History Museum Research Articles

Network analysis to reveal the most commonly detected compounds in predator-prey pairs in freshwater and marine mammals and fish in Europe

Marine and freshwater mammalian predators and fish samples, retrieved from environmental specimen banks (ESBs), natural history museum (NHMs) and other scientific collections, were analysed by LIFE APEX partners for a wide range of legacy and emerging contaminants (2545 in total). Network analysis was used to visualize the chemical occurrence data and reveal the predominant chemical mixtures for the freshwater and marine environments. For this purpose, a web tool was created to explore these chemical mixtures in predator-prey pairs. Predominant chemicals, defined as the most prevalent substances detected in prey-predator pairs were identified through this innovative approach. The analysis established the most frequently co-occurring substances in chemical mixtures from AP&P in the marine and freshwater environments. Freshwater and marine environments shared 23 chemicals among their top 25 predominant chemicals. Legacy chemical, including perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), brominated diphenyl ethers (BDEs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), hexachlorobenzene and mercury were dominant chemicals in both environments. Furthermore, N-acetylaminoantipyrine was a predominant pharmaceutical in both environments. The LIFE APEX chemical mixture application (https://norman-data.eu/LIFE_APEX_Mixtures) was proven to be useful to establish most prevalent compounds in terms of number of detected counts in prey-predator pairs. Nonetheless, further research is needed to establish food chain associations of the predominant chemicals.

Initiatives to the Global Representation of Scientific Collections

Ensuring that all global scientific collections become accessible online is a challenge. The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) maintains a Global Registry of Scientific Collections (GRSciColl) but as of May 2023, 58% of the collections included in the registry were from institutions based in Europe or North America. This shows a low representation of organizations from other regions. GBIF is addressing the bias with the help of its participant network and regional support teams. The GBIF participant network is actively encouraging institutions in its regions to register and describe their collection data through GBIF and GRSciColl. To complement this effort, the regional support teams based in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe are engaged in mobilizing new collections and updating existing ones (Fig. 1). In addition, a community of editors review changes proposed via a user suggestion system and keeps the entries in GRSciColl updated. The work of the regional support teams involves reviewing institutional web pages or other available online sources to update GRSciColl entries. In cases where the data are not accessible on the web, contacts from the institutions are invited to suggest changes to their GRSciColl pages. As a next step, institutions are contacted to inquire about their interest and plan for sharing open access data. If the response is positive, technical support is offered to help the institutions mobilize and publish the collection data through GBIF. The regional support teams have contacted a number of institutions and several institutions have shown interest in publishing collections on GBIF. Some organizations have already started digitizing and publishing their collection(s). With the training and technical support from the regional support teams, the following institutions have started to share data on GBIF: Instituto de Biodiversidad de Venezuela - INBIO has published data on 23,414 herbarium specimens. Natural History Museum, Tribhuvan University, Nepal has started digitizing its collections and has published eight datasets constituting 1,776 specimens. National Museum of Natural History at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences has started digitizing 31 out of its 32 collections, of which they have published two herbarium collections represented as two datasets consisting of over 6,357 specimens. Instituto de Biodiversidad de Venezuela - INBIO has published data on 23,414 herbarium specimens. Natural History Museum, Tribhuvan University, Nepal has started digitizing its collections and has published eight datasets constituting 1,776 specimens. National Museum of Natural History at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences has started digitizing 31 out of its 32 collections, of which they have published two herbarium collections represented as two datasets consisting of over 6,357 specimens. This presentation will highlight the data mobilization activities of the institutions, the progress of the GBIF regional support teams (Fig. 2), and the opportunities and challenges experienced in the mobilization effort.

