National Museums Liverpool Blog - science

Here is Laura Healy from our Development Office to tell us why she is mad about Thornback Rays and how you can support our RayWatch project to help protect them.

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According to local anglers, October is the best month to find Thornback Rays in the River Mersey. One of the most popular animals on display at World Museum's aquarium in Liverpool, they are also the focus of our new public appeal called RayWatch.  

We're working with the Sharktrust to tag Thornback Rays in the Liverpool Bay area and monitor them in the wild. I work in the Development Office and volunteer in the aquarium so I've been making 'Ray Champion' packs and I'm currently on-call to go on an all-day tagging trip on the Mersey once the weather is right!

It's funny how many people don't realise we have Thornback Rays in the Mersey. I'm excited that RayWatch is going to help us learn more about the rays and most importantly, how we can help to protect them. 

The first thing I noticed about the Thornbacks when I saw them at World Museum, was that they are such a beautiful colour. They are covered in a pattern quite similar to that of a leopard. They also have thorny tails (hence their name!), which aren’t dangerous to humans. I've been told that Thornbacks rays aren’t actually rays at all – they are skates, who lay eggs rather than give birth to live young.  

For £10 you can adopt a ray; add your Thornback Ray's name to our RayWatch web page and get updates on it's location and the whole RayWatch project. For £25 you can become a Ray Champion. In addition to adopting a ray, you also get a cuddly ray toy (pictured) and a family ticket for a behind the scenes tour of the aquarium at World Museum in Liverpool.  

I'm telling all my friends and family about RayWatch - it's for a great cause - so join me in supporting our conservation effort!

Here is Phil Lewis our Aquarium & Bughouse Assistant to tell you about the forthcoming Shark Week at the World Museum...

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European Shark Week runs from Saturday 10 to Sunday 18 October when we'll have an array of activities at the World Museum's Clore Natural History Centre. There will be badge making for children and lots of posters and pockets guides to give away, with information about sharks and rays.  All the drawings of the various species that are produced by visitors during the week, will be mounted on the wall to form a huge mural. 

You can also come to several presentations delivered by our very enthusiastic aquarium staff at the Treasure House Theatre. These will focus on the status of sharks in the wild with lots of interesting shark and ray facts and plenty of interaction with the audience!  The dates for these presentations are: Sunday 11, Tuesday 13, Friday 16, Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 October.
 
The purpose of Shark Week is to raise awareness about the tens of millions of sharks and rays that are slaughtered each year. This is due to unsustainable fishing practices and a desire for shark fin soup, which is an extremely cruel and wasteful practice. Sharks which have just had there fins cut off are then thrown overboard still alive and left to die slowly. 

In Europe alone, thousands of tonnes of sharks are landed each year accounting for 27 percent of the slaughter world wide.  This is an appalling example set by the EU, which other nations may look to for guidance and influence.  They are also fished commercially for their meat and liver oil used in lamps, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and vitamin supplements.  Harvesting these animals is unsustainable as sharks and rays grow slowly and have few offspring, making it impossible for them to recover from such exploitation.  As sharks in particular usually receive negative media coverage, due to rare attacks on humans, it is very hard to lobby support for this group of animals than it is for other groups of endangered animals. 

This is why Shark Week is so important in raising awareness and bringing these issues to the forefront of public imagination. These animals have been around for 400 million years - that's 200 million years before the dinosaurs - and they deserve better than this.

We hope to see you there so you can find out more about these incredible animals!

Ever wondered what it's like to handle ancient artefacts, care for unusual creatures or produce an exhibition of wonderful artworks?

If you have a question about our museums, galleries or collections then take part in Ask the curator, which gives you the chance to ask our featured curator anything you like.

Next in line to answer your questions is Aquarium Curator, Rachel Ball. Rachel looks after the collections in the World Museum's aquarium, which is teeming with fish and other sea life from Australia to Anglesey.

She also leads important projects outside of the museum for the conservation of species that are in decline, such as Thornback Rays.

Send in your questions by midnight on Sunday 4 October and we'll choose the best ones to ask Rachel in a video interview, which we'll put on the site soon.

