Latest news with #naturalhistory
Forbes
4 days ago
- Lifestyle
- Forbes
This Exhibit Shows How Our Relationship With Nature Was Redefined By A Dragonfly
Working as a merchant in 16th century Antwerp, Joris Hoefnagel saw the world through the medium of trade. He encountered luxurious objets d'art crafted with exotic wood and shell. But his eyes were drawn most of all to natural history specimens he considered to be God's own creations. Over several decades, he rendered them in watercolor on parchment or vellum. He called his collection The Four Elements, associating mammals with earth, birds with air, and fish with water. But it was the insects that received his greatest devotion. Without comment, he associated them with fire. Joris Hoefnagel. Animalia Rationalia et Insecta (Ignis), c. 1575/1580, bound volume of 78 drawings in watercolor and gouache. National Gallery of Art, Gift of Mrs. Lessing J. Rosenwald 1987.20.5 No explanation was needed. A rare opportunity to view pages from The Four Elements at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC reveals an almost alchemical process by which Hoefnagel captured the preternatural iridescence of butterflies and beetles. Rendered in Hoefnagel's meticulous hand, often using brushes with just a few bristles and sometimes animated with teeny flecks of gold, the 'little beasts' (as insects were known at the time) appear to be aflame. And yet for all the magic of the painting, Hoefnagel never surrendered to fantasy. Unlike the whimsical objets d'art he handled in trade, his images are accurate enough that exhibition co-curators at the National Museum of Natural History can confidently name the species. By contemporary standards, Hoefnagel is a study in contradictions. His scientific precision was inspired by religious devotion. His artistic creations pay homage to the Creator. Closer examination reveals tensions that are more subtle but no less profound. One of the most surprising is his choice of materials. It's not just the artifice of making critters come to life with sprinkles of gold leaf. Several of the watercolors turn out to be composite images constructed in part from bits of his specimens. With Hoefnagel's help, these little beasts represent themselves. The apparent contradiction of scientific inquiry motivated by religious faith is easily resolved when you consider that science emerged from religion, and only recently sought explanations independent of faith. There's also a long history of art serving religion. Humans have often paid homage to the miraculous by emulating it. But Hoefnagel's hybrid watercolors are not so easily contextualized (even if some of the techniques were also used by other artists of the period). Since the Renaissance, objects of wonder were categorized as naturalia or artificialia. The former included crystals and shells and animal pelts. The latter were the products of artisans, who might denature naturalia by embedding specimens in lavish settings or might transform natural materials beyond recognition. Although artificialia often emulated naturalia in whimsical ways, the artifice was the source of delight. Some of the finest artifacts were just noticeably different from their inspiration, simultaneously paying homage to the artisan and the natural specimen. In concept and in practice, Hoefnagel's hybrids are the opposite. When he outfits real dragonfly wings with a watercolor body and legs, he naturalizes artificialia and vice versa. What we admire is the composite, which we see as autonomous. Hoefnagel's hybrids were feasible because his subjects were small. Little beasts were well suited to life-size depiction, making their bodies interchangeable with their rendering (especially parts of their anatomy that were essentially two dimensional). Optical devices developed in Hoefnagel's era enhanced observation, while simultaneously augmenting the sense of awe that humans have had for these diminutive life forms since antiquity. ('We make a wonder at the monstrous and mightie shoulders of Elephants' wrote Pliny the Elder in the Naturis Historia. 'We keepe a woondring at the ravenings of tygres, and the shag manes of Lions: and yet in comparison of these Insects, there is nothing wherein Nature and her whole power is more seen, neither sheweth she her might more than in the least creatures of all.') Jan van Kessel the Elder. Insects and a Sprig of Rosemary, 1653, oil on copper. National Gallery of Art, The Richard C. Von Hess Foundation, Nell and Robert Weidenhammer Fund, Barry D. Friedman, and Friends of Dutch Art 2018.41.1 Whether or not Hoefnagel's little beasts were inspired by the Naturis Historia or other ancient sources, his artworks clearly express a Christianized version of Pliny's panegyric, and provide a timely reminder of insects' significance as modern humans decimate global populations of butterflies and bumblebees. The same can be said about other works in the National Gallery exhibition, such as the 17th century panels of Jan van Kessel. But the greater significance of The Four Elements is the challenge Hoefnagel presents to the distinction between naturalia and artificialia, a dichotomy that continues to play a role in the spurious separation of humankind from the natural world. Even if the insects didn't voluntarily participate in their creation, the hybridity of Hoefnagel's composites defies classification. The works provide a vision as salient now as ever. In earth, air, water, and especially fire, we share the materials to forge a common future.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Charles Dewhurst, entomologist whose work on the armyworm helped to save crops in Africa