The practices of care: extinction and de-colonization in the natural history museum

ABSTRACT The practices of care of extinct animal specimens and other materials in natural history museums are many and varied. This article focuses upon two extinct animal examples from the Berlin Museum of Natural History (MfN), the quagga and the thylacine, to present critiques of historical care and argue for Indigenous led alternatives. These critiques and arguments are organized via the organizing headings of isolation, preservation and revolution. While the dark histories of museums as active purchasers and collectors of ancestral remains and creators of markets for scarce forms of life are sometimes acknowledged, it is not a history that has been critically connected to normative practices of ‘isolation’ and ‘preservation’. Indeed, such practices are often heedless of the ongoing demand to recognize Indigenous continuities and are unresponsive to calls for relations that figure the museum ‘materials’ as simultaneously understood as colonial/scientific events and entities that are lively and capable of producing diverse effects. Such understandings emerge from engagement with diverse critiques including those arising from Indigenous writings. One pathway to reimagine the museum and practice an aware care may be to consider the simultaneous times at play within such institutions and the decolonizing possibilities of organizing practices beyond a single linear time.

Rediscovering the unusual Cancellus makrothrix Stebbing, 1924 (Crustacea: Decapoda: Diogenidae) in the “Great African Seaforest”

The rare diogenid hermit crab Cancellus makrothrix Stebbing, 1924, previously known from only a few specimens collected a century ago from Algoa Bay, South Africa, has been found to be common in the kelp forest known as the “Great African Seaforest”, and rocky reefs, of False Bay, South Africa. This poorly known species, considered “aberrant” by some carcinologists, is one of 17 known in the genus Cancellus H. Milne Edwards, 1836, and the only of the genus known to occur in the coast of southern Africa. Cancelllus makrothrix lives in gastropod shells, whereas all other congenerics live in a variety of petricolous dwellings that are either excavated or worn away into cylindrical cavities. The newly collected material of C. makrothrix in South Africa, together with the study of historical museum specimens has made possible the detailed redescription and taxonomic discussion of this species presented herein, using full illustrations, photographs, and microCT scans. For future reference, the molecular CO1 genetic barcode is reported. A lectotype is selected from Stebbing’s original syntype material found to consist of two specimens: a female of which only several appendages remain, in the Natural History Museum, London, and a male, illustrated in the original description, in the Iziko South African Museum, Cape Town. Taxonomic remarks, comments on biological oddities, brief in situ and laboratory observations of live specimens, and a map summarizing the world distribution of species of Cancellus, are included.

Products of time: Matchboxes as scientific containers and the social lives of archaeological ephemera

Archaeological work leaves material histories, from archival notes to containers that used to store artifacts. Rarely, however, are these containers preserved or valued as technologies that codified and organized archaeological information. This paper analyzes a collection of matchboxes that were formerly used as artifact containers in a 1940s excavation in Coahuila, Mexico. The matchboxes, never formally accessioned and yet still saved by collections staff, are housed In the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) Museum Support Center. By tracing the labor regimes the matchboxes passed through, the specimens they once contained, and the hands that used them in a multitude of ways, this project uses the matchboxes’ microhistories to reveal how archaeological containers influenced archaeological science. This research argues for a treatment of the matchboxes as artifacts themselves, worthy of formal accession and of value for their role in the history of archaeological science.

Redescription of two species of Naineris (Annelida, Orbiniidae) with multiple dorsal organs and description of a new species from the NE Pacific

Naineris bicornis Hartman, 1951 and N. australis Hartman, 1957 are redescribed and compared with specimens from the Northeastern Pacific Ocean. A new species, Naineris elegans sp. nov., is described and illustrated based on collections from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, USA. All three species are similar in terms of the chaetal arrangement and having multiple dorsal organs, but they differ in other characters. Naineris elegans sp. nov. is distinguished by a combination of the following characters: spatulate prostomium, multiple dorsal sensory organs oval to rounded, voluminous, seven per side in most chaetigers, with a brown pigmented base; arranged in two distinct groups in the most anterior segments, then forming two subtriangular groups with apex displaced medially in the following ones, touching each other; thoracic notopodial lobes pear-shaped with blunt tips; thoracic neuropodial lobe with an upper rounded papilla; thoracic neurochaetae with 5–6 transverse, posterior rows of numerous subuluncini; a transverse, anterior row of about 20 crenulate capillaries; an inferior, anterior, oblique row of about 20 hooded uncini and an inferior, posterior, oblique row of capillaries. The new species described here increases the number of known species of Naineris to 22. An updated key of species of Naineris from the Northeastern Pacific Ocean is provided.

