#nhm london

[arminreindl]

Tyrannotitan at the NHM

[ufonaut]

The New Year's Party at the Natural History Museum, London (31/12/23)

[rozzy0-0]

Ahem, update, this year he had a hat too

[travelling-my-little-pony]

Autumn Leaves has been admiring a carousel.

Outside the Natural History Museum, in London, England.

[birt-art]

I really miss the six months of my master's where I was working in the labs under the Natural History Museum that you could enter via secret doors behind the dinosaur exhibits

[world-of-wales]

CATHERINE'S STYLE FILES - 2012

27 NOVEMBER 2012 || The Duchess of Cambridge attended the official opening of the Treasures Gallery at the Natural History Museum in London.

[msue0027]

everywhere i go

i see his face

[bobnichollsart]

My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...

My 2017 press release artwork of Cricocosmia (Palaeoscolecida) infested by some parasitic Inquicus (Gnathifera), from the Early Cambrian, for Xiaoya et al (NHM London).

[thylacine-dreams]

The London Natural History Museum’s thylacine is probably one of the more well-known specimens, viewed by hundreds of visitors every day.

I saw him referred to as “Stumpy” somewhere online and I think that nickname suits him.

Many of the NHM’s specimens are very faded and in poor condition. A sign in the display case explains: “The Museum is concerned about the conservation of animals in the natural world and no longer collects skins for taxidermy displays. The specimens in these displays are from the Museum’s historical collection — consequently some are faded or show other signs of age. We feel it is more appropriate to rely on these collections for display, even though they may not fully reflect the natural appearance of the living animal.”

[pixelplushies]

Two Wolves - currently nameless

The little wolf was purchased from the Natural History Museum London in December 2023. The larger wolf was bought online (after I didn't get a similar one from the London Zoo Shop and regretted it on the same London trip).

They're both by Ravensden, the little one was produced for the NHM and the bigger one is part of their Suma collection.

Bonus pic of the Wolf that Got Away- I think he was the last one in the whole shop and was then out of stock online afterwards! Big fan of his startled expression.

[chaotic------neutral]

NHM, London 2024

[arminreindl]

Pretty damn big saltie skull at the NHM

[misscammiedawn]

I wanted to say thanks for that write up on the depiction of DID and Mr. Robot! You said everything that's been burning in my head for years now after watching. Hearing another system's thoughts on it was something we've been looking for.

Part of our inner world is also part of the NHM in London lol.

Truly and sincerely thank you.

First off, I am delighted to know that we're not alone in having the Natural History Museum as host to a segment of inner world. Would love to know which exhibit/area you see when you visit, though no obligation to respond. We know that these things can be deeply personal.

The show may not strike with every system but no two plural folx are going to have the same connections and attachments and comforts and that's 100% okay. For those who share our affection for Mr. Robot I am glad you get to enjoy the show and our ramblings on it.

Wishing you and your system well and thank you again for the ask. You've no idea how much feedback comforts and encourages.

Asks are always open.

-

Post the asker is referring to in the question, btw:

Also... have some random rambles about Mr. Robot in a readmore, because I feel like typing a bunch.

-

Also, because it gives us an opening to talk about it. Have some random Robot thoughts:

Mr. Robot is and remains my favorite show. I had started typing "our" favorite and got a sharp rejection so shall use singular pronouns. It has its issues, the use of the term "real" for instance, but with good faith a lot of it can vanish. Not all. But most.

I've been thinking about things a lot more since writing the essay and there are things I wish I had spent longer discussing. For instance during the portion where I wrote about how Coney Island represents a safety in nostalgia, a fortress for the Alderson siblings to hide in their treasured childhood memories; I didn't mention that both Trenton and Mobley use their own nostalgia as their hacker aliases with Trenton being where she lived when young and DJ Mobley clearly being someone Mobley found joy in at a younger age.

Similarly Hot Carla's name is selected because of a hair dresser who validated her gender identity and sheltered her when her parents were abusive. Whiterose's hacker alias is the last moment her life could have been the "good future" that she envisioned and worked so hard to force into reality.

I do like that pretty much every character who has an alias picks their alias as an identity forged in positive memories. Elliot clearly did with Mr. Robot being the store where he and his dad were friends and his other alias (The Gentleman) is a reference to The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie, a movie he and Darlene watched every year that became the entire iconography for the fsociety movement.

If I were to ever do another Mr. Robot essay I think it would be on the way each character insists on living in the past in order to escape their present and how that relates to the way trauma invades the present. Not going to promise that, though. We're already snowed under with our Loop and Beatrice essays.

