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. 

Pyrite crystal by MuseumWales on Flickr.

Scanning Electron Micrograph of a pyrite crystal.