Our planet is beautiful. We owe this beauty to the magnificent variety of life surrounding us. From flowers to flies and snails to snakes, our rich natural history keeps Earth alive; it keeps us alive.
There are millions of different species of creature on our planet. Pinned bugs, stuffed birds, and pickled jellyfish are just a few examples of nature’s treasures preserved and held in museums that record our planet’s biodiversity. Over 99% of natural history collections are behind closed doors, with the more exotic, exciting and engaging specimens on display for visitors to admire. Each specimen behind the scenes still has its own story.
Animal Kingdom: A Natural History in 100 Objects, attempts to explore the splendour of animal life, both past and present, using museum collections. Written by Jack Ashby, the manager at the Grant Museum of Zoology, University College London, it is a book born out of a real passion for museums and their collections.
The chapters are short at only two or three pages long, and Ashby conveniently splits the book into four parts in an attempt to group them together. The first section looks at the diversity of life from over 600 million years ago by using the less sexy specimens such as brachiopods, roundworms and graptolites – specimens that do not have the glamour of a blue whale skeleton or the media appeal of a dinosaur.
The next theme peers into our own evolutionary history with a section on mammals. A superb range of animals from penis worms (yes, penis worms) to horses are used to explore our kinship with the animal kingdom.
Following next is the largest section, where we discover how species are different, why there is such a huge variety of behaviours in animals, and why species become extinct. With gorgeous chapters ranging from the enigmatic narwhale to the tear-jerking story of the thylacine (or Tasmanian tiger), we see evolution in detail, and learn how it feeds into the complexity of life. Finally, the last section examines museums and how they tell the story of life, past and present.
In each of the 100 chapters, Ashby uses a specimen to tell a story about that animal and a specific theme. The beautiful but deadly Portuguese Man O’ War tells the story of colonial animals. Elegant seahorses tell the story of male parental care. While dividing the book into clear parts is a nice way of grouping the chapters in larger themes, they could easily be read on their own.
The book is filled with facts. These are genuinely absorbing and you can re-read a section and learn something else new. Each chapter is illustrated with beautiful images, mostly of museum specimens. Graptolites, pickled seahorses, a sliced head of a panda – rich images of collections fill this publication. The pictures and text combined illustrate how each specimen was once more than just a dead thing pickled or stuffed.
However, for such a lovely book with a strong focus on the importance of museum collections throughout, it was a shame to see only specimens from the Grant Museum of Zoology. Spectacular as these specimens are, museums across the UK hold examples just as splendid. I know the logistics of contacting 30 other museums for images would be a mammoth task, but I did want to see images of specimens from other collections.
The great strength of this book for museum professionals is the clear advocacy for museum collections all the way through. This isn’t your average popular science book talking about evolution using just scientific publications. This book uses 100 museum specimens as the foundation for each story.
I like the way the last section explores how museums display nature, with 15 stories I am familiar with. “Did you kill it?” “What is a species?” “How do you preserve it?”, and more. I like to think of readers understanding just a little more about collections and how hard museum curators work to care for them and make them as accessible as they can.
Ashby highlights why museum collections are so important, not only for glorious displays to inspire visitors, but also for research. Natural history collections cover more than a century of collecting, which provides over 100 years of data about species and where they were found. Researchers using museum collections can examine changes in the environment and ecosystems over time. They can help protect species. And they can ultimately help protect the future of life.
Jan Freedman is the curator of Natural History, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery
There are millions of different species of creature on our planet. Pinned bugs, stuffed birds, and pickled jellyfish are just a few examples of nature’s treasures preserved and held in museums that record our planet’s biodiversity. Over 99% of natural history collections are behind closed doors, with the more exotic, exciting and engaging specimens on display for visitors to admire. Each specimen behind the scenes still has its own story.
Animal Kingdom: A Natural History in 100 Objects, attempts to explore the splendour of animal life, both past and present, using museum collections. Written by Jack Ashby, the manager at the Grant Museum of Zoology, University College London, it is a book born out of a real passion for museums and their collections.
The chapters are short at only two or three pages long, and Ashby conveniently splits the book into four parts in an attempt to group them together. The first section looks at the diversity of life from over 600 million years ago by using the less sexy specimens such as brachiopods, roundworms and graptolites – specimens that do not have the glamour of a blue whale skeleton or the media appeal of a dinosaur.
The next theme peers into our own evolutionary history with a section on mammals. A superb range of animals from penis worms (yes, penis worms) to horses are used to explore our kinship with the animal kingdom.
Following next is the largest section, where we discover how species are different, why there is such a huge variety of behaviours in animals, and why species become extinct. With gorgeous chapters ranging from the enigmatic narwhale to the tear-jerking story of the thylacine (or Tasmanian tiger), we see evolution in detail, and learn how it feeds into the complexity of life. Finally, the last section examines museums and how they tell the story of life, past and present.
In each of the 100 chapters, Ashby uses a specimen to tell a story about that animal and a specific theme. The beautiful but deadly Portuguese Man O’ War tells the story of colonial animals. Elegant seahorses tell the story of male parental care. While dividing the book into clear parts is a nice way of grouping the chapters in larger themes, they could easily be read on their own.
The book is filled with facts. These are genuinely absorbing and you can re-read a section and learn something else new. Each chapter is illustrated with beautiful images, mostly of museum specimens. Graptolites, pickled seahorses, a sliced head of a panda – rich images of collections fill this publication. The pictures and text combined illustrate how each specimen was once more than just a dead thing pickled or stuffed.
However, for such a lovely book with a strong focus on the importance of museum collections throughout, it was a shame to see only specimens from the Grant Museum of Zoology. Spectacular as these specimens are, museums across the UK hold examples just as splendid. I know the logistics of contacting 30 other museums for images would be a mammoth task, but I did want to see images of specimens from other collections.
The great strength of this book for museum professionals is the clear advocacy for museum collections all the way through. This isn’t your average popular science book talking about evolution using just scientific publications. This book uses 100 museum specimens as the foundation for each story.
I like the way the last section explores how museums display nature, with 15 stories I am familiar with. “Did you kill it?” “What is a species?” “How do you preserve it?”, and more. I like to think of readers understanding just a little more about collections and how hard museum curators work to care for them and make them as accessible as they can.
Ashby highlights why museum collections are so important, not only for glorious displays to inspire visitors, but also for research. Natural history collections cover more than a century of collecting, which provides over 100 years of data about species and where they were found. Researchers using museum collections can examine changes in the environment and ecosystems over time. They can help protect species. And they can ultimately help protect the future of life.
Jan Freedman is the curator of Natural History, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery
