Behind the scenes of Recent Invertebrates

Have you ever wondered what’s it like to work “behind the scenes” in a museum – namely, in the Recent Invertebrates department at SNOMNH? If you have wondered such a thing, well then, I'm happy to tell you about it! I work in the actual Recent Invertebrates collection.

My workspace is in the actual collection, and so I share my space with crayfish, corals, beetles, butterflies, and spiders, just to name a few. It's fascinating to look around - see for yourself!

Here's a box of Odonates (dragonflies) and Hemipterans (true bugs). See that huge one in the middle? It's in the family Belastomatidae. These can sometimes be found in asphalt parking lots around street lamps. Unfortunately for them, they often mistake parking lots for bodies of water.

Here is a jar of various spiders, collected from an Ecology class in 1933.

Here are some of the gorgeous corals that we have, and a sea star as well. As you've probably seen on nature shows, corals can be very brightly colored when they're alive and underwater.

We've also got a collection of Lepidopterans, which include butterflies and moths.

I did a double-take with the Lycaenidae in the top left corner. Let's take a closer look at those gorgeous blue wings, shall we?

All right, enough distracting ourselves. I work mainly on beetles from a collection that was left to us by Dr. Harley Brown. Dr. Brown was a former curator here and did extensive research on riffle beetles. These beetles lived in shallow, fast-moving bodies of water, called riffles. They're attracted to the high levels of oxygen present in riffles - all of that water movement ensures that riffles are pumped full of oxygen. Dr. Brown has collected beetles from all over the world - some from areas that we can no longer visit due to waterway changes or law changes. Because of this, his collection is very valuable to us. Currently, I am going through the collection, entering the information from each specimen into a database, and assigning each one a museum number. This information will then be accessible to other scientists for their research.

Most of these beetles are very tiny – no bigger than the head of a pin. Many of them are crowded in their trays as well – meaning that if you try to remove one specimen, you’re likely to knock neighboring beetles off of their pins, and then you've got a mess to sort out. So, as I go through each tray, I give the beetles more space and a tidier arrangement to prevent that from happening.

Before:

After:

It's careful work, and it's very satisfying to know that I am aiding in the safe curation of a valuable collection that will hopefully long surpass all of us.