I think that can be one of the big failings of the show, actually, especially for those watching it as it aired. The show is deeply ingrained in the perspectives of characters who have critically distorted beliefs on reality and the show doesn't really start laying down objective reality until late season 3 after the cyber bombings.

Someone watching the show for the first time can watch Elliot's edgelord rants about "Fuck Society" and think that the show believes these things rather than its main character and we do not get the show delivering the message that it's small minded and childish (which, given that Elliot is stuck in trauma time and perpetually reliving a horrifically abusive childhood he cannot fully understand because he won't allow himself to remember clearly, is exactly what he is) until Irving and Price each spell it out to Mr. Robot in S3E7/9 or Whiterose outright calls Elliot on it in their final confrontation.

I adore the show for its patience and how it tells such an emotional and complicated story over its 45 hour runtime but I do understand people watching the first hour, getting the wrong idea about where the journey is going and opting out.

Hell I understand a system going in for DID representation and not having the patience to stick around the show's Fight Club pastiche era before starting to get to the meat of things.

But hey. I gave the show a shot and can't go back now. I love it too darned much.

Also because I don't want to start another thread on it, I do want to say that the show is truly frustrating in how it depicts economic collapse for society and yet none of the characters are ever impacted by it.

Darlene is homeless throughout the show, spare her stint living in an FBI safe house and she has no job through the show's run. She is never hurting for money, even when the banking system of the world collapses. She likely is stealing but it's frustrating that we only hear about the financial ruin in the periphery. We learn of the eviction of Elliot's neighbors spare for the kind older man who takes care of Flipper but Elliot himself can buy entire new computers on a whim and go months between jobs or spend a season in prison and not be impacted.

Like the show depicts the world going into a major decline during the economic crisis and it's clear by Season 4 that the show is venting frustration that when the banking system failed in 2008 the ones responsible were not harmed at all and it was the public who suffered and things just went back to how it was in time; it's just... every character is living comfortably in New York and Darlene is the closest we have to a "poor" character.

But that's a rant we have on every show. Poverty doesn't really exist in television. You watch a show like Ted Lasso and everyone is a millionaire. Even the Kit Manager (Nate, not Will) has parents who own a home, sent him to higher education and gave him private violin lessons. Kit Manager salary is about £25-50 per year, even for a Premier League Team.

...but my discomfort with how poverty is never represented on TV is just a random rant and I'm going way off topic.

I'll stop rambling now.

[valtsv]

MR LOVELESS SIR I HAVE JUST LEARNED THAT THE NHM IN LONDON HAS A COLLECTION OF 6,000 WHALE SKELETONS this seemed like something you would want to know alas they are kept secret though so obviously you gotta man a heist to see them

yeah i used to visit the natural history museum all the time (back when they used to have dippy the diplodocus skeleton on display full time too, to give you an idea of how long ago it was lol)! my parents both work in london so i had a lot of opportunities to travel there and plenty of time to kill by myself while they were doing their jobs, so dropping me off at the museum for the day was a good way to keep me busy and safe. i remember them mentioning they had a lot of whales. i didn't know it was 6000 though, that's crazy.

[pers-books]

New wasp species named after Doctor Who villain

‘Dalek’ wasps are among 815 new species described by Natural History Museum scientists in 2023

Nilima Marshall - 4 hours ago

Fourteen newly discovered species of wasps have been named after the villainous Daleks from Doctor Who to mark the 60th anniversary of the popular sci-fi series.

The insects, which bear the genus “Dalek��, are among the 619 new wasp species described this year by London’s Natural History Museum (NHM).

An alien warrior race of mutants, the Daleks are the formidable bad guys in BBC’s long-running TV show.

I thought it was a good name for a genus and a bit of fun having been a big fan of Doctor Who in my early years

Dr John Noyes, NHM

One particular species of wasp from Costa Rica called Dalek nationi also honours Terry Nation, the Welsh screenwriter and novelist who created the mutant race that terrified children for the past six decades.

Dr John Noyes, scientific associate at the NHM, said: “I thought it was a good name for a genus and a bit of fun having been a big fan of Doctor Who in my early years.”

A total of 815 new species were described by NHM scientists in 2023, including a 407-million-year-old parasitic fungus named after children’s author Beatrix Potter.

Potteromyces asteroxylicola was discovered infecting the roots of ancient plants and is thought to be the earliest disease-causing fungus ever discovered.