You can ask the curator a question using this online form.

A rare skeleton of the Dodo went on display in the Atrium at World Museum Liverpool today. The specimen is made up of bones found on Mauritius and has been in the collection since 1866, however it's not been on display for at least 40 years. The skeleton is on display for about a month as part of the museum’s popular Hidden Treasures series of displays featuring items rarely seen by the public.

Dr Clem Fisher, curator of vertebrate zoology, says: “The skeleton is quite complete although we have recently discovered that the foot bones have been skilfully carved from wood.” The Dodo is also missing the top of its head (cranium).

The Dodo was a member of the pigeon family that lived on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. Unfortunately it was also a rather tasty and flightless member so fell foul of the human and animal population. It's been extinct for more than 300 years with the last reliable sighting in about 1693. When alive they were rather large birds standing about three feet (one metre) tall and weighing around 50 pounds (about 23kg). They had grey plumage, a nine-inch beak with a hooked point, tiny wings and a tuft of curly rear feathers.

Bug House Demonstrator, Rebekah Beresford, is back again to tell us about her latest project in the Bug House at World Museum Liverpool. This time she has been giving the Hermit Crabs' vivarium a make-over! You can see the photos from each stage of the project on our Bug House Flickr set.

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After the success of the Indian Ground Beetles display earlier this year it was decided that some of our other vivariums could also do with a revamp! The Bug House hasn’t kept any mantids for over a year now and they’re incredibly popular with the visitors - so the next vivarium on the list was their display.

The new vivarium arrived from Exo Terra and was made by leading experts in the world of exotics. We got to work on siliconing in a glass partition, a third of the way along the tank to create a fresh water pool. Hermit crabs require fresh water so that they can mix it with salt water. The crabs then pull up into their shells their own preferred salinity reservoir from which they can breathe through. The fresh water pool in this vivarium will house a variety of aquatic invertebrates such as apple snails and gammarus (shrimp-like amphipods). The pool will also be useful for maintaining the humidity in the tank.

Coming from the Caribbean, these Hermit Crabs require humidity of around 70%. Hermit Crabs are avid climbers so it was important to factor this in to the design. A polystyrene wall made to look like rock work was ideal. It was easy to cut and wedged into place perfectly down one side of the vivarium. With some plants and bark attached the crabs would have plenty to climb and perch on.

Once the silicone had dried we tested it for leaks and luckily there weren't any! The pool was filled with gravel and the waterfall was set in place. The waterfall runs with a small pump set inside it. It’ll make the finished vivarium look quite impressive.

Hermit Crabs are renowned for being boisterous and particularly clumsy, so it was necessary to silicone some bark along the rim of the glass partition. This would prevent substrate from being kicked into the pool and also to allow leverage for the crabs to pull themselves out.

Whilst this was setting I had time to add the substrate to the land area. Hermit crabs dig themselves under ground for protection whilst moulting. Being invertebrates their skeleton is on the outside and moulting their skin to grow is a big deal. In the wild predatory birds could snatch them above ground level so they are forced under ground to do this. Even though hermit crabs are social creatures they are still opportunistic feeders. They would happily eat a moulting crab which would be soft and vulnerable and unable to protect itself, so it was important to factor in plenty of space to avoid this.

The next thing was to rehydrate the coco fibre to mix with the sand. Coco fibre comes from the husk of coconuts and is widely used in vivariums to provide sound air content and moisture in the substrate. The coco fibre was then added to the land area creating a gradient. This could then be mixed together lightly but the crabs would do a good enough job mixing it together themselves.

One of the last requirements for the vivarium was to add the climbing material. Drift wood is perfect for this because it’s so robust. I used smaller pieces along the climbing wall in steps for the hermits to climb over. Before it goes out on display I’ll add some bamboo and extra foliage.

Thanks to Phil from the aquarium, I was able to acquire a rainforest creeper called Devil’s Ivy. It’s commonly seen for sale in garden centres as house plants but its native to Asia. The plant was trained around the drift wood through to the fresh water pool. It’s a climbing plant and clings onto tree bark using its aerial roots. It’s also very hardy so will re-root itself quickly if the hermit crabs dig it up several times.

