Image of people standing round a table displaying library and archives material

Library & Archives Open Day (free)
19 September 2025

When: 10.00 - 16.00
Where: Lasting Impressions Gallery (red zone)

Our team have developed four themed displays:
🐋 Whales, science and conservation
🌱 Ordering and naming nature
✏️ Writing from the field
❄️ Polar expeditions

#NaturalHistoryMuseum

Symmetry and structure re-visited: is symmetry still over-emphasised as a taxonomic character for naviculoid diatoms? Background and aims – Over 40 years ago, I explored the use of symmetry and structure as taxonomic criteria for naviculoid diatoms, arguing that structure was the more informative character. This pape...

Eileen Cox NHM on symmetry and structure in taxonomy for naviculoid diatoms – microscopic plant plankton of huge importance in marine and freshwater systems.
Systematic relationships are revealed through wall structure and should be the basis for diatom systematics. doi.org/10.5091/plec...

Sillitoe Distinguished Research Leader, Economic Geology:South Kensington

Apply now! Sillitoe Distinguished Research Leader in economic geology, Natural History Museum - working with the Resourcing the Green Economy Research Theme. Deadline 17 October 2025

jobs.nhm.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

NHM London is looking for a Director of Research as part of our leadership team. Guide a world-class research community, set a strong vision for collections-based research, and ensure research excellence across NHM activities.
plusportal.perrettlaver.com/VacancyDetai...

‘It blew us away’: how an asteroid may have delivered the vital ingredients for life on Earth Extraterrestrial rocks, recently delivered by a space probe, could answer the big questions about alien lifeforms and human existence

‘It blew us away’: how an asteroid may have delivered the vital ingredients for life on Earth - looking forward to the new NHM Space exhibition

www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

A mass of rich yellow globular mimetite aggregates on brown limonite. From San Pedro de Corralitos, Durango, Mexico. Specimen on display in the Natural History Museum, London.

Double terminated yellow-green hexagonal prisms of mimetite rising out of a black and red matrix. From Johanngeorgenstadt, Saxony, Germany. Specimen on display in the Natural History Museum, London.

Pale green globular mimetite aggregates with some very pale yellow wulfenite. From Ojuela Mine, Mexico. Specimen on display in the Natural History Museum, London.

106 of #365Minerals 🧪⚒️

Mimetite:
- A lead arsenate chloride mineral
- Forms in arsenic-bearing lead deposits
- Part of a mineral series with pyromorphite and vanadinite
- Its name comes from the Greek word "μϊμητής/mimetes" (imitator) since it looks like pyromorphite #minerals

Natural History Museum leads seaweed resilience research project - Oceanographic The UK's Natural History Museum has launched a project to protect seaweed farming in southeast Asia from the worst impacts of climate change.

#GlobalSeaweed-Protect researches biodiversity, aquaculture & sustainable livelihoods with Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Philippines: led by Juliet Brodie #NHMLondon plus @samsocean.bsky.social - @ukri.org funded

oceanographicmagazine.com/news/natural...

www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office...

Naturally curious? The team at @nhm-london.bsky.social developed our new on-demand, online learning platform naturallycurious.nhm.ac.uk

And we've been shortlisted for a Webby! Please do sign up and vote for us! vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting...

touch of the Dali sofa about those lips?

Re-examining Britain’s role in whaling | Natural History Museum Dr Sophia Nicolov explores what the Museum’s whale, dolphin and porpoise collection can tell us about Britain’s role in whaling.

Whaling and natural history collections - @sophianicolov.bsky.social explores skeletal evidence and tales of whales in her historical research in this #NHMScience blog, part of Natural History Museum's development of a Culture and Collections Theme www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/...

Screenshot of event listing mentioned in the post. It reads: 'From Cotton to Frogs: Reproductive Rights through Collections and Colonialism. Uncover hidden histories of reproductive health in this thought-provoking event exploring collections, culture and colonialism through storytelling and discussion.'

We're not just 🐋 and 🦕 at the Natural History Museum.

Looking forward to this Generation Hope event @ NHM on reproductive health & colonial history with an environmental lens. 3rd May. Speakers: me, Akosua Paries-Osei, Annabel Sowemimo, & Mitzi Jonelle Tan. www.nhm.ac.uk/events/from-...

#HistMed

Meiofauna - from https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/study/postgraduate/phd-opportunities/projects/meiofaunal-molecular-systematics.html

FREE COURSE: Field workshop on the taxonomy and natural history of freshwater and limno-terrestrial meiofauna

Apply now for a free place on the NHM NERC-funded upcoming short training course 27 Aug - 11 Sept. Applications close 31 May.

www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/...

Daphnia magna Dieter Ebert, Basel, Switzerland, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

FREE COURSE: Taxonomic skills and field techniques for freshwater ecology and quality. Apply now for a free place on the NHM NERC-funded upcoming short training course running 19-23 May. Applications close 24 April!

www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/...

An opaque, brown bastnäsite crystal showing parallel growth. From Pike's Peak, Colorado, USA. Specimen on display in the Natural History Museum, London.