The researchers said they wanted to honour Potter’s reputation as a dedicated mycologist – someone who studies and works with fungi.

Dr Christine Strullu-Derrien, scientific associate at the NHM, who helped identify the new Potter fungus, said: “Naming this important species after Beatrix Potter seems a fitting tribute to her remarkable work and commitment to piecing together the secrets of fungi.”

Highlights also include fossil remains of a new dinosaur species found on the Isle of Wight, which was named Vectipelta barretti after NHM Professor Paul Barrett who worked there for two decades.

It is first the dinosaur discovered on the island for 142 years.

Other notable discoveries also include fossil remains of a giant penguin called Kumimanu fordycei – believed to be the largest penguin that ever lived – and nine new species of bristle worms including two bone-eating worms.

The researchers also report new species being discovered in “unremarkable” urban environments, including a stick insect called Micropodacanthus tweedae that was found on the side of a bin in Australia, and a moth that was located in Ealing, west London, called Tachystola mulliganae, which turned out be a new species native to Western Australia.

T. mulliganae is named after Barbara Mulligan, a lifelong moth enthusiast who discovered the species.

Mark Sterling, a scientific associate at NHM, described the finding as “real coup for citizen science”.

The new species descriptions contributed to the 722 new research papers released by the NHM over the past 12 months.

[zeydaan-isabella]

An American Were-Isabella

Commission for and story by GreyHawk89 - based on the 'American Werewolf in London' poster- with Isabella instead.

