#museumcollections

--Julia

There’s no ‘bad taxidermy’ here and you can see the collections are truly alive. Wonderful to see such a vibrant institution supporting the past and the future of wildlife artistry and design.

A one-billion year old egg?! This unusual egg was made from a polished piece of fossilized bacterial mat called a stromatalite over 1 billion years old! This fossil contains some of the first organisms on the planet: cyanobacteria and green algae. Cyanobacteria are thought to be largely responsible for increasing the amount of oxygen in earth's early atmosphere through their photosynthesis. We wouldn't be here without them. My favorite part about working in a museum is being around these fascinating objects that tell such hugely important stories of how life originated and evolved on this planet, and that is a beautiful, wonderful thing. Support YOUR local museum! #happyeaster #easter #easteregg #fossil #egg #coloredeggs #wearescience #cle #scicomm #wearestemsquad #museumed #museumcollections #stem #womeninstem #cleveland #thisiscle #sunday #paleontology #stromatolite #cyanobacteria #algae #fossils (at Cleveland Museum of Natural History)

Happy Alfred Russel Wallace Day---the other guy who discovered evolution through natural selection! Arguably my favorite of all naturalists (Sorry, Darwin!). This beautiful bird, on display @fieldmuseum's Specimens Exhibition, was one of 126,000 specimens collected by Wallace in 1859 during his eight year expedition through the Malay Archipelago. (I totally didn't cry at all when I saw this.) While exploring the archipelago, he refined his thoughts about evolution and had his famous insight on natural selection. In 1858, he sent an article outlining his theory to Darwin. It was published, along with a description of Darwin's own theory, in the same year. British naturalist, biologist, explorer, geographer, (and feminist!) his work prompted Darwin to publish his own ideas of evolution by natural selection in On the Origin of Species in 1859. Happy #alfredrusselwallace Day! #nature #naturalist #evolution #naturalselection #themalayarchipelago #indonesia #malaysia #nathist #naturalhistory #museum #fieldmuseum #chicago #ilovemuseums #studyskin #bird #museumcollections #collection #science #biology #biologist #otd #specimen (at The Field Museum)

#throwbackthursday: #Dunkleosteus ruled Cleveland's ancient seas 360 million years ago. Now it resides safely in the Vertebrate Paleontology Collections @gocmnh. . #cle #tbt #museumsmatter #museumcollections #museumed #themoreyouknow🌈 #fish #arthrodire #notashark #armored #fossil #fossilfish #scicomm #dang #big #scary #predator #ilovemuseums #cleveland #cmnh #thisiscle (at Cleveland Museum of Natural History)

Still on high from my trip behind-the-scenes @fieldmuseum, my FAVORITE natural history museum, this is Sue the T.rex's research cast. There are wonderful tyrannosaur specimens, but I'm so in love with this one. . Why cast? One of my paleo pet-peeves is when I tell someone that the fossil they're seeing is a cast. People automatically say, "Oh, so it's fake?" Casts are ANYTHING but fake! Saying something is "fake" gives the impression that we are making it up or faking it to try to fool you. NOT the case! . Casts are an exact replica of the real fossil made from high quality materials, usually resin, and reflect the same level of detail as the real fossil. Casts like this research quality cast are great for visiting researchers when the real fossil is inaccessible, too fragile, or on display in a gallery, like Sue. I use casts everyday for teaching because the real fossils would not be able to withstand the frequent handing from kids, and reduce the risk of dropping or breaking the real thing. . Next time you're at a museum, you'll now know that casts are NOT fake, but REALLY AWESOME, hearty museum quality replicas of the real deal! . #trex #suethetrex #fossil #fossilfriday #dinoselfie #wearestemsquad #museumed #museum #nathist #fieldmuseum #nature #dinosaur #tyrannosaur #scicomm #museumcollections #education #themoreyouknow

SMILE! It's #FossilFriday! . Eryops' teeth were covered in folded enamel, making them super strong for chomping & holding on to slippery prey. This tooth type is called labyrinthodont meaning 'maze-toothed'. . Come see this specimen in the Permian section of Kirtland Hall next to Dimetrodon at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History @gocmnh! . #cle #cleveland #fossil #thisiscle #permian #eryops #cmnh #museum #fridayfeeling #friyay #ilovemuseums #museumcollections #vertebrate #thatgrilltho #omg #teeth #bones #paleontology #dentist #toothcleaning (at Cleveland Museum of Natural History)

Being surrounded by human skeletons makes me feel alive. Every drawer in the photo contains human remains. . I was the kid who wanted to see what bodies and bones looked like after death in cemetaries, and now I get to work at an amazing museum, @gocmnh, with a world famous human osteology collection, the Hamann-Todd Human Osteological Collection. . This collection contains more than 3,000 cadaver-derived human skeletons collected by Carl A. Hamann and T. Wingate Todd between 1912 and 1938. Superb documentation makes this the world’s largest documented collection of modern human skeletal remains. Researchers from all over the world can study how various diseases affect the skeletal system. Most of these diseases have been eradicated by vaccinations and modern medicine, making this collection incredibly important. . The Hamann-Todd Human Osteological Collection is accessible for legitimate research and study by qualified investigators. Access is free for non-commercial use. For more information on the collection, visit: https://www.cmnh.org/phys-anthro/collection-database . #ilovemuseums #humanosteology #anthropology #physicalanthropology #humanbones #skeletons #museumcollections #scicomm #vaccines #vaccinate #disease #pathology #medicine #bones #osteology #science #thankgoodnessformedicine #doctor #fridayfeeling #lucky #stem #womeninstem #wearestemsquad (at Cleveland Museum of Natural History)