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Science At Its Finest - 4/09/17




After making our half an hour journey through the cold Chilean morning to the hostel where we would meet up with our University we quickly got ourselves ready, found our field course group and set off to ‘Museo Nacional de Historia Natural’ located in ‘Parque Quintona Normal’.

Along the way we were accompanied by a couple stray dogs, which made for quite a stressful journey! Every so often, the front of the group would gasp in horror quickly followed by the rest of us as we’d watch how the two strays jump in front of cars, bark a couple of times and then run back to join the rest of our group. This continued pretty much up until we reached the museum. It was already turning in to quite a day!

Once we finally made it to the museum we were greeted by the head of the mammalology department who would also accompany us on our main field trip to Atacama. We were then shown the way to the bird and reptile study area. This was all out of the public view. Here we got to experience collection most of the public never dreamt of seeing. The area was built up with many cabinets and shelves all stuffed with various preserved species. The data provided by such collections is invaluable! Some of the specimens that we were shown were older than 200 years. With different specimens showing the time period of data collection well as the style of taxidermy changed especially for the birds,. Instead of outstretched wings, more life like poses where adopted shortly followed by more compact poses where the wings would lie flat along the body. Finally the most recent practice of scientific taxidermy is to leave the left wing outstretched so that more measurements can be taken from the samples. Each of the different departments present within the museum also contain cabinets solely for the keeping of first ever individuals recorded for each species identified despite having contrasting phylogenies. Unlike the other cabinets where the specimens are kept ordered strictly by their phylogenetic background. The entomology department where around 500 million individual specimens are kept was next on the list (again all out of public view). Although im not a huge fan of insects the collection here was simply stunning. The collection even had specimens seized from illegal trafficking and kept at the museum for scientific research. Finally we got shown the Anthropology department where we saw the mummified remains of an 8 year old Incan child sacrificed to the gods during the 14th/15th century that have not been moved since 1954. Here we were kindly told about the rituals carried out that in turn resulted in the discovery of the mummified child who’s conditions are kept at 42% humidity and at a temperature between 0 to -3 degrees to ensure the further preservation of the child’s body.


An early night was called for, so that we would have enough time to rest before our flight to Atacama in the morning where our real research would begin in the midst of a flowering desert.







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