Today, we've got a very special specimen arriving to take his base in this Barrett collection. It's called the spirit collection.
Because it contains specimens stored in alcohol. It's an unusual job, I've been doing it now for a little over 40 years.
But the surprises still come. The Museum's been lucky to obtain a Greenland shark stranded in the UK.
The sheer practicality of moving that means all hands on deck for us curators. So, we've gathered together to shift their specimen to a place where we can preserve it in a more permanent way for the collections.
The problem with sharks is because they're spindle-shaped, it's might quite difficult to get to lift them nicely. Because if you put straps underneath them they tend to slide out.
So dropping the shark would be one thing that could happen. I'll come on the back.
I can't believe it. It's got two days to thaw and then we'll make an incision.
But for parasites, do all the things we want to do before it gets preserved, and it'll take its place alongside our other specimens. Because we've got one of the biggest and best collections in the world, people have come from all over the place to look at it, to examine the specimens and to extract information from them.
We have one researcher, he's been coming in from Bath University who's very interested in the shape and structure of fish nostrils. He's hoping that might have applications for designing some robotic underwater device and then detect chemicals.
So who knows. Now, we should have had them closer together.
