Museum

Museum

A museum, in the biological sense used here, is a repository where collections of preserved plant and animal specimens are kept for study and display. Smaller plant and animal material is commonly preserved in formalin (a 10% to 40% solution of formaldehyde) inside transparent jars, which are then labelled just like herbarium sheets or botanical-garden plants. Larger animals — such as birds and mammals — are usually preserved differently: they are stuffed and mounted, a specialised technique known as taxidermy. Specimens may also simply be dried and exhibited directly, without any liquid preservative.

Beyond jars of preserved material and stuffed animals, museums commonly hold other kinds of systematic biological collections as well — for example, collections of shells, animal skeletons, and boxed insect collections. …