DNA Metabarcoding Analysis of Arthropod Diversity in Dust from the Natural History Museum, Vienna

This paper introduces a new method for identifying museum pests through the analysis of DNA present in settled dust. Traditionally, the identification of pests in cultural institutions such as museums and depositories has relied on insect trapping (monitoring). They give good results but need time (minimum spring until summer of one year for a complete survey) and face challenges related to the identification of small, rare, or damaged species. Our study presents a non-invasive approach that utilizes metabarcoding analysis of dust samples to identify pests and other arthropods at the species level. We collected dust samples with a handheld vacuum cleaner in summer 2023 from the six different floors of the Natural History Museum in Vienna and compared the results with the insect monitoring. We found over 359 different species of arthropods in the museum and could show how the diversity increases with the elevation of the building floor. This method could be used for rapid and cost-effective screening of pests before monitoring. But the interpretation of results is sometimes difficult (for Lepismatidae, for example), and it cannot replace a continuous monitoring of pests with traps. This investigation might present the highest indoor animal biodiversity ever found in a single building.

Description of <i>Cypturus zappii</i> n. sp. from Sri Lanka (Coleoptera: Histeridae)

A new species of the Indo-Malayan genus Cypturus Erichson 1834 is described and compared with the other five congeneric species currently known. Male genitalia and a peculiar sexual dimorphism of female pygidium are illustrated in detail. Holotype ♂ and allotype ♀ are housed in the collection of the Civic Museum of Natural History of Milan (Italy). It is the third species reported for Sri Lanka after Cypturus aenescens Erichson 1834 and Cypturus thugi Lewis 1894.

New records of Psocoptera (Insecta) from Vietnam

This study presents novel findings on the Psocoptera (Insecta) fauna of Vietnam, contributing to the understanding of biodiversity in the region. Psocoptera specimens were collected from Tam Dao National Park during October 2023, adding 19 new species to the existing list. These discoveries include species previously unknown to Vietnam and some new to the Indochina Peninsula and continental Asia. Material examination and species identification were conducted following established methodologies, with specimens deposited at the National Museum of Natural History, Sofia, Bulgaria. The findings underscore the importance of continued research efforts in documenting and understanding the psocid fauna of Vietnam, particularly in tropical forest ecosystems.

‘A dangerous and exhausting struggle’: Hunting the devil fish of coastal North and South Carolina from the colonial era to the early decades of the 1900s

Scientists, hunters and business entrepreneurs in the Carolinas all had mutual interests in giant manta rays ( Mobula birostris) during the early decades of the 1900s. Eastern-seaboard coastal communities called them devil fish, because of the horn-shaped fins on their head. Although the Ocean Leather Company in Morehead City primarily processed shark-skin leather, it also experimented with the skins of rays and other sea animals for the manufacture of a great variety of consumer products. Articles were written for scientific journals and ray specimens were contributed to national institutions like the American Museum of Natural History. Local fishermen, along with celebrities like the US president, Teddy Roosevelt, harpooned devil fish in Cape Lookout while marvelling at their grace and strength, breaching up to six feet above the water's surface. Beaufort planter William Elliott presented many accounts of this fantastic sea creature, with vivid stories of enslaved African harpooners jumping off boats onto the backs of giant manta rays. This research combines historical accounts and images, newspaper advertisements and talks at local explorer clubs to illustrate case studies of the community's obsession with collecting, cooking, hunting and conquering rays as an important component of maritime leisure and environmental history. It concludes by addressing international examples of subsistence, recreational and industrial fishing, and its impacts on manta rays.

