Muton

umzoology:

Passerina caerulea  (formerly Guiraca caerulea)

There are some minor details that are a wonder to come across — like finding a specimen whose taxonomic name has changed over time, or seeing a hyphenated ‘85 written on a tag and knowing it means 1885.  A few days ago while I was killing some downtime I decided to play the “What’s in this cabinet?” game and came across this beautiful Grosbeak, looking stunning at 127 years old.  Apparently this individual at one point was donated from The University of Arizona and now has a place in diversifying our collections. 

stilllifequickheart:

Itô Jakuchû

Golden Pheasant in the Snow

18th century

fireaboveicebelow:

Dried parakeet 

umzoology:

Haliaeetus leucocephalus

As you may know, I graduated from The UM last Spring with a BFA in painting.  That is kind of a jump to Zoology, but my art degree was what first tuned me in to the museum, as I was initially using it as a referential resource for animal illustration.  Over the last year I’ve brought a lot of my artist friends with me to the museum, but none have done the specimens and individuals of the collections justice like my friend Louis has with his beautiful photographs.  They truly are wonderful depictions of our museum, and I hope to share more of his photographs of the specimens through this blog in the future.  In the meantime,  check out his awesome website!