Mike G. Rutherford

Happy #DarwinDay I've had a lovely delve into nature today from cataloguing cone shells to photographing sharks teeth and from identifying anglerfish to processing some owl bones. It's good to be a curator. Ain't evolution wonderful!?! 😊🦉🦈🐚🐡

I spent Superb Owl weekend making a nesting box for the tawny owls in my woods, nice to use up some scrap materials, now the wait to see if it's acceptable. I know owls are there as I see them coming for midnight baths in the wee pond I installed but will they want to raise chicks here? 🤞🦉

Spent a good many hours this break on my favourite hobby of removing used tree guards from my local woods. Found several with piles of seeds eaten by rodents inside and one with a dead squirrel trapped inside. Further study needed. #woodlandtrust

One day I will work in a museum that doesn't leak, but it is not this day!

It's #WorldAnteaterDay today so what better time to reunite the giant anteater skeleton in the UofG Zoology Museum with its missing hyoid bone. The bone had been stored separately for decades as unidentified. Now I just need some glue and wire to reattach it...

I've had the privilege and pleasure to be based at the Mpala Research Centre in Kenya for the last two weeks whilst teaching on a field course. I love the bone and skull rack they have outside and spent a pleasant afternoon searching through it.

Here's our siamang in the Hunterian Zoology Museum for #InternatiionalGibbonDay. The biggest species of gibbon but like many others also Endangered.

It's #InternationalWombatDay! This is the skull of an adult male common wombat from Tasmania, it was collected in 1966 and donated to the Hunterian, University of Glasgow. Unlike all other marsupials they only have a single pair of upper and lower incisors which grow continuously.

#WorldGorillaDay today, so here's the skull of an adult male gorilla. It was prepared by Rouppert of Paris to show the tooth roots. Purchased by the University of Glasgow Zoology Department in 1921.

It's #WorldRhinoDay so here's the skull of a Javan rhinoceros from the University of Glasgow collections. The front has been cut away. Rarest of all rhino species, they are Critically Endangered with about 50 animals left in the world. Poaching, habitat loss and inbreeding being the biggest threats.

A day late but I still want to celebrate #InternationalRedPandaDay2025 with this specimen from Uni of Glasgow collections. Called a Himalayan Racoon on the label, collected in 1891 in Tonglu, West Bengal, India by Col. L.A. Waddell. They're threatened by habitat loss and poaching.

Partly answered my own question, I think they are rough shark jaws, Oxynotus genus.

It's #WorldMantaDay so here's a specimen from the UofG collections, a close up of the gill rakers of a giant devil ray - Mobula mobular. They came from a 152kg fish caught in the Med in 2009. Manta and devil rays are endangered, by-catch and consumption of rakers for TCM being the biggest threats.

Having trouble identifying some shark jaws in the University of Glasgow collections, they were originally part of the Dental School collection. They are about 8 cm wide, each of the big teeth is about 1 cm. Any help? #shark #teeth

Just visited The Stewartry Museum in Kirkcudbright, lovely wee natural science collection with some great dried/taxidermied fish.

Just in time for the end of World Oceans Day 2025. A common northern comb jelly, I saw lots of them on a snorkel in Eyemouth Bay the other week, beautiful but tricky to get in focus.

Working on the Materia Medica collection today, mostly plant based but does include these jars of dried snake venom, from a cobra and a viper. Collected in 1902 by a Capt. Lamb, probably in India. I wonder if he extracted it himself or if an unnamed local person did the dangerous part? #snakevenom

Happy Old Croone Day! Sharing one of my favourite spirit specimens in the UofG collection in memory of William Croone presenting dog embryos preserved in alcohol to the Royal Society of London in 1662. It was the beginning of scientific fluid preservation. I'll have a wee dram later to celebrate 😉

Hello. Time to introduce myself, here I am with a piece of blue whale baleen from the University of Glasgow collections where I'm Curator of Zoology & Anatomy. The plate was donated by Salvesen & Co whaling company in 1925, making it 100 years old, which is exactly twice my age as today is my 50th!