Charles Dewhurst, who has died aged 78, was a professional entomologist who worked around the world on projects from controlling armyworms in Africa to the introduction of dung beetles in Australia. When Charles Frederick Dewhurst was born on August 29 1946 he was the first European baby to be born at the Naval Hospital in Trincomalee, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where his father, Colonel Frederick Dewhurst, RM, was stationed. Frederick had served at Gallipoli and later became CO of the Commando Training Centre at Lympstone, Devon. Charles was christened on the frigate Glasgow, and after the war, when the family moved to a farm in Devon, he became fascinated by natural history; one of his first entomological memories was squeezing warble fly larvae (Hypoderma bovis, now eradicated from the UK) out of the backs of cows and feeding them to the farm's Muscovy ducks. He also discovered the pleasures of the moth-trap. From Mount House School, Tavistock, he went on to Milton Abbey School, where he kept a tame tawny owl and enjoyed cross-country because it took him out to the countryside, where he filled collector's tubes with specimens. After taking A-levels in chemistry and biology at Plymouth Polytechnic (now Plymouth University), he moved to London in the mid-1960s as a lab assistant at the Anti-Locust Research Centre in Kensington. Then at the age of 23 he headed for Africa to work for the East African Agriculture & Forestry Research Organisation on a project monitoring seasonal movements of the African armyworm, Spodoptera exempta, a migratory and highly destructive moth pest affecting cereal crops and pasturelands in Africa, Asia, Australia and the Pacific. With the female moth laying between 400 and 1,300 eggs, and with just 10 days between hatching and larval pupation, in plague years the moth can devastate crop yields. Early signs of mass emergence are critical to controlling the pest, and the project involved running light traps, and later pheromone traps, in various areas throughout East Africa. Dewhurst worked with the entomologist Eric Brown in Kenya, and with him and others wrote several publications on Spodoptera control including The African Armyworm Handbook (1997) In 1970 he gained a pilot's licence which allowed him to cross national borders easily in a Piper Cherokee. In the early 1970s Dewhurst returned to London to take a degree in botany, zoology and geology at Sir John Cass College (now part of London Metropolitan University). After graduation he spent two years in Pretoria, South Africa (1974-76), working on a dung-beetle evaluation and introduction programme for Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Under the programme, launched in 1965, 55 species of dung beetle were imported into Australia from Hawaii, Africa and southern Europe to help with livestock dung removal, improve grazing and reduce fly populations. Dewhurst's role included visiting southern France, Spain and Morocco to collect suitable species and to rear them in captivity. In order to develop healthy, pest-free populations of the beetles, three generations of beetles needed to be reared before they could be shipped to Australia. In 1977 Dewhurst married Lindsay, an ophthalmic nurse he had met in London, and they moved to Kenya, where they spent 16 happy years, Lindsay working to help restore people's vision and bring up their two children, and Charles working on migrant pest control with responsibility for Djibouti, Ethiopia (later also Eritrea), Kenya, Somalia, southern Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Yemen. Criss-crossing the region in extremely short shorts and sandals, and equipped with a Leatherman multi-tool set, Dewhurst inspired colleagues with the amiable enthusiasm with which he would bring his Land Rover skidding to a halt in the hope of finding ungulate nose-fly larvae in the nasal passages of large items of road-kill. He had a microlite, and on one occasion, while working on an armyworm project, he became distracted by a huge wildebeest herd, eventually crash-landing as he had forgotten to keep an eye on the fuel gauge. Returning to the UK in the 1990s, he and his family settled at West Wittering, West Sussex, though he continued to travel extensively, working on projects around the world. But he eventually got itchy feet again, and in 2005 he took up a posting as head of entomology for the Papua New Guinea Oil Palm Research Association on the island of West New Britain. There, as 'Dudu' (Swahili for insect), he was a regular at the Kimbe Hash House Harriers and was instrumental in establishing the Swallowtail and Birdwing Butterfly Trust, which is helping to protect the critically endangered Queen Alexandra's Birdwing, the largest and most spectacular butterfly in the world. A pair have recently mated successfully in captivity and are expected to lay eggs in the newly named Charles Dewhurst flight cage. In 2014 Dewhurst finally retired, to Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, where he immersed himself in native insect species, serving as a macro-lepidoptera recorder. He was also a council member and trustee of Nature in Art, Gloucestershire, and the host of a radio show on Radio Winchcombe. Before he died he gave his collections to the Natural History Museum in London and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, including donating one of only two known males of the giant stick insect Eurycantha portentosa, from Rossel Island, Papua New Guinea, to the latter. Dewhurst was editor of the Journal of the East Africa Natural History Society and National Museum (1989-1992), a trustee of the Kafue River Trust, Zambia, and a specialist group member (Orthoptera) of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. His favourite insect was the extremely rare botfly Gyrostigma, the largest adult fly in Africa, whose larvae inhabit the stomachs of rhinoceroses. Charles Dewhurst is survived by his wife and their son and daughter. Charles Dewhurst, born August 29 1946, died March 7 2025 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
