The Micrarium

Grant Museum of Zoology

A sparse sapling stands alone, silhouetted by the gilded light of a sunset reflected across the calm waters of a winter lake... The image above is none of these things. Firstly, that branching structure is a colony of tiny animals, related to jellyfish, and more commonly known as a ‘feathering hydroid’. Secondly, that is not some kind of antique photographic plate but an old microscope glass slide, lit from behind to bring out the detail and the rich colour of an aging preservative and fixing medium.

Most museums of natural history display the big attention-grabbing specimens in pride of place. The public love to see a fossil dinosaur skeleton, a whale hanging from the gallery ceiling, perhaps an animatronic mammoth... but big animals make up only a tiny percentage of life on earth and the great majority of creatures are smaller than your fingernail.

In London’s Grant Museum of Zoology, there is a fascinating installation known as The Micrarium that celebrates a token 2,323 of these tiny wonders — just a tiny percentage of the 20,000 or more microscope slides held in the collection which dates back two centuries and includes many historic slides prepared by the influential naturalists and biologist who have worked and taught at University College London such as R.B Freeman, G.H Fowler, D.M.S Watson, and J.P Hill — who prepared…