[Nhcoll-l] Hanging Storage of Large Bird Skins

[Nicholas Friedman]

Hello all,


I'd like to ask a question about hanging storage of large bird skins. We have some bird specimens prepared in a unique way for hanging storage, presumably made by/for Wilhelm Meise in the 1950s-1970s. Many larger skins - seabirds, cranes, herons, etc. - are stored this way in a small bulk storage room. We (me and Dirk Neumann at the Zoological Museum in Hamburg, Hi Dirk!) would like to improve the situation of this room so that the storage is compartmentalized into something resembling cabinets, and the risk of pest, water, or abrasive damage is reduced.


Has anyone seen this type of hanging preparation before, or have ideas for getting hanging skins into storage that is appropriate for their preservation?


Here is more about the preparation and storage in detail:

The bird skins were prepared with a wire protruding either from the mouth, or the cranium above the bill, and fashioned into the shape of a clothes hanger. The neck is prepared straight, and the wings are either pinned at the sides, or in some cases prepared open as a "soaring" mount. The room is arranged with birds hung like clothes hangers on a grid made of rebar, which is suspended approximately 1m below the ceiling. This could in theory permit a person to walk between specimens to access the whole room. In practice, most of the hanging space is filled, and most of the floor space is also filled with large mounts. So access to the room for monitoring is really limited. My impression is that this room was intended to function as a kind of big cabinet, sealed from the rest of the building. However, it doesn't seem like this vision was maintained: now there are pipes and ducts and a few wires breaking whatever seal there used to be. At least there are no windows or outer walls, and the large metal door appears to make a good seal.


So now you know about our "problem room". It feels like I'm revealing something embarrassing, but it's important so that we can find a solution to house these specimens appropriately in Hamburg, both in the near-term with the space we have, and the long-term as we're designing new space.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give!

Nick Friedman


[1649923113017]

              Dr. Nicholas Friedman
              Curator of Ornithology, Hamburg
              Centre for Taxonomy and Morphology

              Museum of Nature Hamburg
              Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3
              20146 Hamburg
              E-Mail: n.friedman at leibniz-lib.de<mailto:n.friedman at leibniz-lib.de>
              www.leibniz-lib.de<http://www.leibniz-lib.de>


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Stiftung Leibniz-Institut zur Analyse des Biodiversitätswandels
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