A Microscopic spoon
Copyright, Grant Museum of Zoology
I'd like to introduce you to the newest members of my Spoons on Trays family. My spoon worms, resident specimen at the Grant Museum of Zoology at UCL. Their Latin genus is Echiurus, so I am calling one 'Echi' and the other 'Uru.' Echi is contemplating setting up his own Twitter account, but we'll see how that goes. Spoon worms have a scoop-shaped proboscis at the front of their mouth, which is used for feeding, but also the site of the brain and respiration, and used to propel the body forward by grabbing objects. That's quite a spoon behind their common name! The Japanese spoon worm even has a proboscis longer than its body!
I love the Grant Museum. They've just won the Guardian Culture Professionals first Pick Award so they must be pretty good! I only discovered it last month, and what a little treasure trove of a collection it is. Its one big room lined with Victorian wooden cases, filled with specimens. They're beautifully displayed, mixing skeletons and wet specimens in jars. There is every beast, bird, fish and reptile you could imagine, including of course the famous Glass Jar of Moles. Every specimen can be adopted with its own label bearing your name. So Echi and Uru now have a label saying they've been adopted by 'Spoons on Trays.' The Museum also has a stunning wall painting at the entrance which re-interprets the packed displays.
The Grant has just opened The Micrarium: A Place for Tiny Things, very cleverly using a storeroom as a walk-in light box to display some of their beautiful microscopic specimens. It's a mesmerising sight, and very easy to spend ages gazing at. It reminded me of a show at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford a couple of years ago called Small Worlds: The Art of the Invisible which similarly opened with an intense wall display of photographed microscopic organisms. Online you can find similar joy in the 'Cabinet of Curiosities' of microscope slides. Microscopic beauty seems to be quite the thing.
Which all goes to show that small is beautiful, just like my lovely new spoon worms!