New York Times
13-05-2025
- Science
- New York Times
Behind a Museum Door, These Beetles Are Eating Flesh for Science
Deep in the labyrinth of the American Museum of Natural History, past the giant suspended blue whale and the first floor's Alaska brown bears, is an unobtrusive locked door. On it, there is a small sign. 'Bug Colony.' Behind the door, accessible only to a handful of museum employees, thousands of flesh-eating dermestid beetles toil around the clock handling a task of specimen preparation that even the museum's best trained specialists cannot. They eat the meat off animal skeletons, leaving only clean bones behind. Since many skeletons are too fine to be cleaned by human hands, the museum's osteological preparation team turns to the six-legged staffers to prepare them for research and display. The work is carried out in three gray wooden boxes the size of footlockers that house the colony. They are lined with stainless steel and their flip-up tops reveal beetles swarming the earthly remains of various small animals, mostly birds. They feast upon the gobbets of flesh clinging to the carcasses. The room is pervaded by the soft, crackling sound of gnawing. 'It sounds like something frying, or Rice Krispies when you add milk,' said Rob Pascocello, the colony's tender. The beetles are tiny enough — just a few millimeters long — to crawl into the recesses of the smallest animals and nibble away without affecting delicate skeletal structures, said Scott Schaefer, who oversees the museum's collection of more than 30 million specimens and objects. 'They do the fine, detailed work that cannot be done by hand, because it's so delicate,' Mr. Schaefer said. It's gentler than boiling a specimen or soaking it in chemicals or acid.' Museum officials say the ravenous colony has processed most of the bird collections' more than 30,000 skeleton specimens over the decades, plus countless other forms of carrion. 'They get into the small crevices and, if left unchecked, keep eating until there's nothing left to eat,' Mr. Schaefer said. On a recent weekday, Paul Sweet, collection manager for the ornithology department, stood in the Bug Room, and in the interest of scientific precision pointed out that its name was imprecise. True bugs, known to their fans as the Hemiptera order, have mouthparts that pierce and suck. Beetles — Coleoptera — are typically cylindrical and have mouthparts that chew. The colony had gone to town with those mouthparts to reduce a once-lustrous pink flamingo to a humble bone bundle. A regal snowy owl was similarly picked clean. Then there was the small skeleton in a canister, with bones tinier than toothpicks. 'That's a songbird,' said Mr. Pascocello. Dermestid beetles are scavengers often found in the wild on animal carcasses, and in the nests, webs and burrows of animals. Museum officials told The New York Times in 1979 that their dermestid colony had remained self-sustaining since being brought over from Africa in the 1930s. Mr. Sweet said the current group has been around for his entire 35 years at the museum, but could not say for sure if they were the original colony's descendants. Either way, since a beetle's life is only about six months, 'they're all kissing cousins,' said Mr. Pascocello. He said that while the museum was closed during the coronavirus pandemic, he 'kept a backup colony in my bedroom.' On this day, Mr. Sweet was looking to skeletonize a northern gannet, a sea bird recovered from Midland Beach on Staten Island. It had been skinned, dried, and trimmed of most of its flesh by researchers before it was handed over to the colony for finishing work. Within minutes, the carcass was swarmed. The beetles can pick clean a small bird within a couple of days, but may need two weeks for larger skeletons like the gannet. Mr. Pascocello once served the beetles an orangutan; Mr. Sweet once gave them an emu. But the size of the beetles' boxes is a factor. Larger specimens must be served piecemeal, like the carcass of a feisty Cuban crocodile known as Fidel, obtained from the Bronx Zoo in 2005. Before the pristine skeletons are boxed and cataloged, they are soaked in water and frozen for days to kill remaining beetles or eggs. The beetles are not a threat to humans, but an infestation of the museum's specimen collection would be disastrous. Keeping the beetles well fed discourages them from wandering away, as does a strip of Vaseline toward the top of their boxes and a sticky floor section across the room's doorway. If the supply of specimens should stall, Mr. Pascocello keeps some chicken around as emergency food. Mr. Sweet said he offered the colony pigs' feet during the pandemic because it was the cheapest bone meat at the supermarket. The gourmandising of the beetles is a reminder that important science is not always conducted in gleaming, hygienic laboratories. On the door, under the 'Bug Colony' sign, is a handwritten addendum: 'Bad odors emanating from behind this door is normal.'
