[Nhcoll-l] The Dangerous Museum

[Karl Hutterer]

I got to share this story: I grew up in Austria, and my high school had a wonderful and old natural history collection that had been used for teaching biology and geology for many decades. After the end of WWII, the high school was commandeered by the Russian occupation forces and used to billet troops. The poor Russian soldiers were short on alcohol and eventually broke into the natural history collections, broke upen the spirit preserved specimens and drank the alcohol. After the troops left and the school underwent major rehab, the specimens (including fishes, snails, tape worms, etc.) were found as crispy critters.



Karl Hutterer

________________________________
From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] on behalf of Kate Pocklington [dbskcp at nus.edu.sg]
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 7:17 PM
To: dinoceras at juno.com; nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] The Dangerous Museum

Story goes that back in the old days (late 1800's, early 1900's) some chap found a cone snail on a beach in South Africa, it made it back to the museum but sadly he didn't, he got harpooned and killed. (I heard this whilst working at Oxford University Museum of Natural History.)

Personally the most disgusting thing I've come across; a tank of fish, the alcohol had evaporated down to about 5cm in the bottom of the tank (~10%), the whole thing was infested with Megaselia scalaris including the maggots. The tank surfaces were covered with a layer of eggs and maggots. Not to mention how disgusting the smell was... the fish were rotting and the worst part; they were squirming with the amount of maggots. Conservation to the max.



-----Original Message-----
From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of dinoceras at juno.com
Sent: 10 December 2013 23:19
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] The Dangerous Museum

Hi all,

I'm working on a talk for visitors to our museum that's all about the types of dangers (dangerous objects, substances, activities, etc.) we sometimes encounter in our work behind-the-scenes in collections. It's meant to be informative, not to mention---entertaining. I'm starting with how we get objects to the museum, preparing & conserving them, handling them, etc. If any of you have any stories or images you are willing to share along these lines, please contact me. I'd love to hear about what you've had to deal with from disease-carrying rodents to nasty stuff on clothing & herbarium sheets, and everything in between.

Thanks in advance,

Chris Chandler

Curator of Natural Science
Putnam Museum
Davenport, IA

dinoceras at juno.com<mailto:dinoceras at juno.com>
563-324-1054 x226
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