a day in the life... Claire Valentine
Head of Collecting in the Department of Zoology at the Darwin Centre in the Natural History Museum
Featuring: Mono Moussa (16) and Annie Quarrat-Chaudhray (16)
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
Claire
Claire has held this position since January 2003 and is the youngest staff member at the Natural History Museum to be on this level. She actually lives on the south coast and commutes every day to London and back!
return to story
Charles Darwin
At the Darwin Centre, if you look closely at many of the jars you can see that their original labels were written hundreds of years ago. There are some from Captain Cook's explorations and some that were the first of their species ever discovered. The entire collection is priceless which is why a new building was built to house it. The building is renowned for its architectural qualities and has been designed to combine optimum working conditions for the scientists with excellent access for the public. The building was also designed with health and safety in mind and has sensors that would be triggered if just one drop of alcohol from one of the storage jars were to fall on the floor.
The risk of fire (from the highly flammable alcohol that all wet specimens are stored in) is significantly reduced by the storage areas being maintained at a temperature of 13°C. There is also a central section in the building that goes right from the bottom and up all four floors. This was designed to act as a kind of chimney and this section of the roof is hinged so that if there were a fire it could be lifted and the flames would be directed up and out of the roof and away from the collections.
return to story
Process
At the moment the specimen labels have very little information on them, usually they come to the museum with just the collectors code. This collectors code can then be traced back to the collectors log notes which will include enough detail so that finally each jar label will state: Identification (species, genus), individual museum number, location detail, collectors name and date of collection.
return to story
Museum
Although the majority of displayed works at the museum used to be skeletons and fossils, the technology boom created a need for more robotics, computer technology and interactive exhibits. Now, only about 3% of the specimens stored at the National History Museum are kept in the main museum, for viewing by the public. To learn more about the history of the National History Museum go to http://www.nhm.ac.uk/info/history/index.html
return to story
Egyption Museum Cat
The cats at the museum range from between 6 months and 6 years old - which seems quite young for a species that was supposed to be loved and revered throughout the Ancient Egyptian world. However, the ritual sacrifice of a deity also played a big part in Ancient Egyptian culture and could also explain why many mummified cats of this period have been found to have died from a broken neck.
return to story
<< Go Back