Pathway to Independence - an interview with Lydia Djenoune.

Lydia Djenoune completed her PhD in the labs of Claire Wyart at the Paris Brain Institute in France and of Hervé Tostivint at the French National Museum of Natural History. She is currently an Instructor in Medicine in Shiaulou Yuan's lab at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School. Lydia is interested in the role of calcium signalling, cilia and polycystin channels in cardiac development using the zebrafish model. This year, Lydia became one of Development's second cohort of Pathway to Independence Programme fellows. We spoke to her over Teams to learn more about her career path so far, the importance of outreach and representation in science, and her plans for her own research group.

Using the methyl cellulose poultice method to remove plaster and burlap - A case study on Triceratops bone

The dinosaur collection at the Natural History Museum, London (NHM) includes a Triceratops skull (NHMUK PV R 3886), purchased from Charles Sternberg in 1909. While most of the skull is on public display in the Dinosaurs gallery, two large sections of the frill (the squamosal bones) had been replicated for the display and the originals left in storage. With much of the fossil bone obscured by plaster of Paris, the original frill sections were deemed of limited use to science in their current form. A work request was received to strip away as much artificial material as possible to determine the extent of the original fossil material. An air scribe fitted with a chisel stylus proved initially effective, but soon revealed an additional obstacle – layers of hessian underneath. The methyl cellulose poultice method was used to swell the hessian, aiding softening of the plaster, and allowing layers to be torn off in strips. The fine layer of plaster remaining on the bone was removed, where possible, with a Split-V ultrasonic tool. This sequence of treatments can be utilised at minimal risk to specimens in similar situations when a hessian and plaster jacket has been applied but a separator layer has been omitted.

Historical museum samples reveal signals of selection and drift in response to changing insecticide use in an agricultural pest moth.

In response to environmental and human-imposed selective pressures, agroecosystem pests frequently undergo rapid evolution, with some species having a remarkable capacity to rapidly develop pesticide resistance. Temporal sampling of genomic data can comprehensively capture such adaptive changes over time, for example, by elucidating allele frequency shifts in pesticide resistance loci in response to different pesticides. Here, we leveraged museum specimens spanning over a century of collections to generate temporal contrasts between pre- and post-insecticide populations of an agricultural pest moth, Helicoverpa armigera. We used targeted exon sequencing of 254 samples collected across Australia from the pre-1950s (prior to insecticide introduction) to the 1990s, encompassing decades of changing insecticide use. Our sequencing approach focused on genes that are known to be involved in insecticide resistance, environmental sensation, and stress tolerance. We found an overall lack of spatial and temporal population structure change across Australia. In some decades (e.g., 1960s and 1970s), we found a moderate reduction of genetic diversity, implying stochasticity in evolutionary trajectories due to genetic drift. Temporal genome scans showed extensive evidence of selection following insecticide use, although the majority of selected variants were low impact. Finally, alternating trajectories of allele frequency change were suggestive of potential antagonistic pleiotropy. Our results provide new insights into recent evolutionary responses in an agricultural pest and show how temporal contrasts using museum specimens can improve mechanistic understanding of rapid evolution.

“LORD” OF STARA RAŠKA: WAR BIOGRAPHY OF SS-STANDARTENFÜHRER KARL VON KREMPLER (1939–1945)

The paper chronicles the life of Karl von Krempler, a war criminal who was a Yugoslav “Volksdeutscher”. The emphasis is on the period of the Second World War, when he attained high positions within the structure of SS and police in the occupied Serbia. Besides his pre-war, war and post-war career, the attention is devoted to the analysis of Krempler’s intriguing personality. The paper is prepared on the basis of the archival documentation preserved at: the Archives of Yugoslavia, The State Archives of Serbia, Historical Archives of Belgrade, the Military Archives, Historical Archives “Ras” in Novi Pazar, Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, The Political Archive of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany and Federal Archives in Berlin.