Hexagonal, brown crystals of bastnäsite on a beige matrix. From West Cheyenne Cañon, Colorado, USA. Specimen on display in the Natural History Museum, London.

103 of #365Minerals

Bastnäsite:
- A group of three carbonate-fluoride mineral species which contain cerium, lanthanum or yttrium
- Forms in alkali granite and syenite
- Named after the type locality Bastnäs Mines in Västmanland, Sweden #minerals

Denisovan jawbone helps to reveal appearance of ancient human species | Natural History Museum The fossil expands the Denisovan's known range by thousands of kilometres and provides new insights into how this species looked.

A new Denisovan fossil has been found!

Remains of this ancient human species are rare, and generally found as bone fragments or individual teeth.

Now, a jawbone dredged from under the sea is revealing more about their lives. Find out what it shows 👇
www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

We were honoured yesterday to be a part of return of ancestral remains to Wathithi, Warrgama and Woppaburra representatives, who will take these Old People back to Country, also escorting ancestors from the Yadhaigana people and other communities in Queensland

www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office...

From phantom pregnancies to using frogs as pregnancy tests, medieval historian Dr. Isabel Davis joined BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour to discuss elements of her new book, "Conceiving Histories": www.bbc.com/audio/play/m...

And more about the impact of the chytrid fungi carried by the Clawed Toads, which escaping amphibians intended for testing use spread to other amphibian populations with devastating results www.bbcearth.com/news/how-a-p...

One of the histories in @drbeldavis.bsky.social book is the use of the African Clawed Toad in the mid-20th Century as a way of detecting human pregnancy, featured in the new @nhm-london.bsky.social exhibition Fixing Our Broken Planet

Listen to the gallery guide soundcloud.com/nhmlondon/st...

Conceiving Histories Inspired by the author's own experiences, Conceiving Histories brings together history, personal memoir, and illustration to investigate the culturally hidde...

The book Conceiving Histories by @drbeldavis.bsky.social is now published by MIT press

mitpress.mit.edu/978026204948...

Woman's Hour - Friendships, Nursery safety, Sudan - BBC Sounds Can friendships between three people work?

Conceiving Histories - our NHM colleague @drbeldavis.bsky.social discusses the ambiguities of pregancy over time on Woman's Hour BBCRadio4 from 44:46 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

#FossilFriday A beautiful 'seed fern' from the opening spread of the plant chapter in 'Fossils. The Essential Guide'.

Public Lecture - The Stegosaurian Dinosaurs YouTube video by The Geological Society

If you missed my public lecture on stegosaurs last night at the @geolsoc.bsky.social, you can watch it here: youtube.com/live/MqSROKj...

We're hiring! Are you our new Digital Systems Librarian? #NaturalHistoryMuseum #MuseumJobs #LibraryJobs #ArchiveJobs buff.ly/lAVSLg9

A photograph of items sitting on a table in the Library and Archives Reading room. In the foreground, a table with a laptop, a small pile of books and journals and open modern book showing images of butterflies. On the right is an open bound manuscript, with colour illustrations of caterpillars. It is resting on foam supports. In the background are wall to wall book shelves, a seated life sized model of Charles Darwin and computers on desks.

Become a member of our Library and Archives and use our Reading Room.

Gain access to:
✔️A wide range of online resources.
✔️A world leading collection of printed books, journals, unique manuscripts, artwork and archives.

✔️ L&A membership is free.

Learn more buff.ly/412DnR7.
#NaturalHistoryMuseum

Earthworm Watch: Insights Into Urban Earthworm Communities Join Dr Victoria J. Burton (Natural History Museum) to hear abou using citizen science to gain insights into UK urban earthworm communities.

I'm speaking on my @nhm-london.bsky.social community science #earthworm research in a free webinar with @biologicalrecording.co.uk on 24 March, sign up here: 🪱
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/earthworm-...

It is indeed - there are links at the bottom of the news story to more of the work from @adriftlab.bsky.social and @thelabandfield.bsky.social that give further cause for concern

CC BY Goswami & Clavel https://doi.org/10.1017/pab.2024.35 Linear, geometric, and landmark-free morphometric approaches, demonstrated on a 3D mesh of a mammal skull, Arctictis bintuong (MNHN 1936-1529) - the Binturong

Rapid advances in scanning technology and data analysis open up new understanding of evolution and form - Morphological evolution in a time of phenomics, from @evoswami.bsky.social & Julien Clavel

👉paper doi.org/10.1017/pab....

Plastic pollution causing dementia-like signs in seabird chicks | Natural History Museum Looking fit is no guarantee of health for one of the world’s most plastic polluted birds.

Seabirds in crisis: plastic ingestion produces dementia-like symptoms and signals of multiorgan failure: from @alixdejersey.bsky.social @seabirdsentinel.bsky.social @thelabandfield.bsky.social @adriftlab.bsky.social

👉news www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

👉paper www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Richard Fortey obituary Palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum who was also a bestselling science writer and accomplished TV presenter

We're saddened by the death of our colleague Richard Fortey last week - an inspirational palaeontologist, expert on trilobites, famous fungal enthusiast, and a much-valued part of #NHMLondon life. A Guardian obituary...

www.theguardian.com/science/2025...