3D printed zoetrope by Kevin Holmes makes frogs appear to leap endlessly on lily pads using optical illusion

Ohhhh tomorrow you can listen to Lee Davies and myself talking flies and fungi with Sue Perkins & Sara Pascoe

Nature Table - Tuesday April 14th - 6.30pm on BBC Radio 4 🪰🍄

Much fun was had recording this 😎

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

The #original drawings for Archibald Thorburn’s classic British Mammals are preserved in @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social collections and have been #digitised and available here nhm.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/44... #bats #mammals #zoologicalart #specialcollections

#Cadbury Mini #eggs (created in 1967) or Henrik Grönvold’s watercolours of the eggs of British Birds (1924)? See more of Grönvold’s drawings on @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social ‘s Digitised Collections nhm.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/44... (mini eggs now all consumed) #Easter #Art #chocolate

Terzi 💙

Fantastic news, I’m so pleased. But yes, it’s very hard for any institution to ‘compete’ at auction these days especially for such items. A shame that a private sale could not have been negotiated for this particular ms to have guaranteed its long-term preservation without the drama of a bidding war

Art UK recently visited Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums, where we were lucky enough to go behind the scenes at the museum’s Treasure Hub 🌟

Watch the full film 👉 https://youtu.be/G0zRmF2eRnA

Artworks by Caroline Walker (b.1982) © Caroline Walker.

'Now Hiring: Engagement Officer. Help to deliver our vibrant programme of events, education and outreach! Application deadline 19 April.' Text is surrounded by drawings of animals, Carl Linnaeus, with pastel colours and stars.

Join our team as an Engagement Officer, helping to deliver our vibrant programme of events, education and outreach!

Application deadline is 19 April, or get in touch with us at hr@linnean.org if you wish to discuss the role.

buff.ly/pzep2It

Palava x The Natural History Museum Palava x The Natural History Museum Come catch a fish!Dive in with us. Explore the weird and wonderful submarine scenes in our new collection, created in collaboration with the Natural History Museum.

It was a 2025 collaboration with Palava palava.co/collections/... that was developed and inspired from the illustrations in William Saville-Kent’s publication The Great Barrier Reef of Australia and Claude Auge’s Nouveau Larousse Illustre. #fabcollab

The author being John Gould and the illustration drawn and lithographed by Edward Lear (1812-1888) - five years after he published his work on parrots en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illustr...

Seaweed collecting and pressing and then today I got to make some cyanotypes to gain an appreciation of Anna Atkins’ process for her Cyanotypes of British Algae [1843-53]. A big thank you to @tomberryart for his expertise and creativity and for making it a most fun day! #cyanotype #printing #blue

Pigeons, pigeons and more pigeons! In 1887, the Museum purchased five volumes of watercolour drawings of many different breeds of domestic pigeons by Japanese artists. Fancy pigeons were revered as the sacred messengers of the Shinto god of war and archery, Hachiman. Which one is your favourite?

A recording from our FNL Briefing on AIL & the Cultural Gifts Scheme is available now! 1.5hrs long & packed with info. and advice. Main speakers: Anastasia Tennant, Joan Winterkorn and @camlibresearch.bsky.social.

Thanks to @rluk.ac.uk for making it possible.

www.fnl.org.uk/resources/fn...

Finally have my own copy of this beauty of a book by a beauty of a gentleman! The wonderful Henry Noltie whose knowledge, love and expertise of the Indian flora and the history of its botanical illustration remains unsurpassed #botanicalart #historyofbotany #India #Flora

Josh quizzes us on the colours of nature | The 'Perfect' Specimen Ep21 YouTube video by Natural History Museum

Loving the new Perfect Specimen podcast with @joshlukedavis.com and Dr Natalie Cooper youtu.be/O_DN-VowPic & was very happy to deliver a 1st edition of Werner’s Nomenclature of Colour (1814). The NHM copy is here nhm.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/44... (the 2nd ed (1821) too) #rarebooks

I don’t know what it is but Worthington George Smith’s original drawings of fungi held in @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social ‘s collection just make me very happy #fungi #botanicalart #sheet1068 #Agaricus

Illustration of the skull of Mastodon giganteus, a prehistoric North American mammal, displayed from an inferior view. The detailed drawing highlights the large, rounded cranium with textured surface features, prominent openings for nasal and cranial cavities, and robust jawbone structures. The image showcases the anatomical complexity of the species' skull, emphasizing its massive size and distinctive bone formations typical of the extinct mastodon genus.

