Thursday, April 17, 2008

GIANT SQUID!!!

ZOMG! Today, I met my boss *grin*
Her name's Archie :)


When the lights switched on in the Darwin Centre's storage room, I gasped at the sight of Archie. She's totally awesome! Archie lays in a solid 9m tank filled with formalin. Her eye is as big as dinner plate! Her tentacles are covered with teethy suckers! So formidable. I wish Archie was still alive.

The Darwin Centre is part of the Natural History Museum. The building is currently under construction, and the only way to see Archie is to book a Darwin Explorer tour with the museum. It's a short 45min tour, but I really enjoyed every minute of it. The museum stores over 70 million specimens. Some of those on display are the original specimens discovered by Darwin himself! The very first specie of various animals to be discovered in history on display! I thought that was pretty amazing.

As more lights are switched on around the room, I noticed dozens and dozens of jars lining the walls. It's creepy, but fascinating. Snakes, giant fish, baby sharks, badgers, echidnas, turtles, foxes - you name it, it's there. Large metal tanks fill the middle of the room, storing anything too big for a jar!

If you've got some free time on your hands, give the Natural History Museum a call (0207 942 5011) and book the tour :) Not a lot of people get to see this sort of stuff in their lives. It's also free.

1 comment:

mushiejc said...

holy moly that is one big squid!! how many plates of salt n peper squid is that???