FINE SPECIMENS

Museums such as the ROM often include specimen collection as a core part of their mission statement. So funding for those collections is more stable than it is for specimens maintained by one or a handful of academics at universities and colleges — collections that are constantly at risk of fading into oblivion, experts say.

Yet museums aren’t immune to financial pressures: a report in Nature last year discussed the scientific implications of shrinking budgets and curatorial staff, even at major institutions.

Some museums that have fallen on hard times have put their collections into caretaking mode, maintaining the specimens but making them unavailable to scientists. In other cases, disasters have stricken major collections.

The Smithsonian The Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History has an astounding 126 million items in its collection. Martha, the last living passenger pigeon, who died in 1914, is one of them. For the centenary of her death, the Smithsonian made a 360-degree digital view of the bird available online. Pufferfish samples at the Smithsonian are being used as part of a federal U.S. program to try to prevent human poisoning from these toxic fish.

The Natural History Museum The London museum calls itself “the world’s most important natural history collection,” housing more than 80 million specimens. Over the next five years, staff plan to digitize a quarter of the specimens, starting with more than 500,000 butterflies and moths. They hope the freely available resource will help scientists worldwide answer vital questions, but anyone can access the museum’s data portal.

The Field Museum This Chicago institution is home to Sue, the largest known Tyrannosaurus rex specimen. The museum struggled with highly publicized budget problems in recent years, and according to a report in Nature News, the number of curators dropped from 39 in 2001 to 21 last year. (They were not alone: Nature said the Smithsonian dropped from 122 curators in 1993 to 81 more recently.) But in 2015 the museum also announced the three largest philanthropic gifts in its history, including $10 million (U.S.) for a centre to manage the 27 million specimens in its collection.

The Butantan Institute A 2010 fire at this collection in Sao Paulo, Brazil, destroyed 85,000 snake specimens and 450,000 scorpion and spider specimens. The Butantan had been one of the world’s top collections of venomous animals, which had been used to produce antidotes and vaccines, as well as for zoological research. Kate Allen