Description
The Museum of Life Sciences exists to celebrate and explain the diversity of animal and plant life in the context of the biological and health sciences. This little-known part of the heritage of King’s College London is the first new museum in the College for over 100 years. Opened in 2009, it brings together historic biological and pharmaceutical collections from the constituent colleges that make up the modern College.
Specimens date from the early 19th century to the present and include skeletal material, fluid-preserved items, taxidermy, dried material, fossils and fossil casts, microscope and 35mm slides as well as a herbarium of plant material. They come from a variety of habitats around the world from the arctic to the tropics, from the deep sea to the Russian steppes. The material has been collected mainly for teaching and research over the history of the college.
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Features
- Free
- Host birthday parties: No
Features
The Collections: The specimens are currently arranged into a number of distinct collections.
- Zoological Collection: This eclectic collection covers the whole taxonomic range of the animal kingdom and shows a variety of methods of preservation and display of the specimens.
- Botanical Collection: Although relatively small, the Botanical Collection has representatives from all the major groups of plants and algae. Herbarium specimens include collections of British wild flowers and algae from the USA.
- Pharmaceutical Collection: This comprises over 1000 pressed plants as well as dried and fluid preserved plant specimens, many with medicinal properties. There is a small collection of Pharmacy artefacts.
- Microscope Slide Collection: The many microscope slides include histological preparations and whole organisms of biological specimens from all animal taxa and many plant taxa.
- Craniofacial Skeletal Collection: This part of the Museum collection is housed in the Dental Institute. It comprises a comprehensive range of specimens illustrating the evolution and adaptation of vertebrate skulls, jaws and teeth.
Musings from the Museum:
- It's no fluke: In the natural world, things are not always quite what they appear to be at first sight. This is certainly true in the case of one specimen from the Dawes Collection of parasitic helminths, in the Museum of Life Sciences at King’s College London.
- Half a billion years: The Museum of Life Sciences at King’s College London often claims that its collections include specimens dating back 150 years. That historical perspective, in fact, underplays the true scope of our coverage through time.
- Beetle-mania: A quick quiz question: "What interest is shared by the Museum of Life Sciences, the Marquis de Sade and, according to some, God?’’
Outreach: The Museum uses its range of expertise and wide variety of specimens to promote the Life Sciences to communities outside the King’s College through Open Days and especially to local schools through a series of workshops.
0.19 miles