The Hermit Crab vivarium is now on display in the Bug House so come along and see them in their new home!

As I've mentioned many times before, there's never a dull moment for the handling and transport team. Since I last reported on their activities they have safely transported a huge variety of objects from our collections, including ship models, paintings, a stained glass window and some Hindu Gods (well, sculptures of them, anyway). Some have been moved from storage to the conservation studios for treatment and back again, other objects have been gone on or off display and a few have ben loaned to other organisations.

Some of the more unusual jobs have involved taking a whole rack of uniforms to the conservation freezer to treat a possible insect infestation and weighing weapons from the collection in order to determine the floor loadings of planned displays in the new Museum of Liverpool.

On a rare break from work a few weeks ago the team had a sneak preview of the new galleries currently under construction at the Museum of Liverpool. They were all impressed by the scale and design of the building. However in the back of their minds I'm sure they were all thinking the same thing - they'll have their work cut out installing all of the many objects in this huge building in time for the opening.

You can see what they've been up to in the Moving stories Flickr set of photos.

I'm not holding out too much hope of seeing anything that looks like a Perseid tonight. The Beeb is suggesting a fair amount of cloud cover in the vicinity of my house 

In case you don't know the Perseids are an annual meteor shower that occurs when the Earth passes through dust debris from the comet, Swift-Tuttle. It reaches its peak tonight and should be a good show for people lucky enough to live in an area without too much light pollution or cloud cover. Plus you shouldn't need any fancy equipment to either see or photograph them, just look to the north east after dark.

And if you do get to see and photograph any of the shower you might want to tweet on the Astronomy2009 Twitter page - a 48-hour Twitter marathon being run as part of the International Year of Astronomy.

Rain or shine, getting out on the River Mersey is always a fun trip and Curator of Botany, Geraldine Reid, has taken part in one of this year's Mersey Ferry Discovery Cruises. Here she is to tell us more about them...

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Last Friday, with staff from the Clore Natural History Centre and aquarium, I took part in my first Mersey Ferry Discovery Cruise. It was with some trepidation of what to expect on the high seas of the Mersey that I ventured out. The day started over at Seacombe with us getting the plankton nets out and throwing them over the side of the ferry (attached to a long line) to get samples of the water so that we could demonstrate why the estuary is such a haven for birds. These are very fine nets which we pull through the water to catch the microscopic animals (zooplankton) and plants (phytoplankton) that it contains. These tiny organisms are indicators of the health of the estuary. Plankton essentially is anything that cannot swim against the current.

As the ferry headed over to the pier head to pick up the next passengers we got the microscopes set up. We got out specimens from the  World Museum's collection of marine life that had been washed ashore along the shore of the Mersey. These included dolphin and porpoise skulls, a bone from a whale, seaweed, shells and lots more.  The deck also had colourful displays from the RSPB and the Environment Agency. The water samples we’d collected earlier were a great hit, they where teeming with life all brought to light by the video link on the microscope to a computer-screen. The water was full with lots of beautiful plankton - diatoms floating in chains past our eyes with the sudden excitement of barnacle naupli and copepods dashing past the screen followed by the gentle pulsating of sea-gooseberries gliding past.  

In our spare moments we saw a whole array of birds from a peregrine falcon to arctic skua and a whole variety of gulls. There was also a running commentary by the RSBC spotter on what to look out for and in which direction. We even saw a cheeky seal having a nap on a sandbank. The view from the ferry gave you a really unique view of the shoreline along the Mersey out to Formby. It was a great day out for all the family young and old.

The next cruise takes place on Tuesday 18 August 2009 and looks to be another action packed day.

The cruise will pick up passengers from; Seacombe at 11am, Pier Head (Liverpool) at 11.10am and Woodside at 11.20am. The trip will last about three hours. Tickets cost £10 for adults, £5 for children.

For more details, or to book, contact Mersey Ferries on 0151 330 1444 or visit their website.

Bug House Demonstrator, Rebekah Beresford, tells us about the latest addition to the Bug House...

