#museum specimens

[dread-doughnuts]

Introducing The Skull Index

Hi all! Now that we are in the early launch phase of the project I’m really excited to share the Skull Index! This is a project a team of friends (led by @birbbones ) have been working on over the last several months; our goal is to provide a high quality free to use anatomy resource. This is meant to be used by anyone from scientists to artists to students. Feel free to check out the website, and if you’d like to stay up to date on the project join our Discord!

The Discord is 18+ for privacy and safety. We hope to see it become a hub for people who are either interested in or currently work in museums, education, and the natural sciences. It is of course open to anyone interested in and enthusiastic about the topic as well. And if you’re interested in collaborating on the project as a please feel free to contact us!

The website is a work in progress though we have a goal of completing it Q1 of 2024. Over 200 mammal species have been logged so far!

A Collaborative Project | Skull Index Homepage

Collaborative Project showcasing various animal skulls and data. The Skull Index Homepage.

Community server for both collaborators & visitors of skull-index.com. | 63 members

[stone-cold-groove]

Specimen H.124-1. Dactylopterus volitans. Hunterian Museum - Royal College of Surgeons of England.

[ornithologyorthodoxy]

5/21/23

[edgescience]

Anyone know what this Triceratops skull is? what specimen it might be based on? seems relatively small. It was uploaded to wikipedia commons by Tylwyth Eldar. I'm thinking it's in some french museum.

[allstrangenature]

Things I’ve learned while working in a museum collection

-The best way to learn is on the job

-Snakes kept in ethanol for 50 years have a very specific smell

-it’s like greasy vodka

-I’ve found where all the queers go in science and it’s museums, I’ve found my people

-A right of passage includes getting a tattoo of your preferred genus 

-The 60 year old entomologist who is apparently a celebrity in the beetle circles has a huge back-spanning tattoo of a scarab, and my co-worker only discovered this when she saw said entomologist at a rock concert

-You have to keep those stained skeleton specimens in jars of glycerin because it’s only in glycerin that light goes through the specimens tissue to reveal the blue/red/green skeleton otherwise they’re an opaque white

-Glycerin leeches through glass

-You will be skinning an animal for a few hours and be staring at the bare flesh and viscera and be suddenly intensely hungry. That’s normal.

-You’ll find a “problem specimen” in a jar with no number tag and you’ll ask the collection manager what to do about it, she’ll turn around pick a book from a huge shelf of identical books and ask for the place and date on the jar and then she’ll flip to a page, check that, and then check the online database before saying “it’s this one, make a new tag”. And you’ll spend the rest of the day mystified at the incredible record-keeping that’s been happening for 130 years.

-Vegans haven’t discovered museum collections yet and everyone hopes it stays that way lest we have to constantly defend another vital aspect of scientific progress

- “Our collection isn’t haunted because animals don’t hold that kind of grudge, everything in the herpetology section murdered for their dinner everyday, but the anthropology collection on the other hand...”

-Everyone in the vertebrate collection has a furious and never-ending hatred of fly fishing (never forgive, never forget)

[nature-robot]

Some of my companions in the teaching lab. I talk to them more often now that there's no students around to judge me.

[wapiti3]

Antillean terrapins

By Carr, Archie, 1909-1987 Publication info Cambridge, U.S.A.,Printed for the Museum,1940. Subjects Turtles , West Indies BHL Collections: Ernst Mayr Library of the MCZ, Harvard University

[lifewithdeadbirds]

At this time of year, some birds are coming to Michigan, and others are leaving. 

Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) are migrating south to the warmth of Florida and Cuba. They’re easier to see than hear some days, with their yodeling calls keeping groups together.

Snowy Owls (Bubo scandiacus) have already moved into Canada and the northern United States for the winter. Snowies have already been spotted this year in Michigan, as well as New York, Massachusetts, Montana, and even as far south as Illinois.

Here’s to the beautiful change in seasons, and our bi-annual change in birds!

Photo credit: Kaitie Janecke Soltesz