Fish and Ships

This was a day that had a few scheduling mishaps (not by our doing - blame the British Natural History Museum), yet everyone seemed to have a grand time. Breakfast was a light continental breakie at the hostel, and then we headed off across Hyde Park (on foot) to our appointments at the Royal Geographic Society and the British Museum.

On the way, we stopped at the Prince Albert Memorial in Hyde Park - an impressive  monument erected by Queen Victoria to her late husband. Lots of remarkable sculpture.

Then we left half the group at the Royal Geographic Society, where we got a great look at some of the artifacts that expeditions sponsored by the Royal Geographic Society had generated. On the way in, we stopped for a photo next to a statue of Livingstone, an important figure who connects Britain and Zambia.

The RGS sponsored many expeditions to Africa in the 19th century, ostensibly to find the source of the Nile and to map other important waterways that could be used for economic gain. Zambia is specifically connected to the Royal Geographic Society via the expeditions of David Livingstone.

Livingstone was the first European to make a drawing of Victoria Falls, which he named for Queen Victoria long after seeing it and drawing it. Indigenous Africans call it “Mosi-oa-Tunya” - “The Smoke that Thunders.” It is remarkable to see his original drawing, especially since we will be viewing the Falls ourselves in less than a week!

Before Livingstone died in Zambia (where his heart and other innards were buried) he was lost in Africa, and Queen Victoria sent Henry Morton Stanley off to find him. When he did, Stanley purportedly tipped his hat and said the apocryphal line, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume.” The hats that Livingstone and Stanley were wearing were there at the RGS, along with Livingstone’s compass.

Then we were off to the British Natural History Museum. Like nearly all things in Britain, they don’t call it British, they just call it THE Natural History Museum. How bold. 

Anyhow, we had a remarkable visit in the exhibits, and also took behind-the-scenes tours of the collections.

We got a good introduction to the remarkable collections at the NHM, but the basic components of the collection were also not totally foreign to our students, since we have a Zoology Museum at NMU. Most of NMU’s collection is in dry study skins, so it was cool to see the spirit (alcohol-stored) collections. This series of embryonic humpback whales was amazing.

We got to see “Archie,” the Giant Squid specimen, and here you see the comparison between the suckers on the giant squid (bottom) and the colossal squid (top). We note that during our visit, Prince Harry and Princess Meghan announced the name of their baby was Archie-something-something-something. Coincidence?

The specimens of the coelacanth were exciting to see, as this sarcopterygian is an early representative on our ancestral tetrapod lineage.

Probably the highlight of the tour, however, was seeing specimens collected by Darwin on the historic voyage the HMS Beagle. It was on that 5-year voyage where he collected hundreds of specimens and began to develop his new and revolutionary ideas about evolution by natural selection. Although those ideas were controversial for about a decade in Darwin’s time, they quickly became accepted as scientific fact, just as they are now. Without this explanatory theory, none of the rest of Biology makes any sense (to steal from Dobzhansky).

We all made our way back to the hostel, had dinners of our choice (Thai, Indian, Greek cuisine were all favorites) and went to bed. Tomorrow (Friday) is a free day, and different groups of students plan to do different things. Some are headed to the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, others to the London Zoo, and still others to Westminster Abbey and Big Ben/Parliament. We won’t have much to post from Friday, or Saturday, as on Saturday we check out of the hostel and start our long flight to Zambia. Exciting!