It was getting close to ten o'clock as I left Harrod's, so I quickened my pace as I made my way back to the hotel. Fortunately it was on Cromwell Road along with all the other places I'd visited today, so at least I wasn't likely to get lost. The legendary department store had certainly had it's impressive aspects and of course history, but it was still ultimately a store. Maybe I'd have found it 'cooler' if I'd lived and visited way back when you could go buy literally anything there. Or maybe I'd have liked it better if I'd been rich enough to actually afford any of their cooler merchandise? Well, the couple of snacks I'd bought in the food court had still been nice. The Natural History Museum was alright , but in the end not really different from any of the big nature museums I'd visited in any other big city, like the one in New York. On the other Hand, I'd really liked the V&A, with it's massive collection of items, err, 'acquired' back in the glory days of the Empire. I'd passed the V&A and had mostly passed the NHM when I stopped to pull out and examine my map. Let's see, tomorrow morning was going to be a long tour of... Hyde Park. Okay. Though, why the English would name a large public park after a creep like Mister Hyde, that I didn't know. I was attempting to re-fold my map when I became aware of an odd whistling noise, then there was the cracking on many tree branches followed by a thud of impact somewhere in the garden area surrounding the museum. Once I'd stopped freaking out, I finished refolding the map and carefully started walking towards the impact site. I'd just barely entered beneath the canopy of trees when someone rushed out at me! It was a middle-aged man in ratty clothes. He stunk of alcohol and groaning something made hard to understand due to his thick rural English accent. He looked around wildly, shoving me back towards the lights and traffic of Cromwell. "Stick to the road! Beware, the maid!" he slurred, then stumbled past fearfully. "...The hell does THAT mean?" I muttered to myself, then pressed on with a shrug. Like I'd listen to ramblings of some drunk! Slowly and carefully I crept towards whatever it was had landed in the garden. I became aware of a faint pink-and-golden glow coming from the area. What could that be? The glow got brighter and brighter as I approached it's source. I was at the edge of the small impact crater, I pushed a large leafy branch aside and beheld!- I very strange sight indeed. A tall woman(?) dressed as a maid lay at the bottom of the small pit. She was the source of the glow. Well, if I was in a drunken stupor and a maid had fallen out of the sky and nearly landed on top of me, I guess I'd want to 'beware the maid' as well. There was something very odd about her but the bright glow obscured her features. There was something off about her face and she was laying on a couple of rolled-up blankets of dresses or something? Suddenly, she shifted and groaned a very unpleasant groan. The glow began diminishing, sinking back into her body, giving me a better look at her. I'll be damned. What the heck was she? All her exposed skin as yellow, her hair was pink, her face stuck out into a reptilian snout, and the things I'd mistaken for blankets laying under her were a tail and pair of wings. Did a DRAGON just fall out of the sky right near me? Maybe not a full dragon, since she was human-shaped and about my own height. That or she'd shape-changed to look more human in public? It didn't really matter which. I was no dashing prince here to save a fair maiden, but I saw a person in trouble, and felt the need to help her. But, was she injured? Was moving her even a safe idea though?...Hmm, the impact itself hadn't killed her, so... Standing next to her, I leaned down and carefully helped her to her feet. "Are you alright Miss? That was quite a landing you had here. What happened?" "I just wanted to become bees." she said weakly. Again, the hell did THAT mean? "Still not bees," she half-sobbed as I helped her walk up the slight slope out of the pit. "Never gonna be bees..." Despite making no goddamn sense, at least her voice was getting stronger and steadier. A woman's voice, but very deep and husky, deeper than that actress who played Brienne on GoT. Couldn't place her accent either, but then, I WAS just an American tourist after all. "What's your name?" I asked. "Are you hurt? What do bees have to do with how you got here?"  She blinked big pink eyes and looked around, looked at me. "I'm!-uh, who're you? Where am I? Where's Mum?"  For whatever reason, I answered the second question first. "London." I tried to remember the neighborhood. "Um, Kensington? South Kensington? The grounds of the Natural History Museum on Cromwell Road." Her eyes widened and she gulped, wings flaring out. "London!? I was with Mum at Stonehenge! How'd I get all the way, all the waaUURGH!" She clutched her stomach and doubled over. With a wet retch, she burped up a burst of the glowing energy that'd been illuminating her body just a minute ago. "Out, it wants out, I need to!-" She snapped back up straight so violently it was a wonder she didn't break her spine doing so. Her pink eyes glowed red. Her mouth opened and closed rapidly. Words were coming out of it, in an unfamiliar language, and far too rapidly to be understood even if I had recognized it. Was it even HER that was trying to talk right now? Or something else inside her? She stepped forward unsteadily, like a zombie, glowing eyes suddenly fixed on me intently. I guessed what was going to happen a split second before it did. I stepped back and raised my arm in front of my face. Mouth opened wide, she lunged, her jaws clamped down on that arm like a vice, teeth punching through my jacket sleeve and puncturing my skin. I screamed in shock, but she didn't let go, instead shaking her head back and forth, worrying at my arm like a rabid dog. She made weird, warbling noises as she did so. I could feel the teeth in my flesh, but not yet any pain. Not yet. I yelled and smacked her hard on her snout with my free arm, as hard as I could. Despite her jaws being fixed closed on my arm I could still hear the weird language coming from her mouth. I sounded vaguely like Irish or Scottish, something Gaelic, spoken by someone on helium at triple speed. The creepiest aspect of her attack was her eyes. They remained glowing red, wide open, and fixed on my face- no matter how much her head shook back and forth, those eyes shifted so as to always be locked in a stare with mine. There was nothing intelligent in those eyes. Maybe not even emotion. Just... energy. There was a loud POP, and an explosion of light in the air just above us. "MY SWEET FLEDGLING!!" shrieked a voice that sounded much like hers had. Something big (bigger than either of us anyway) and yellow dropped down next to us and stuck it's arms in-between us, pulling us apart. The maid finally let go, and me and her fell back and away.  