I made a long anticipated, long overdue visit to Ipswich Museum. It is one of those regional treasures, crammed with original Victorian enthusiasm for building a monument to share the wonders of the world with all members of the public. The entrance hall alone is awe inspiring. Photos really can't do it justice, so I engaged a very talented artist* to try to share the beauty of the exhibition hall. Yes, that's a giraffe! Next to him is a rhino, and a case of gorillas, and in

Some bones just give you a look. It is often the primates, but some skulls seemespecially expressive, and just catch your attention. This "enigmatic gibbon" is the Grant Museum blog specimen of the week. and I can't stop looking at it. It is like it is begging for a returned glance of mutual understanding. He reminds me of an immature gorilla at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. An archaeologist friend assures me that some skulls "smile". I won't say more. I wi

One of the most engaging exhibits at the Oxford Museum of Natural History is this skull. It is a juvenile Western Gorilla, looking out of one of the glass cases with as much curiosity as I looked in. It is noted in the database as Gorilla savagii - which along with King Kong helped give the impression that gorillas were savage. No more so than humans. Specifically the Thomas Savage who collected many of the early specimens in the 1840s, which were taxonomically named in his h