Measuring museum sustainability in China: a DSR model-driven approach to empower sustainable development goals (SDGs)

In the past few years, sustainable development has undoubtedly become an essential perspective for museums. Museums have been committed to raising social awareness around ecological conservation and cultural diversity through various exhibitions, education and research projects, and public engagement. However, the concepts, approaches, and practises of “sustainability” differ across nations and regions, and there is a lack of sufficient quantitative research on sustainable development by and within museums. This article aims to establish an evaluation framework and evaluation approach for museum sustainability in China. Its framework is initially based on the DSR model, in which “D” delineates seven deeds of museum visitors, “S” characterizes the status of sustainable practises within museums, and “R” involves presenting sustainability strategies pertinent to Chinese museums by integrating Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A fuzzy QFD model is then used to develop an evaluation approach for analyzing the Zhejiang Natural History Museum (ZNHM)’s sustainable development strategies, using data from surveys and in-depth interviews. As a result of this study, significant opportunities for deepening sustainable practises were identified for ZNHM, which include updating the collection system, enhancing professionalism in exhibitions and educational projects, and securing funding policies. ZNHM’s sustainability efforts prioritize enhancing social awareness, and internal reforms related to social value, governance, and professional capabilities. With these foundations in place, international cooperation among museums may be the next step towards a sustainable future.

Range‐wide phylogeographic structure of the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris) using expanded sampling from contemporary and historical specimens

AbstractThe Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris) is an endangered cetacean that ranges throughout much of Southeast Asia and lives in coastal, estuarine, and riverine habitats including three river systems: Ayeyarwady, Mekong, and Mahakam. Many populations face risks from human interference, but overall rangewide diversity and connectivity is not well‐understood. Here we sequenced 77 complete mitogenomes from across the range of the Irrawaddy dolphin including all obligate riverine populations; eighteen of these were sequenced from historical museum specimens. Phylogenetic analysis showed haplotypes from each riverine population formed separate clades nested within the wider species implying each river system was separately invaded only once. All Irrawaddy dolphin mitogenomes were dated to a last common ancestor ~764 kya. Most lineages appeared after inundation cycles of the Sunda Shelf were initiated ~400 kya. Despite the lack of monophyly among many haplotypes from the same population, no population shared any haplotypes. Rangewide nucleotide diversity was average compared to other odontocetes, but riverine populations were especially low. Differentiation was significant among all populations analyzed with the most divergence occurring between isolated riverine populations. These analyses add more evidence for the necessity of conservation efforts directed towards riverine and other isolated populations of the Irrawaddy dolphin.

ND70 Series Basaltic Glass Reference Materials for Volatile Element (H2O, CO2, S, Cl, F) Measurement and the C Ionisation Efficiency Suppression Effect of Water in Silicate Glasses in SIMS

We present a new set of reference materials, the ND70‐series, for in situ measurement of volatile elements (H2O, CO2, S, Cl, F) in silicate glass of basaltic composition. The materials were synthesised in piston cylinders at pressures of 1 to 1.5 GPa under volatile‐undersaturated conditions. They span mass fractions from 0 to 6% m/m H2O, from 0 to 1.6% m/m CO2 and from 0 to 1% m/m S, Cl and F. The materials were characterised by elastic recoil detection analysis for H2O, by nuclear reaction analysis for CO2, by elemental analyser for CO2, by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy for H2O and CO2, by secondary ion mass spectrometry for H2O, CO2, S, Cl and F, and by electron probe microanalysis for CO2, S, Cl and major elements. Comparison between expected and measured volatile amounts across techniques and institutions is excellent. It was found however that SIMS measurements of CO2 mass fractions using either Cs+ or O− primary beams are strongly affected by the glass H2O content. Reference materials have been made available to users at ion probe facilities in the US, Europe and Japan. Remaining reference materials are preserved at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History where they are freely available on loan to any researcher.