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Well, this is my first post to the blog and through my future blog posts I hope to highlight some of the exciting things we do in the Bug House. My name is Rebekah, although I seem to have adopted the title ‘Beckie Bughouse’ somehow, and I’m the Bug House Demonstrator. I’ve been working for National Museums Liverpool for almost a year now and basically I love and wholly respect invertebrates of every kind.

So, may I present to you the Wandering Violin Mantis or Gongylus gonglodes. This awesome looking insect is our newest addition to the Bug House. We have eight of these funky little creatures and they’re one of the most bizarre looking out of all the mantids.

These insects are part of the order Mantodea and are characterized by their slender limbs and stocky upper body. As suggested by the name, this mantis looks somewhat like a violin with leaf like appendages protruding from the legs to aid camouflage and a leaf like head. They’re from Southern India and Sri Lanka and come in a variety of different shades of brown.

The wandering violin mantis is more of a ‘sit and wait’ species rather than a hunter but that’s not to say that they’re picky. These mantids are confident, ravenous feeders and will snatch a variety of flies and moths from the air, if the dare to fly close enough. Most mantids are solitary and have to be kept individually but these are unusually social. Given plenty of space they can be housed together in small groups of 8-10 and pose no threat to each other. 

So, keep your eyes peeled for them in the Bug House! I’ll be putting them out on display in the next few weeks in a mixed exhibit with the hermit crabs and fresh water shrimps. Also keep an eye on the blog for my next posts on how I set up their new vivarium.

Planetarium Operator, John Moran, gives us his thoughts on one of the most important anniversaries of the year...

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On 20 July 2009 we will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of arguably the most momentous occasion in history, the moon landing by the crew of Apollo 11.

We are marking this occasion at World Museum Liverpool with the launch (no pun intended) of a brand new show in the Planetarium about the moon called 'Magnificent Desolation'. The title of this new show was taken from the words of Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, one of the Apollo 11 astronauts, as he set foot on the moon after Neil Armstrong. When he surveyed the landscape he described it as "magnificent desolation".

The rocket they used to push them to the moon is still the most powerful rocket ever created. It was the 363ft, three stage, Saturn V, 95% of which was filled with fuel and would be jettisoned once the fuel had burned up. It was also the most advanced machine of its time.  

When I think about what it must have been like for these men I can't help but wonder where they got their courage from. They were sitting atop the biggest firework of all time travelling at a speed of 25,000 mph and although men had been into space quite a few times at that point, the testing of rockets had been rushed to say the least. We can assume that because it was a 'bragging rights' competition between America and Russia that was fuelling (again no pun intended) this space race, there must have been a lot of corners cut just to get it ready. Also this mission was going a lot further than most; 238,857 miles to be exact, so these guys were going to be spending about three days just getting to the moon. That is a long time to spend twiddling your thumbs and imagining what could go wrong. 

Once the command module reached lunar orbit (piloted by the often forgotten Michael Collins) Armstrong and Aldrin would then make their way down in the lunar module called Eagle. This was probably the most unlikely looking flying machine of all time. It was so flimsy that it couldn't be flown anywhere else but in the vacuum of space because a fierce wind on Earth would have probably blown it apart; however, weather is not an issue in space. In fact, whilst practicing flying a machine similar to the lunar module here on Earth, Neil Armstrong came close to losing his life when he lost control and had to eject. Because there is only one sixth of Earth's gravity trying to pull you down on the moon, the lunar module would be much easier to control and manoeuvre. 

Mission control had picked out what they thought to be the perfect landing spot in the Sea of Tranquillity. However, when Armstrong and Aldrin headed for this spot they realized that it was nothing more than a huge crater filled with rocks and boulders. This is where Armstrong’s cool, unflappable mind came into its own. He had to fly around and find a suitable landing site or the whole mission would be a failure. So with the fuel gauge reading only twelve seconds of fuel left, alarms going off on the instrument panel and mission control telling him to abort, the message the world had been holding its breath for came back: "Houston, Tranquillity base here, the Eagle has landed".  

