Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum - Richard Fortey

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no matter how obscure the book or paper in which it might have first appeared. If an author is unlucky enough to miss an earlier name for an organism then his own will be doomed, for there is an internationally accepted rule that says that the first published name has priority. An unnecessary younger name then disappears into what is termed synonymy. We have already seen that the valid literature goes back into the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, so it is not uncommon to find that a species has already been described somewhere else. A great library like that of the Natural History Museum is an enormous asset, because it holds all the old literature. Most university libraries do not. In this regard, systematic science is quite different from physics or chemistry or physiology, subjects in which old literature rapidly becomes obsolete. Most scientists will not cite references dating back more than a decade, and so they will be unfamiliar with the scholarly pleasures of browsing through old, leather-bound tomes. It is also a fact that old literature in taxonomy is often as beautifully illustrated as any modern production, particularly the plants, for the drawings of many of the botanical artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have never been surpassed. Old is not necessarily out of date. Some of my white-coated scientific friends find something amusingly antiquarian about this emphasis on the past, perhaps an image of pince-nez perched on aquiline noses snuffling around in ancient Serbian publications. It is only a little bit true. Most specialists build up personal libraries, and therefore save their legs, and time, in pounding the library floor. The internet has become a wonderful resource for accessing literature, which can now be posted well beyond the confines of the national libraries. There might come a time when all those miles of shelves will be available online from the comfort of home, although I somewhat sentimentally believe that there is an added value in the physical contact with old books. Whatever circumstances arise in future, the paper originals must be preserved and conserved, even though librarians roll their eyes at the sheer quantity of book storage, because cyberspace is not necessarily truthful, and the web can easily become a web of deceit.

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      The scanning electron microscope reveals countless unexpected details of taxonomic use. Two views of an orobatid mite larva Archegozetes that would fit onto a pinhead: a dorsal view of whole animal and a detail of the head region from below.

      Orobatid mite larva Archegozetes. Photo © Richard Thomas.

      It will be problematic indeed to dispense with libraries. At the moment there is a requirement that publications proposing new species should be deposited in one of the copyright libraries – which include our library in London, and the Library of Congress in Washington, and their French, German and Russian equivalents. This is some safeguard against rogue publications and authors setting up new species of animals or plants on spurious grounds. The other safeguard is the system of scientific peer refereeing through which papers submitted to most journals are supposed to pass. An independent reader anonymously says whether the potential publication will pass scientific muster. Neither is foolproof: self-published books can be sent to the libraries and refereeing can be bypassed or inefficient. The eccentric Scottish geologist Archie Lamont set up his own journal, the Scottish Journal of Science, which he published from his private cottage in the small village of Carlops. He could just about fulfil the conditions for valid publication, and he set up all kinds of odd-sounding genera of Cambrian trilobites with Scottish names, like Robroyia and Cealgach on the basis of miserable scraps. Tails might as well be figured as heads in these works. It has taken years to sort out the taxonomic mess. Almost any other group of organisms will potentially tell a similar tale. Mollusc shells are particularly popular, and the most beautiful of molluscs are unusual snails known as cowries. They show a wonderful and seemingly endless variety of colour patterns, speckled and painted in myriad ways. It is perhaps not surprising that amateur conchologists think they have discovered a new species, and seek the immortality acquired through naming one in publications for their fellow enthusiasts. Many of these claims do not bear close scrutiny, for pigment speckling varies naturally within populations, and not every pattern has a biological reality as a species characteristic. But to sort out the true situation requires all the facilities that a reference library has to offer, ungrateful work much of it, pernickety and irritating. All this labour may eventually be reflected in the small print of a list of synonyms; work at the coalface of taxonomy often lacks glamour.

      So now our specialist has carefully looked through the pages of a couple of dozen monographs and papers, comparing illustrations of many species with the specimen in front of him. Piles of old books and reprints of papers litter the office floor. He is convinced that the species he is looking at has never been seen before, based on his wide experience of ‘his’ organisms. It is a new species. He now needs to give it a technical description, illustrate it accurately, give it a new name and then get it published. He thinks that it is an exceptionally wonderful example of its genus, so he decides on the specific name mirabilis (Latin, ‘wonderful’, ‘marvellous’). He checks through all the publications before him; sadly, he finds that a Lithuanian Jesuit had already used the epithet mirabilis for a species of the same genus in 1896 in an obscure journal published in Vilnius; this species name is therefore unavailable, and he must find another one. Cursing slightly, he reaches for the Latin dictionary and finds repanda, ‘sought after’, instead; good – this one has never been used before, and it will suffice. The next few days are spent in writing an accurate description of the new species, in language as dry as a James Bond martini, with a differential diagnosis saying how it differs from all species known previously. The language is a disguise for the excitement of finding a species new to science, a formal cover-up, or an epistemological stiff upper lip. He might prepare careful drawings under the camera lucida, or supplement his accurate but slightly soulless drawings with photographs prepared by the Museum’s skilful studio photographers.

      The new species is almost ready to go to publication, but before it can be a valid addition to biodiversity some other important criteria have to be fulfilled. A specimen from the collection has to be selected as the ‘type specimen’; this is a unique specimen upon which the identity of the new species must ultimately rest. It is known technically as the holotype in animal taxonomy, and to be valid must be given an official museum number unique to it. Other specimens in the original collection identified by the author are paratypes. Together, these specimens constitute the type collection – the material that provides the material basis for a species’ identity in perpetuity: serious stuff. The type specimens are the scientific treasures behind the scenes of the Natural History Museum, a register of biodiversity, held for future generations. They are the ground truth for species in the natural world. Scientists who wish to know whether they are really dealing with the same species will, in the end, have to refer to the types for a definitive opinion. Is this weed that has suddenly taken over crop fields in South America a European invader? Is this fossil ammonite the same as one described in the early nineteenth century from Dorset – and hence are the rocks from which it came likely to be the same age? Is this fly that is plaguing cattle in Namibia the same as one from Libya, and if so how did it get there? Ultimately, the resolution of such questions means that the original specimens have to be examined. Once again, the web is making some difference to how this works out in practice, since it is possible to visit collections in virtual reality. But many fine details – like tiny hairs and microscopic characters – will probably never be accessible over the web. Then there are the sheer numbers involved. A recent estimate puts the London museums’ holdings of types at about 670,000; it would be a vast undertaking to put them all online. Originally, the Natural History Museum hung on to its types as firmly as the original BM hangs on to the Elgin Marbles. But now in more enlightened times type specimens can travel to recognized sister institutions and bona fide workers. And of course the latter are always welcome as visitors to the vaults. This process probably helps more than anything else in recognizing synonyms, and improving the global standard of taxonomy. So the spoils of Empire have now become a global resource, one that should be recognized by all international bodies concerned with biodiversity.

      Scientists deposit their type specimens in the Natural History Museum, or its equivalents elsewhere in the world, because

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