The Natural History Museum in Tring (NHMT) has launched its latest exhibition, showcasing one of the world’s largest collections of bird specimens.
Birds: Brilliant and Bizarre is a collection of skins, eggs, nests and bones, which have been prepared in a very peculiar way.
The museum has enlisted the help of its six-legged friend, the humble beetle, to strip specimens accurately and speedily, in a way that humans cannot. The beetles are kept in a “five-star beetle hotel”, filled with hundreds of friends, the perfect climate and unlimited food, allowing the museum to prepare specimens 24/7.
Joanne Cooper, senior curator of avian anatomical collections at NHMT, said: “Preparing anatomical specimens can be quite long and drawn out.
“With the beetles, the tiny stages they go through means that they can clean into all the nooks and crannies in a way that a human couldn’t physically manage.”
Birds: Brilliant and Bizarre is open until Sunday, January 5, 2025. To find out more, please visit
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