Later, leaving behind their back-packs, tools, boots and other needless weight - so they could bring back some moon rock - they successfully blasted off and met up with the waiting command module. After safely making their way back through the Earth's atmosphere and making a perfect slash-down in the ocean, the celebrations could begin.  

Imagine what the feeling must have been like for these guys knowing that you had just written your name into the history books for all time. I guess this is how they were able to overcome their fears; the national celebrations, the ticker-tape parades and the endless affection that was going to be felt by the whole world.

They truly must have felt over the moon (and that pun was definitely intended!)

This week I got to look around the entomology lab at World Museum Liverpool, at one of the creepy crawly tours that are available to visitors during school holidays. Zoology curator, Guy Knight, took us around the lab so we could see some of the thousands of mounted specimens housed in the back of the museum.

He showed us a case full of crickets that were found in Liverpool after they hitch-hiked here on some bananas. Then there were questions from some of the eager smaller visitors on the tour – my favourite being; ‘What happens if they come back to life after you’ve killed them?’ Maybe they had been to the Ancient Egypt gallery beforehand and had learned about the afterlife! Bees were next on the agenda – we have around 10,000 bees in our collections apparently. We learned that there are 250 different kinds of bees, but wild bumblebees are getting rarer due to the countryside changing and there being less wild areas for bees to live in.

In other bug news, you can now come and see a new ‘living display’ in the bug house gallery featuring the Indian Ground Beetle (Anthia sexguttata). The beetles’ new home has been created using a special sand and cement mix, which will allow them to dig burrows to lay their eggs.  Indian Ground Beetles are a large predatory beetle, which actively hunt down their insect prey and this species has never been bred in captivity. They can also spray an acidic liquid accurately into the eyes of their enemies if they feel threatened. Unbee-lievable!

At the end of February, Earth will receive a visitor named Lulin. This is not an alien, but a comet that astronomers say may have never visited this corner of the solar system before and should be visible to the naked eye. Our resident expert in all things celestial, Planetarium Operator John Moran, is here to tell us how to spot it…

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If you were to scoop up a handful of snow, shape it into a rough spherical shape and add some dirt to it, you would basically be holding in your hand the ingredients that make up a comet. These mountain-sized dirty snowballs are some of the most intriguing objects there are in space. That's why during February and beyond, millions of eyes will be eagerly looking towards the constellation Leo to try and catch a glimpse of Comet Lulin.

From roughly the 16th of the month, not only will we be able to see Comet Lulin with the naked eye but also within two degrees of it you will find the ringed planet Saturn. This should be a beautiful sight through binoculars, all you need to do is find it. Look for the constellation Ursa Major, often called The Plough, which most people are familiar with, then find the two pointers which show us the way to the Pole star. If you follow the pointers in the opposite direction of Polaris and continue until you come to the first big constellation, this will be Leo, identified by the back-to-front question mark. Look down and slightly to the left for the brightest object in this constellation, which at the moment is Saturn, and just below this will be Comet Lulin. As the days pass so the comet will start moving upwards and to the right.
 
Comets originate in a vast region of space which borders our solar system called the Oort Cloud. As they swirl around, some smash into each other and like snooker balls on a table get fired off in a different direction and this starts their long cold journey into our solar system. As they near the sun the ice starts to melt and gas and vapour start streaming out through evaporation; this is how the tail forms, which clearly identifies a comet.

Most Comets that enter our solar system get caught by the gravitational pull of the sun and end up making the same journey back into space. Eventually they come back some time in the future, like the most famous of them all; Halley's Comet, which makes this journey every 76 years. But some comets just fly straight through our system and are never seen again. Comet Lulin looks like it may well be one of these comets.

So if we are fortunate to have clear skies at the end of February, try and catch a glimpse of one of mother nature’s most remarkable phenomena.

Did we get a visit from Darwin himself today? Our Treasure House Theatre Coordinator, Jo Connor, gave us all the details to clear up the mystery...

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You may have been forgiven for thinking you’d travelled back in time if you had been at the World Museum Liverpool atrium this morning, as you would have bumped into Mr Charles Darwin, aka Treasure House Theatre Demonstrator Paul Netterfield.