Looking for the Signs An Unfinished Royal Bowl from Karmir-Blur of Minua, King of Urartu

Among the most representative objects not only of metallurgy, but of the Urartian kingship itself, there is a rather conspicuous group of bronze bowls bearing short inscriptions in cuneiform. These texts allow to attribute the ownership of these objects to a series of Urartian rulers. Since 2022, a new project has been underway to study comprehensively these objects, most of which are stored in the History Museum of Armenia. The present article deals with two bowls referable to king Minua, son of Išpuini, one of which, unpublished, bears an unfinished inscription. A reconstruction of this inscription is given based on microscopic analysis of the epigraph preparation marks.

The genocidal disruption of Johannes Jacob Manissadjian’s (1862–1942) lifework: a biographical approach to mass violence and indigenous knowledge production

ABSTRACT Relying on a biographical approach that reconstructs the life and work of Johannes [Hovhanness/Յովհաննէս] Jakob [Hagop/Յակոբ] Manissadjian [Manisacıyan/Մանիսաճեան] (1862–1942), a highly successful scientist at the Anatolia College (Merzifon/Marsovan/Մարզվան), who established a meteorological station and a natural history museum with an extensive collection of specimens, the paper traces the routes of disappearance, dispersal and ruination of indigenous lives, people, and knowledge within the context of the Armenian genocide. Drawing on documents from Ottoman, German, and American archives, I stress the potential of biographical methods to study the processes and structures of mass violence targeting the Ottoman Armenians, as well as to foreground the agency and subjectivity of genocide survivors. The article also focuses on post-genocide scientific (dis)engagements of Manissadjian in light of Theodor W. Adorno’s ‘after Auschwitz’ discussions and from the perspective of indigenous knowledge production. In particular, his two ‘archival acts’ in the post-genocide context, the ‘Catalogue’ of the collection of the Anatolia College Museum that he prepared as ‘the former Curator’ and his small pamphlet entitled Proverbs of Turkey, which provided an ethnographic portrait of Anatolia, were his humble acts of saving a treasure trove of knowledge that was in danger of becoming debris.

Prevalence and characteristics of osseous bridging between vertebral bodies in the cervical spine: A skeletal study.

Osseous bridging (OB) in three or more segments of motions (SOMs) of the mobile spine was initially defined as diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH), located particularly in the thoracic spine (T-spine). This pathological phenomenon is often characterized by calcification and ossification, which take place simultaneously or separately. The soft tissues, mainly ligaments and entheses, are calcified, with bone formation not originating from the anterior longitudinal ligament (ALL). DISH formation can involve osteophytes, which are created by the ossification process and can involve soft tissue such as the ALL. The ALL can also be calcified. Until recently, the prevalence of DISH in the general population was considered low (0%-5%) and rare in the cervical spine (C-spine). In a cross-sectional observational skeletal study, we investigated the prevalence and location of C-spine OB between vertebral bodies with fewer than three SOMs. We tested a large sample (n = 2779) of C-spines housed in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (Ohio, USA). The human sources of the samples had died between the years 1912 and 1938 and represented both sexes and two different ethnic groups: Black Americans and White Americans. The process development can be seen on the ALLs as calcification, osteophytosis, and candle-shaped. Among all of the specimens, 139 (5%) were affected by OB, mostly in one SOM. Prevalence tended to be higher in women, White Americans, and the older age group. The levels most affected were C3-C4, followed by C2-C3 and subsequently, C5-C6. OB involving two consecutive SOMs was found only at C5-C7. We believe it is important to respond to the presence of a single SOM with a presumptive diagnosis of OB and to follow up, identify whether the diagnosis is correct, and take preventive action if possible. There is a need for updated diagnostic criteria and research approaches that reflect contemporary lifestyle factors and their impact on spine health.