I clutched my hurt arm and stared. It was another dragon, about the size of a pony. Less anthropomorphic. Yellow scales, black hair, wearing a blue witch's hat, pink belt, and blue.. loincloth-thing. In spite of the differences, there were enough similarities that I could clearly tell that this was 'Mum'. "What'd you do to my daughter? Why'd she attack you?" She demanded, wings flared to make her look bigger. Behind her, her daughter groaned and stumbled around on her high-heeled feet. "What'd I do to HER?" I almost laughed, but was too angry. "She landed in the trees, I helped her up, she said something about bees, tried to puke, then went crazy and bit me!" I pulled the torn sleeve of jacket back tp examine the wounds. Seven or eight small circular punctures on my forearm leaked red. The pain was starting to hit now, the adrenaline wearing off. I staggered and tried to put the sudden fire I felt in my arm out by waving it around and swearing. "That doesn't sound very much like something my Izzy would do." the dragon said doubtfully as she glared at me- but it was a worried doubt, not an angry doubt of denial. "Hmph." She turned around and looked at 'Izzy'. The dragon-maid was still wobbly, but the glow had left her eyes, which were blinking in confusion and exhaustion. "Where da FERK am I right now? Why am not bees?" She peered at the bigger dragon. "Muuummm?" she whined, then flopped forward. She would have hit the ground face-first if her mother hadn't been faster, grabbing her and holding her in her arms (forelegs? she was still humanoid enough that I guessed I could call them arms). "I never should've tried it. My poor sweet fledging. Wanted to bees, of all things, so badly. All the extra fey energy I summoned up, only for it to reject her and punt her halfway across the country!" The mother dragon gave a sob and cradled her unconscious child against her. Despite my pain, I was a little bit moved by the sight. "She went crazy and chomped down on my arm like it was her favorite food. Weird gibberish words coming out of her mouth." I winced and rubbed my wounded arm, but couldn't make it feel less bad. Izzy's mother turned back to me. "Oh dear, oh dear." She narrowed her eyes at the blood. Her eyes were red, unlike the pink Izzy's eyes had started out as, but like the red they had been when she freaked out. "Overloaded with magic, body and mind. I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. Let me heal you, please?" I paused, then held out my arm hopefully. "Uh, alright?" She said something under her breath-was it my imagination or did it sound similar to the weird language that had come out of her daughter when she was ...possessed, for lack of a better word? There was light, and the pain ended. My torn jacket sleeve even repaired itself. "Huh, better than expected!" The dragon chirped happily. "Oh! I'm Cynthia, by the way. This is Isabella." She kissed the top of her daughter's head, between the horns. "Oh, well, I'm-" I was interrupted by Isabella giving a loud moan and writhing in her mother's grasp. Cynthia made a face that, in spite of being stretched out over a reptilian snout, was the picture of maternal concern. "Oh, she's still a little bit messed up. I think she expelled all the excess fey-dragon energy she absorbed though. Sometimes, you just have to accept that you're never going to become bees, and that's that." Dumbfounded, I merely nodded my head in agreement. I'd heard that dragons could be strange, but had chalked it up to lingering bigoted attitudes towards them. If I knew the full story, then maybe it would all make sense. "Well, thank you for healing my arm. And I hope that your daughter makes a full recovery from... whatever that was." I was as sincere as I could. I was still mad at Izzy for biting me, but if she literally hadn't been in her right mind, well, I was still angry right now, but could probably forgive her once I had time to cool down.  "Yes, yes, better take her home, right now!" Cynthia hugged Isabella to herself tighter, then everything... swirled. The dragons, the air, the area. It swirled until it swirled away into itself, and everything was back to normal. Except the dragons; they had vanished. I was still in a bit of shock, and remained standing there for a few minutes. "Hell of a night." I still needed to go back to the hotel, and arguably needed to get some sleep even more than before. "Geez." I pulled back my sleeve to re-examine my formerly bloody arm in the pale moonlight. Instead of red holes, there were yellow spots in my skin, but at least the skin itself was whole and un-punctured. Hope it faded away with time. "Huh." I shook my head and walked as fast as I could back to the hotel. Going inside, I went to my room, brushed my teeth, took off my clothes and practically threw myself into my bed. Hopefully, this American's second night in London would not be as wild and crazy as my first night had ended... A FEW DAYS LATER... Isabella stared at her exact double, who had a terribly woebegone expression on his... her... their... face. Cynthia sat at the nearby table, sipping some tea and watching her new 'daughter' with nervous eyes. "So you can't change back?" Not-Isabella shrugged. "I dunno. If I can, I don't know how. Don't know what 'muscle' to flex or something at the very least." Her words were slow, deliberate, and slightly slurred due to being unaccustomed to speaking with an an elongated reptilian snout filled with fangs and a long tongue to fit. "Probably lack of experience and understanding of the core magics involved with transfiguration." Cynthia suggested in a chirpy tone. "Yes, quite possibly." Not-Isabella replied dryly with a roll of their eyes. "Tried becoming a human male again, nothing. Tried just becoming a human but staying a girl, nothing. Tried just becoming male again but staying a pink-yellow dragon, nothing. The one time I did manage to change into something else, it was just this weird result that made me want to change back into a yellow dragon girl immediately." Isabella grinned and perked up. "Oh, you DID manage at least one transformation? Well, that's a start! Show me and Mum what you can do, and it'll give us something to start working with." Not-Isabella raised an eyebrow. "I REALLY don't know, it was... ugh. Just bizarre! But okay, I'll try." She closed her eyes and concentrated.  There was a hot, pink, POOF! and where Not-Isabella had once stood was now a buzzing mass of thousands of tiny bees, all with itty-bitty little yellow, pink-haired horned Isabella faces on them. Isabella blinked, absorbed this sight, then reacted with the proper amount of poise, grace, and British Stiff-Upper-Lipness that the situation called for. "Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you!" she screamed, while wildly waving around a rolled-up newspaper, swatting as many bees out of the air as she could. Cynthia spat out her tea. "DEAR!"