A Museum Chapel for Microscopic Biodiversity
By Hannah Waters | March 1, 2013
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/culturing-science/2013/03/01/micrarium/Animals with backbones (vertebrates) make up only 4% of the species on our planet. Yet when you walk into a natural history museum, they’re all you see. The dinosaur skeletons stretching across a ballroom? Vertebrates. Dioramas starring posed buffalo, lions, or zebra? Vertebrates. The endless cases of delicate stuffed birds? You guessed it: vertebrates.
“It’s a real tragedy: far and away, most of the animal kingdom is tiny,” said Jack Ashby, Manager of the Grant Museum of Zoology at University College London. “Natural history museums really only ever put big animals on display. That’s not very representative of nature.”
A new permanent exhibit at the museum, called the Micrarium, tries to fill the gap by displaying the smallest organisms.
Hey, check out the new Micrarium |
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