Note: this website is still being built, so not all of the exhibits are listed yet.
[specimen collected and stuffed sometime during the nineteenth century]
Caption: This is a wandering albatross, which has the largest wingspan of any living bird at an average of 3.1 metres (10.2 feet). It is a tragic as well as a magnificent sight, but one that we can learn from. We can resolve not to kill sentient animals in the future for the sake of collecting specimens. We can also acknowledge that before our own era of sophisticated photography, such specimens did have considerable educational value. Almost all of the specimens in this exhibition were collected in Darwin’s day, two of them by Darwin himself. The curator of this exhibition believes that they still have educational value. Most albatrosses live in the Southern Ocean, with a few species in the north Pacific, but none in the north Atlantic. They are monogamous, and raise a single chick at a time, which the parents take turns to travel vast distances to provision with food. Albatrosses spend years learning and perfecting their elaborate courtship rituals. They form pair-bonds which last for life. Specimen kindly on loan from the Department of Zoology, Ecology and Plant Science, UCC
And what are the boasted glories of the illimitable ocean? A tedious waste, a desert of water, as the Arabian calls it. No doubt there are some delightful scenes. A moonlight night, with the clear heavens and the dark glittering sea, and the white sails filled by the soft air of a gently blowing trade-wind; a dead calm, with the heaving surface polished like a mirror, and all still except the occasional flapping of the canvas. It is well once to behold a squall with its rising arch and coming fury, or the heavy gale of wind and mountainous waves … At sea the albatross and little petrel fly as if the storm were their proper sphere, the water rises and sinks as if fulfilling its usual task, the ship alone and its inhabitants seem the objects of wrath.
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle,
Chapter XXI: ‘Mauritius to England’
250 million years old
Icthyosaurus is from the Liassic (Lower Jurassic) age, probably from the Lyme Regis beds in Dorset. This fossil, part of the UCC Geology Museum collection, was found by Mary Anning, the “princess of paleontology”. The daughter of a carpenter, she joined her father and her brother Joseph on fossil-hunting exhibitions around their West Dorset home. The wooden case is likely to have been made by her brother.
Miss Anning as a child ne’er passed
a pin upon the groun';
But picked it up, and so at last
An ichthyosaurus found.
J.W. Preston, 1884
CONVERGENT EVOLUTION
Quite often, members of one species come to resemble members of another, distantly-related species. What makes them look so similar is not a shared ancestry but a shared way of life. For example, so-called “hummingbird” moths are only very distantly related to hummingbirds, but they look very similar because they get food in the same way – by hovering in front of flowers to suck out nectar. This pattern of similarity recurs all over the living world. Marsupial moles are very similar in appearance and behaviour to common (i.e. placental) moles, with large claws on their front legs for digging, small eyes, and so on, because they share a way of life.
The ichthyosaur (whose fossilized remains are on display in the case behind you) has a long, toothed jaw that resembles that of the modern dolphin. There are also striking similarities in overall shape. It is hard to resist the conclusion the ichthyosaur was an “ancient version” of the modern dolphin, occupying a similar niche in ancient seas.
under the command of
Captain Fitzroy, R.N., during the years 1832 to 1836: Published with
the approval of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury
edited and superintended by Charles Darwin, Esq.
London: Published by Smith, Elder and Co., 1839–1843
UCC Library Special Collections OPB f 576.8 DARW pt.1– pt. 5
This page shows a Watercolour by Admiral Robert Fitzroy (1805–1865) from The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle, edited by Darwin, the
naturalist on HMS Beagle during its voyage of 1832–1836, the purpose
of which was to make a scientific survey of the South American waters.
Darwin named this dolphin Delphinus fitzRoyii after Robert Fitzroy the
Beagle’s captain.
FitzRoy is best remembered for his contributions to meteorology,
particularly forecasting. The popular so-called ‘Fitzroy barometers’,
consisting of a siphon barometer with attached thermometer and
Fitzroy’s Rules, are distinct from the coastal barometers; the former
were manufactured only after his death and were still being made in
the late twentieth century. His name was given to several geographical
features in Patagonia and Australia, and on 4 February 2002 a shipping
forecast area off north-west Spain (previously Finisterre) was named
after him.
The two specimens on display, the Patagonian Cavy and Azara’s Opossum, were collected by Charles Darwin in Maldonado, Patagonia in South America during the HMS Beagle voyage (1831–1836).
Darwin donated his entire mammal collection to the museum of the Zoological Society of London. When this museum dispersed in 1855 the collection was passed on to the British Natural History Museum, also in London. These two specimens were purchased in 1855 by the President of Queen’s College Cork, Sir Robert Kane, and the then museum curator, Robert Harkness. It is believed that it was not known that these were specimens from Darwin’s voyage when they were bought, having been overlooked by the British Museum during the transfer from the Zoological Society. It was not until 1982, largely through the efforts of the then curator Dr Eamonn Twomey, that these specimens became recognised as part of the Darwin Collection.