CNA
08-05-2025
- General
- CNA
Singapore's only natural history museum plans expansion as it marks 10th anniversary
SINGAPORE: The Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum (LKCNHM) may soon need to expand amid a growing collection and rising visitor numbers. However, there are no plans to move from the current location within the National University of Singapore, said Associate Professor Darren Yeo, who heads the museum. Instead, the museum intends to enlarge its existing space and adjoining property, he noted. 'Now it's about trying to find the funding to build up the connecting building we have here, once we have more space… that will allow us to expand our temporary exhibitions and allow our gallery to be a bit more dynamic,' added Assoc Prof Yeo. 'If we were able to expand, (we would be able) to have more or bigger exhibition halls." He said more space can be allocated for the museum's growing amount of research and collection from surveys and expeditions conducted with local and regional partners. The biodiversity museum, which turns 10 this year, houses more than a million natural history specimens, including birds, insects and reptiles. It has welcomed more than 650,000 visitors since it was established in 2015. Visitor numbers also hit a record high of over 88,000 last year, a sign of growing public appeal for its exhibits. Assoc Prof Yeo believes the greater exposure of natural history among the public has led to more people visiting the museum. BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS The only museum dedicated to natural history in Singapore on Tuesday (May 6) marked its 10th anniversary with two exhibitions and a new book. The book and exhibition were launched by President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and his wife, Ms Jane Ittogi. The book, titled Archipelago Of Islands: Natural And Other Histories Of Singapore, pays tribute to Scottish naturalist William Jack, who described Singapore as an 'Archipelago of Islands' during his visit in 1819. Jeslynn Teo, one of the book's authors, hopes the publication will offer a fresh perspective on Singapore's history. 'Usually, people would think of Singapore as a single mainland city rather than an archipelago. (We are in fact) an archipelago of… 54 islands,' said Teo, an executive at the museum's Biodiversity Histories unit. She added that Singapore consisted of up to 79 islands in the past, but changes over the centuries have resulted in a loss and gain of biodiversity, leading to a total of 54 islands today. The museum is also holding an exhibition, A Decade of Discovery, which will run for a year until May 2026. It showcases the LKCNHM's origins, and its current role in protecting and displaying the natural heritage of Singapore and Southeast Asia. Ms Esther Parn, a gallery and exhibitions manager at LKCNHM, said the museum will also showcase interesting specimens and findings from expeditions conducted over the years as part of the anniversary celebrations. 'We (will) also talk about the RIMBA expedition to Sarawak, so there are some specimens from there as well,' she said, referring to a collaboration between the LKCNHM and the Sarawak Forestry Corporation to document the rich biodiversity of Sarawak and improve wildlife conservation management, among other things. Apart from in-house celebrations to mark 10 years of operations, the LKCNHM has also announced an exhibition to be held in conjunction with Science Centre Singapore. The museum added that this year-end showcase will look at extinctions and dinosaurs over 400 million years of Earth's history. BRINGING SPECIMENS HOME, DIGITALLY The LKCNHM is also expanding its digital collection. The Singapore in Global Natural History Museums Information Facility (SIGNIFY) project is an effort by the museum that created a digital biodiversity archive. Its aim is to digitally reunite the 'thousands upon thousands of natural history specimens' collected from Singapore long ago but are now scattered across the world, said LKCNHM's biodiversity histories lead Martyn Low. SIGNIFY works with natural history museums and repositories globally to digitise historically important specimens from Singapore, document them for the Singapore context and facilitate their research. Mr Low added that the SIGNIFY team works to digitise specimens at high resolution for everyone to freely access online. Many of these specimens were collected by naturalists and explorers across different time periods, when Singapore did not have a museum dedicated to natural history, he said. Mr Low added that they form a very rich part of Singapore's biodiversity history. One such specimen that the project has digitised is the Hope's longhorn beetle, or Remphan hopei. This beetle is the first species of insect from Singapore to be given a scientific name, according to SIGNIFY. A type specimen, or a sample that defines the species, of this beetle is currently located at the Natural History Museum in London. 'If the specimen is in London… only observed in London and studied in London, it is divorced from where it was first collected and where it used to live,' said Mr Low. He explained that if it was digitised and brought back to its original habitat, people can better understand what Singapore's natural history was like. As part of Singapore Art Week 2025, SIGNIFY placed a digital specimen of the beetle at a rainforest area in Bukit Timah, where Mr Low believes it was possibly collected in the past.
CNA
06-05-2025
- Science
- CNA
Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum plans expansion as it marks 10th anniversary
As it marks its 10th anniversary, the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum (LKCNHM) plans to expand, amid a growing collection and surging public interest. Visitor numbers hit a record high of 88,000 last year. The seven-storey museum is home to over a million natural history specimens. Mr Martyn Low, biodiversity histories lead at the LKCNHM, shared more about the museum's efforts to archive Singapore's biodiversity and grow the country's natural history community.
