#nhmd

I spent the day with my great team at the Rødovre Reptile Show here in Copenhagen, showing off some of the beautiful and fascinating objects that are in our care at the Natural History Museum Denmark.

Most common questions included:

What’s that?

What’s that? (Two seconds later, pointing at another specimen and not listening to the answer of the first question)

What’s THAT‽ (pointing at a sea turtle throat, triggering a series of explanations of how leatherbacks eat jellies and flush seawater out and what happens if they now eat plastic bags)

Are they dead? (No, just pining for the fjords)

What is the liquid (70% ethanol, no you shouldn’t drink it, yes that has been a problem in the past)

Do you have [common name I don’t know]? (Probably, but not here)

What’s the most venomous animal you have? (Sea snakes, but the most dangerous we have on display here is Daboia russelii; those are two different things)

IS THAT THE FROG HAS LAYS EGGS IN ITS BACK‽ (YES! PIPA PIPA!) GROSS! (yes but did you know they do somersaults whilst mating to get the eggs into the female’s back? So they can’t mate if the water is too shallow?)

Where did you get that sweater??? (www.tangled-forest.com; it’s probably the best item of clothing I have ever owned and I have already ordered two more in a larger size because this one is actually a little too small for me)

Natural history museums hold innumerable misidentified specimens on their shelves. These specimens make their way into databases like GBIF, and muddy data that is used in global-scale analyses and other research drawing on such records. Careful verification of all specimens in a collection holding tens to hundreds of thousands of specimens would be a Herculean task that could take a dozen experts a decade. So, we often rely on spot checks.

Whilst searching our constrictor collection to see if we have any albino snakes (we don’t seem to), I came across this snake that had been identified as a Boa constrictor. It is in fact Malayopython reticulatus, a reticulated python. A quick new label and an update in our database, and I was able to move it over to the right shelf. Now it won’t muddy the waters further, and is able to be referred to by anyone interested in examining a retic.