Specimens kindly on loan from the Department of Zoology, Ecology and Plant Science, UCC
The Patagonian Cavy is really a very large guinea pig. It is unusual in being one of the few monogamous mammals. Arguably, humans are another monogamous mammal
Azara’s Opossum is a marsupial. We tend to associate marsupials with Australia, but they are also found in South America, and the opossum is one of very few marsupials found in North America. This distribution of marsupials lends support to the theory of Continental Drift that was developed some time after Darwin’s death. It is a matter of some speculation, but it is generally held that marsupials first evolved on a large continent comprising land that later split into South America, Antarctica, India and Australia. Marsupials first emerged in what is now South America. Then they made their way across what is now Antarctica to what is now Australia, where they thrived in the absence of placental mammals. They died out in what is now India. A small number of them crossed the land bridge that formed when South America drifted northwards to meet North America. Some philosophers of science think that this happy coincidence or “meshing” of two originally disparate theories is important. Both theories win some extra credibility by unexpectedly agreeing with one another. The richer the network of such connections between scientific theories, the more compelling is the evidence that science is slowly uncovering the one true picture of the world as it really is.
Rare First Edition
Darwin’s diary notes: ‘1250 copies printed. The first edition was published on November 24th, and all copies sold first day.’
The book was purchased for the library at the time of publication, and is furnished with the Armorial bookplate of the Library, Queen’s College Cork. Origin is listed in the Classified Catalogue of the Books of the Library of Queen’s College Cork (1860) under the subject heading “Miscellaneous Treatises on Botany and Zoology”.
It was on the open shelves of UCC library and available for students to borrow up to the 1960s!
UCC Library Special Collections: U311
12th edition (1766)
This book’s full title is Systema naturæ per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis which translates as “System of nature through the three kingdoms of nature, according to classes, orders, genera and species, with [generic] characters, [specific] differences, synonyms, places”.
The tenth edition of this book is considered the starting point of Zoological Nomenclature.
UCC Library Special Collections: B 200 LINN v.1 & v.2
First Edition
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex by Charles Darwin… in two volumes with illustrations
London : Murray, 1871.
UCC Library Special Collections: BIOL 100 Darw. v. 1 and 2
SEXUAL SELECTION
The subject of Darwin’s first masterpiece On the Origin of Species was natural selection. Natural selection is the process by which the environment shapes living things. The subject of his second great work The Descent of Man was sexual selection. In sexual selection, living things actively choose their mates. This process is not “blind” like pure natural selection, because it can involve a rudimentary form of aesthetic judgement.
One might argue that living things can exhibit two kinds of beauty: the “functional” beauty that results from natural selection, and the “ornamental” beauty that results from the exercise of rudimentary aesthetic judgement. For example, insects choose which flowers to pollinate, a process that results in increasingly “ornamental” flowers.
The most obvious example of an ornament of sexual selection is the
peacock’s tail. Peahens prefer peacocks with more elaborate tails,
even though the very long tail is a “handicap” in the sense that it
shortens the peacock’s life expectancy.
Recently, some evolutionary theorists have argued that such ornaments
evolve because they are a handicap rather than in spite of being a
handicap, because they reliably signal genetic goodness. (If you can
afford a car that “sets you back a bit”, you must be financially
secure!)
Dublin : Printed by Alex. Thom & Sons, 1860.
A classified catalogue of the books contained in the library of the
Queen’s College, Cork, with a supplement, bringing it down to November
1st 1860. Note the entry for On the Origin of Species, at the top of
page 36.
UCC Library Special Collections: MP 96
A Paris : De l’Imprimerie royale, 1770–1786.
UCC Library Special Collections: OPB f 598 BUFF v.1– v.10
Georges-Louis Lelerc, Comte de Buffon, the David Attenborough of
eighteenth century France, set out to catalogue and explain all
aspects of life on earth, animal, vegetable and mineral. His 36
volumes of natural history made him a household name. His importance
as a contributor to the history of ideas was acknowledged by Darwin.
Buffon’s bird volumes are dazzling, containing nearly 1,000 plates,
illustrating the diversity of birds from around the known world,
including much of Europe and Asia and the fringes of North America,
Africa and Australia. The beauty and realism of the depictions is
startling when you realise that Buffon and his team would never have
seen some of the more exotic birds on the wing. They had to work from
bird skins, some not even stuffed into a semblance of their true form.
© 2010 Jeremy W Bowman