Paul was in role as the great naturalist complete with costume and beard to highlight the museum’s upcoming events to commemorate Darwin’s centenary year.

Our Mr Darwin greeted the press and visitors as they entered and pointed out his own specimen (now in our collections), an Oven Bird from the Straits of Magellan. The specimen is complete with hand written tags and is now in the Hidden Treasures Case in the museum’s atrium.

To celebrate all things Darwin this year, you will find discovery trails, performances, exhibits, poetry readings and further events at the museum. Visit our Darwin200 page for more information.

It's new year's eve tomorrow and we've got a host of new stars to look forward to in January 2009. No, I don't mean the start of Celebrity Big Brother, I'm talking about the night sky and its numerous stars to spot over the next few weeks. Although, reading the mythological stories behind the constellations, you could be forgiven for thinking that they had come out of a celebrity gossip mag - plenty of betrayals and lost love. The Brad/Angelina/Jennifer debacle is nothing compared to this lot!

Our Planetarium Co-ordinator and resident night sky expert, John Moran, has brought us January's Nightwatch report about Orion the Hunter and Perseus the great Greek hero...

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The true winter constellations are on show in January with the Hunter Orion dominating the mythological cast of characters. Orion was a boastful hunter who claimed he could hunt and kill any animal, but met his match with a lowly scorpion as he couldn’t penetrate its armour. Orion fled into the sea and as he was swimming away, Apollo tricked his sister Artemis, who was in love with Orion, into firing an arrow at the far away object swimming in the sea. The arrow hit its mark and when Artemis found out what she had done, she begged Zeus to place Orion among the stars for all eternity and placed the scorpion on the opposite side of the sky.

Another constellation on show this month is Perseus named after the handsome Greek hero who saved the life of Andromeda by defeating the evil sea monster Cetus. Perseus had just slain the Gorgon Medusa and was carrying her head back as a trophy, because even in death Medusa’s head was still capable of turning any creature that looked upon her into stone and this is how he defeated Cetus.

On the 4th of the month look out for the first meteor shower of 2009, the Quantadrids, which have a high rate of 60 meteors per hour. Look out also for the ringed planet Saturn, which you will find in the constellation Leo around 9pm onwards. Don’t forget that 2009 is the international year of astronomy, so there should be plenty of interesting things to do and see to keep your imagination fired over the coming year.   

Hello, I'd like to introduce myself! I'm Lisa Jones and I'm filling in for Dawn Carroll as E-PR Officer for National Museums Liverpool, while she is away on leave. This is my first blog post and I am bringing you an update about the entomology fieldwork at Smardale Gill, from Curator of Entomology, Guy Knight. There are lots of great photos of the team at work on Flickr and you can read on to find out more about his team's latest findings...

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Because of the awful weather during the past month, the visit to Smardale Gill NNR we had scheduled for June threatened to be a fairly miserable affair. Luckily the rain did hold off for most of the time and we even got a few sunny spells! This time we were accompanied by Tom Mawdsley, retired Curator of Diptera (flies) at National Museums Liverpool and Dr Jennifer Newton the county spider recorder for Cumbria. Much of the day was spent servicing and repairing traps which had been damaged by the weather and livestock but it was also a good opportunity to see some of the rare plants and butterflies already known from the reserve. Meanwhile, some specimens from the samples are being prepared for our collections, allowing us to make accurate identifications and providing a lasting record of the presence of these insects at the site for future researchers.

It's been a bit of a slow week news-wise in the web office, so I'm reduced to posting an interesting photo that was taken some weeks ago now. It's a rather large telescope being permanently removed from what was then the Conservation Centre (now the National Conservation Centre). The telescope is a replica of one used by William Lassell, a Liverpool astronomer. The original was the first telescope mounted equatorially to allow tracking of the stars over long periods. Lassell is famous for having discovered several planetary satellites including Triton, moon of Neptune (1846) and Ariel and Umbriel, satellites of Uranus (1851).

Actually, while the night skies are so clear it might be a good time to get out there and see what you can see. Our Nightwatch section will help you identify what you spot.