🦣 The Mastodon giganteus of North America /.
Boston: J. Wilson, 1852..

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Not just one night, but every night at the Museum 😍 #Hope #Architecture #Terracotta #NaturalHistoryMuseum

An historic black and white illustration of a paper nautilus floating on the ocean. There are boats, a city and hills in the background.

🎉 Huge news for BHL: The Field Museum is taking over the hosting of BHL’s website, servers & infrastructure, ensuring long-term stability and access for its 63+ million pages of open biodiversity literature. Learn more:
blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2026/02/tran...
#BHLTransition #ILoveBHL 🌍 📚 🧪

Make no bones about it, we love sharing our collections! For a sneaky peek at the recently digitised 'Memoirs of Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, extinct monsters of the ancient earth' by Thomas Hawkins, follow the link to Digitised Special Collections in our bio ⬆️ #DigitisedCollections #FossilFriday

A rather lovely #endpaper to end the week in Ausführliche Nachricht von neuentdeckten Zoolithen unbekannter vierfüssiger Tiere (1774). Esper was the first to identify and describe the remains of the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) and early hominids from remains found in the Zoolithenhöhle, Germany #NHM

Cake topper ☑️ LED “candles” so not to burn down an historic building ☑️ Cake ❌ as delivery never came! Gah. Was a special evening @linneansociety.bsky.social celebrating the Darwin archive’s inscription to the UNESCO Memory of the World register nonetheless. Happy 217th Birthday #CharlesDarwin 🥳

Two mice, Joris Hoefnagel, 1594
Hoefnagel made this drawing especially for his friend Johannes Muisenhol from Frankfurt. The image refers to his surname. The extinguished candle & eaten walnut represent the transience of life.

and talking AAAS ….

In 1735, the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus published the first edition of his seminal classification work Systema naturae. In the Kingdom of Animals, Linnaeus included humans, which he divided into four varieties according to geographical origin and skin colour. Linnaeus refined his classification of humans over the next two decades, publishing a much more developed classification in the tenth edition of Systema naturae (1758). This work has had fundamental consequences in the emergence of the concept of race, and the ways in which we understand and conceptualise differences between humans.

What happens when humans are classified?

On 19 March, 6pm to 8pm, we’re launching Homo Sapiens | Classifying the Human Animal at the Society, with a panel discussion exploring Carl Linnaeus’ classification of humans and its enduring impact on ideas of race and difference.

Book now: buff.ly/frgzC9H

A watercolour drawing of branches and pine needles preserved in the Library and Archive collections at the NHM, London

Born on this day the amazing Ferdinand Bauer (1760-1826) - I remember the first time I set eyes on his original drawings of the Genus Pinus it brought tears to my eyes! Now preserved at @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social digitised and freely available to view nhm.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/44...

So much fun chatting with Josh and Natalie for this podcast in this brilliant #podcast series! If you like monkeys with “trousers”, blue minerals, blancmange references, pufferfish and botanical art you won’t be disappointed 🤣 #collections #art #museumcolleagues #history #lovemyjob

Very proud to have worked with @edwinrose.bsky.social and our other partners in New Zealand and at Cambridge on this. Even happier to see the fruits of Sydney Parkinson’s skill and efforts in glorious high resolution detail nhm.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/44... #botanicalart #collaboration

Illustration of two dragonflies, species Aeschna juncea, shown from a dorsal view with transparent wings extended. The left dragonfly has blue and brown patterned body segments and large blue eyes, while the right one features green and brown body markings with green eyes. Detailed vein structure is visible in the wings. The image is labeled "Plate XVI" and dated circa 1900 by L.U. Gill, highlighting anatomical features of British dragonflies.

🦟 British dragonflies (Odonata)
London, L.U. Gill, 1900.

[Source]

Patna's great artists: painting nature for the East India Company Discover artworks, explore venues and meet artists. Art UK is the online home for every public collection in the UK, featuring over 750,000 artworks by over 70,000 artists.

'Painters, Ports, and Profits: Artists and the East India Company, 1750-1850' is on view until 31st May at the Yale Center for British Art

🌿 Read about Patna's great artists in this new story about painting nature for the East India Company 👉 artuk.org/discover/sto...