London’s Natural History Museum Comes To MBS — And These Are 5 Secrets Of The Museum You Should Know Before You Go

Susan Holmes, 38, lead interpretation developer at the Natural History Museum. She’s responsible for selecting over 200 items from the London establishment’s 80mil (!) specimens for the ongoing Treasures of the Natural World exhibition at the ArtScience Museum.

Little wonder the selection process took about a year. "It was about making sure each object really tells an important story. So [each item] may have a cultural relevance, changed our understanding of the natural world, or is of continuing scientific value. Lots of objects have more than one story attached to them," Susan quips. Here are some fascinating stories to know so you can sound smart as you schlep around the exhibition.

This magnificent ornamental structure was displayed on the parapet of the museum’s garden in South Kensington until the 1980s. "The design of the museum in London is a bit like a cathedral, but a cathedral to nature. It’s covered with a terracotta of animals — one side is of living creatures, and another side is of things that are extinct," Susan explains.

“The Natural History Museum used to be part of the British Museum. To represent the fact that we split into separate institutions [in 1881], all the animal mummies went to the Natural History Museum, while all the human mummies stayed at the British Museum."

“[Famed 19th century English paleontologist and naturalist] Sir Richard Owen was the one who [first] gave dinosaurs their names. The first dinosaur discovered was the iguanodon. Owen was studying this particular specimen when he came up with the name ‘dinosaur’, which means terrible lizard. They’d thought that [dinosaurs] were huge lizard-like creatures. It’s not a beautiful specimen, but it’s really important."

“[The purple gem on the left] is called the cursed amethyst ’cos its owner [from a couple of hundred years ago] believed it was cursed. Every time he tried to get rid of it, it would find its way back to him. He finally donated it to the NHM and warned that because it was cursed, it should only be opened [from the seven layers of protective boxes he’d cased it in] after his death.”

"This Barbary lion skull was found in the moat of the Tower of London [in 1937]. It’s over 600 years old and comes from the royal menagerie — they had a royal zoo then, and it was the starting point for the London Zoo. This is the symbol of England — the royal beast, the lion. It was a gift to the king. The Barbary lion [formerly found in northern Africa] is actually extinct in the wild now, and this is all we have left of it."