Echinoderm Project 2023 - Week 5

  This week we began to finish up this project as next week will be our last to work on it. While we spent our time finishing up data entry and taking our last pictures of the specimens, we also selected specimens for what will be taking up the majority of our last week, cat-scanning them.

This week we had the opportunity to tour the invertebrate zoology dry collection, led by Christine Johnson, a Curatorial Associate. We started with a coral collection from the 1800s. This collection and the room it is housed in recently received a complete overhaul. The room was renovated to support healthier conditions for the specimens as well as placing them in brand new cabinets. The specimens were cleaned, sorted, and labeled, much like the work we are doing now. This beautifully organized collection gave us a peek into what the future of our collection will look like and how important the work that we're doing is.

One cabinet in the coral collection

Next, we got to see the entomology collection. We saw some beautiful beetles including fantastically colored metallic scarabs and some scarabs of the species Goliathus for their size which you can see below.

Beetles from the family Buprestidae
Non-metallic and metallic Scarabs
Scarabs from the species Goliathus

Overall, we had a very interesting week and are looking forward to ending off this project on a good note, but will miss it, nonetheless.

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