10.00 We arrive at the main entrance to the National History Museum and Claire comes to meet us and takes us through the museum to the Darwin Centre. We went to the main storage room for the wet specimens. Claire tells us that there are about 22 million wet specimens in jars stored here at the museum some of which are the originals collected by Charles Darwin himself. 11.00 Claire's department often receive new specimens from scientists all over the world and today she has received a shipment of crabs from a research project in Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania, East Africa. 11.30 Claire explains that all these crabs (there are about 5 crates of them!) and their specimen labels need to be transferred into fresh jars before they can be placed into storage. The process begins with filling a fresh jar with alcohol. At the National History Museum they spend £30,000 a year on glassware for the zoology department alone! (yes, that's right - here at the Darwin Centre they have alcohol on tap! Although it's actually a mix of industrial methylated spirits and ethanol so not quite a nice glass of chardonnay!) Then, very carefully, the girls transfer crabs from jar to jar with tweezers while trying to keep their squeals to themselves! 12.30 We work hard in the lab although there's one crab that we won't be trying to move with tweezers! Claire decides its time for a break and takes us to the staff canteen for a much needed lunch. 13.30 When we return from lunch Claire takes us to a different part of the museum to see the dry collections. We are going to see the Mammal Group, which just happen to be looked after by Claire's husband, Richard Sabin, so we get a VIP behind the scenes tour! 14.00 Richard explains the differences between African and Indian elephants and shows Mona and Annie an elephant tooth! Next Richard shows us one of the museums most prized pieces - a mummified Egyptian museumcat. This is kept wrapped and in tissue paper to protect it. This cat is about 5,500 years old and was mummified on its death. We all try not to wince as Richard tells us how the ancient Egyptians would remove the cat's organs through its nose before the body cavity was filled with dry earth or sand ready for embalming. 14.30 The last specimen of the day is this Aurochs skull. Aurochs are the wild ancestor of almost the entire domestic bovine race. Richard tells us that this is the oldest specimen they have and that the Aurochs were probably wiped out due to over hunting. They were selectively bred to produce the majority of the domestic cattle seen across Europe and parts of Asia. The Aurochs population survived the longest in Poland and were still found there until the late 17th Century. 15.30 Its time to go home. It's been a great day with so much to take in. The Darwin Centre is amazing and we all agreed that Claire is lucky to have such a unique and interesting job.