think they've been updated in there for decades:

Marine crocodile
Mystriosaurus bollensis
187-178 million years old
Lower Jurassic.

#NewSpecies
New land snail from the Himalaya just crept in:

Bensonella hooki
Holotype: #NHMLondon

Treatment: http://treatment.plazi.org/id/2050F30F-BA44-FFCE-FE6E-2493FE64FC78
Original paper: http://doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2022.2152750
#JournalOfNaturalHistory

#FAIRdata #nature #biodiversity #conservation #malacology #snails

One of the niceties of the #NHMLondon Archaeopteryx display is that they've also included the top side of the limestone slab that was split to reveal the fossil.

There is less obvious detail in the top side due to most of the fossilised bones being in the bottom side, but the traces of the tail bones and other features are apparent.

In the animation, the top side has been inverted so a comparison between the two pieces is possible - in reality, it is a mirror image of the bottom side.

@clew Our cupboards are fully standardised and the sheets need to have the same size (we have about 2 million herbarium specimens, we can't have individual sheet sizes).
The #NHMLondon does have bigger sheets but those are only used for ferns, palms and cycads because those plants are often bigger. All other land plants are mounted on the "smaller" sheets (the NHM London has quite big sheets compared to other herbaria).

One wouldn't mount #herbarium specimens like this anymore, but this one from #NHMLondon does have an artistic appeal.
#MastoArt #ModernArt #HerbariumLife #CuratorLife @museum

This is really interesting. Not quite sure how many applecarts it upsets.

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2022/december/lizard-discovery.html
"A specimen retrieved from a cupboard of the Natural History Museum in London has shown that modern lizards originated in the Late Triassic and not the Middle Jurassic as previously thought."

#Paleontology #BristolUniversity #NHMLondon #Fossil #FossilFriday #Science

The #NHMLondon is presenting its#HiddenTreasures show live, now! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIdl12qss8Q

See and vote for the ultimate hidden #treasure at the NHM #London!

#Museum30 Day 30 - ‘Why Museum 30?'
Why posting 30 things about #museums? Because museums are more than the #exhibitions people visit. Museums have many objects visitors usually don't get to see (for various reasons not because we wouldn't want to), aspects people usually wouldn't think and people wouldn't know about. The #herbarium in the #NHMLondon is one of the lesser known parts. I hope got to know 'us' a bit better. :)
Stay curious!

#museodon

#Museum30 Day 28 - ‘Walls'
Quite in contrast to the amazing terracotta walls of the Waterhouse Building (the old part of the #NHMLondon), the walls in the General #Herbarium are more practical: white painted concrete. Except for a few posters to guide the users through our geographical systematic arrangement of the collections, we don't have much decoration.
A bit more colour offer the walls in the open plan office. A soothing pale violet.

#Museum30 Day 27 - ‘Plan'
The #NHMLondon is not just only big, it is actually like a maze. I'm regularly amazed to be shown new weird stairways around. Did you know, we have half storeys? I'm sure there is a plan, but an M.C. #Escher painting will make more sense, I guess.

Yesterday, @LMolinerCachazo (Twitter) led a visit at the #NHMLondon as part of an #SRUKCERU activity.

We had the opportunity to meet Dr Michael Geiser, #Coleoptera curator, who was a pleasure listening to and learning from! We were all amazed by how big the collection of the most species-rich group index is -- but only ~10% of the species are known!

Dr Geiser showed us some of the shiniest, smallest, and largest specimens; we even saw some of the beetles collected by Darwin and Wallace! (1/n)

#Museum30 Day 24 - ‘On screen'
I haven't been on screen as like TV so far, but I did a small video for the #NHMLondon on #peanuts. It was supposed to be a short video, so we had to focus on one specific aspect. I would have loved to tell more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLu1oW6rRrM

Museum30 Day 23 - ‘Collage'
#Herbarium specimens are made for #science or #teaching nowadays. However, having plant collections was something like a nice #hobby to show around in the past, maybe similar to collecting stamps, baseball cards or car models.
The #NHMLondon also has some of those collections, which have much more of an ornamental focus. Quite often, other material was added to make it look prettier, which then is like a #collage of beautiful #plants
#mastoart

Museum30 Day 22 - ‘Orange'
Quite often, colours of #flowers fade when they dry. #Herbarium specimens therefore often look a bit disappointing. Some flowers, however, like this #Leonotis leonurus (wild #dagga) from #SouthAfrica keep their #colour well. The #orange is still amazingly bright in these two collections from the #NHMLondon are 185 and 250 years old respectively. 😍😍😍

Ce musée (this museum) 😱
#NaturalHistoryMuseums #london
#NHMLondon