Research Museums and The Art of Conservation
- Science Holic
- 9 hours ago
- 3 min read
Author: Lillian Dong
Editor: Oscar Chen
Artist: Helen Gong
From towering mammoth fossils to delicately pinned butterflies, natural history museums offer diverse and interesting exhibits of biology from across the globe and time itself, but how does it all come together? The answer is research museums, where flashy presentations are replaced with shelves upon shelves of carefully preserved biological specimens. In this article, we will examine the process of preservation and its benefits to scientists today.
First up is the zoology collection–the study of animals–which is both intriguing and at times, unsettling. In the dry collection–made up of mammals, birds, insects, and more–the primary form of preservation is taxidermy. While bugs only need to be dried and mounted, the process for larger animals is more complicated. First, the skin is removed from the specimen’s skeleton and thoroughly cleaned. Then, the skin is wrapped and sewn around a form that helps emulate the shape of the animal’s original body. At the same time, the skeleton is cleaned of tissue either by soaking in hydrogen peroxide or even by using flesh-eating beetles. Taxidermy is excellent at preserving the animal's original look and coloration, but it can take up too much space for larger animals and is not always possible. Because of this, the wet collection covers the fish, reptiles, and amphibians. Researchers preserve these specimens by storing them in jars of 75%-90% ethanol. This concentration varies from case to case: too much ethanol could result in a brittle, shriveled specimen, while too little could cause deterioration. Moreover, this method allows specimens to retain their organs and joint flexibility, but they often also experience discoloration. While the zoology collection may seem frightening at first sight, researchers provide every specimen with top-quality care.
Our next focus is the herbarium, which encompasses everything related to plants. Right after collection, researchers will lay the plant out between layers of newspaper and use a wooden frame to bind the layers flat and firmly. The plant press stays bound for days until the specimen is completely dried out. At this stage, the plant is transferred onto mounting paper, where it is glued or sewn down. Importantly, researchers manipulate the plant by flipping over leaves, for example, to make sure the specimen is fully displayed. But what about plants that don’t just flatten? In the case of smaller berries, small pouches or envelopes of paper allow for the berries to dry and stay with the rest of the plant without being crushed. However, for even larger specimens such as fruit or fungi, they are simply dried separately and stored in boxes. Herbaria are filled to the brim with folders of plants that look more like art than any science.
Research museums hold millions of specimens behind closed doors; but what is it all for? These archives have long been the backbone in forming the foundations of biology through the comparison of different specimens, but now more than ever, research museums are extremely useful due to their ability to display decades of evolution all at once. With each species having multiple collected specimens over many years, the shift of a bird’s feathers in response to global warming or a discrepancy in crops due to pests and pesticides can all be observed. So the next time you are in a natural history museum looking at those lifelike exhibits, remember that it is only a glimpse into the vast archive of biology locked behind the doors of research museums.
References:
Coffey, D. (2022, September 30). Why is alcohol used to preserve things?. LiveScience.
Kelsey, R. (2024, June 15). The Process of Taxidermy. Nature Museum.
University of Florida. (n.d.). Specimen Preparation Guide. Florida Museum.
The Value of Scientific Collections. American Museum of Natural History. (n.d.).
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