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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Great to seeing the word go out - come visit!

Back of bus with advert for University Museum of Zoology Cambridge

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Cinnabar moth caterpillars doing their work on the ragwort

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

One of the things I love about coming to Burgundy is seeing the high density of martins and swallows, and their nests. Reminds me of my childhood in England when we still had lots of insects

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Which wombat? Wonderful and contrasting examples of taxidermy based on different evidence bases at the Great North Museum

A taxidermy wombat interpreted as bipedal

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Happy Pride! Great fun judging the Neighbourhood Pride Bake-off - and for a great cause! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🌈🧁🍰🥮

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Happy Pride 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Month! The natural world is full of diversity, and I’m delighted that @zoologymuseum.bsky.social we celebrate this and can show you some highlights beyond the binary. Come and visit!

A poster for pride in nature tours at the University Museum of Zoology Cambridge

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Prepping for another roasting day!

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

It’s World Bee 🐝 Day! A day to celebrate these amazing insects, and to reflect on how we can support wild populations of 🐝 🐝 for the future. Museum collections are key in showing where bees used to be, setting baselines to understand impacts of stressors and set restoration/conservation targets

A tray of pinned bumblebee specimens from the UMZC

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

To celebrate International Day of Families, a reminder from @zoologymuseum.bsky.social that families come in all shapes and sizes. From life-mated sea horses with paternal care, through oil bird nuclear families, to the mostly female families of social insects, to brooding male sea spiders, & beyond

Oil bird specimens with neat and offspring

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

My morning commute has been heralded by these glorious singers for weeks - sound on 🤩

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Happy 100th Birthday to Sir David Attenborough from the @zoologymuseum.bsky.social He studied here, re-opened us after our renovation in 2018, loaned his famous reconstructed elephant bird egg to us to share with visitors, and has inspired us all to love and protect biodiversity around the globe 😍

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

A May Day swarm 🐝 There’s a queen 🫅 in there somewhere!

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Happy Beltane! As well as 🔥 this ancient Gaelic festival is associated with animals, including cattle, hares, swallows, and honey bees - all signs of spring, food, and fertility. Cultural associations like this shape how we think and feel about animals. What do these museum specimens do for you?

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

It’s Earth Day. This year’s focus is community action, so let’s look at specimens where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The amazing architecture of corals and wasp nests emerges from combined actions of many individuals. Let’s be inspired by nature to make the world a better place!

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

I was lucky enough to spend some time with our Entomology collection this week, and sometimes it’s the small things that stick. This is a case of ladybirds 🐞 collected by Alfred Russell Wallace (www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/who...) who co-discovered the idea of natural selection and evolution. Just wow 🤩

Pinned ladybirds from the UCMZ that were collected by Alfred Russell Wallace

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Homes and a cloud of sand martins - always uplifted by how small interventions can have big impacts on biodiversity. Great work at Webbs Hole Sluice - incorporate their homes in your industrial architecture and they will come. So, what small thing can each of us do to make a difference?

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Cambridge histories through blur plaques

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

I’ve been thinking about scale this week. And that’s something zoology museums are great at helping us grasp. Many of our public specimens are arranged to help people understand the physical range of closely related animals, so I thought I’d share some of my favourites @zoologymuseum.bsky.social

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

It’s Family Day at the Museum, with lots of fun activities. Having a great time being a volunteer for the day @zoologymuseum.bsky.social

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Today is the International Day of Happiness, a chance to reflect on what makes us happy. Right now, working with all my amazing new colleagues @zoologymuseum.bsky.social @camzoology.bsky.social makes me 😍. This leopard seal is also very happy, and would love to have you visit. What makes you happy?

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Today is World Sleep Day 😴 and in celebration of that, here are some of the snooziest animals in the world @zoologymuseum.bsky.social

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

So, marsupials are in the news this week, with the discovery of a new genus of possum in New Guinea. Museum specimens were key to the identification of this new species. So, here’s our lovely ring-tailed possum, a relative of the new discovery. For more, read on: theconversation.com/meet-tous-an...

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Katarzyna Biala (European Environment Agency) gives a final stakeholder perspective and suggests how we can build for the future across scales and costs of action and inaction @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting #bee 🐝 🪰 🦋

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Delphine Depeux (European Landowners Organisation) gives a stakeholder view and landowner perspective on the context for pollinator conservation - it is a land management conversation delivered through partnership @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting #bee 🐝 🪰 🦋

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Zafarani Uwingabire (Dijon) digs into the important detail of how world views impact effective pollinator conservation - we need to understand this to get conservation right @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting #bee 🐝 🪰 🦋

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Rene van der Wal (SLU): pollinators mean different things to different people, enabling multiple actors to gather; if we define the ‘right’ pollinator, we lose the chance to engage the multiple parts of society needed to generate effective conservation @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting 🐝 🪰 🦋

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Now Lorenzo Marini (Uni Padua) tells us how total wild bee abundance can be a good indicator for wild species richness, and so a valuable monitoring tool, particularly for citizen/community scientists @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting #bee 🐝

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Dirk Maes (Butterfly Conservation Europe) talks about how the Grassland Butterfly Index is generated, the trends in butterfly abundance it identifies, and how to mitigate and reverse butterfly declines in Europe @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting 🦋

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Simon Potts (Uni Reading) introduces understudied pressures and focuses on traffic impacts on pollinators in Europe @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting - clear recommendations to enhance pollinators (see new paper at bottom of last photo) #bee 🐝 🦋 🪰

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

@ingolfsteffan.bsky.social (who led the project) shows what factors in protected areas and the landscapes around them drive pollinator populations in Europe @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting - identifying drivers enable conservation actions to enhance pollinators #bee 🐝 🦋 🪰

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Olli Schweiger (Leipzig) explains what factors drive large-scale distribution in bees, and how extreme climate events can drive local declines and collapse in pollinator populations - but also how we can mitigate against such dangers @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting #bee 🐝 🦋 🪰

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Niamh Phelan (IUCN) shows the red list of pollinator taxonomists in Europe @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting - saving pollinators requires pollinator experts #bee 🐝 🦋 🪰

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Denis Michez (Mons University) follows up at the @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting by updating us on the status of wild bees and hover flies across Europe #bee 🐝 🦋 🪰 - key message, we now have distributional data to underpin conservation strategies for wild bees and hover flies across Europe

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Andreas Gumbert (EU DG Environment) kicks off the @safeguard-pollinators.eu final meeting by summarising the state of European policy, driven by years of local, national, and EU-level research #bee 🐝 🦋 🪰

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

It’s World Pangolin Day tomorrow! Why isn’t there an emoji for pangolins? In its absence, here are some pangolins from the @zoologymuseum.bsky.social Museum specimens help define species distributions, aid conservation action, and make a world where we have a better chance of seeing live pangolins 😍

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

When your collection derives from a series of sea-borne expeditions, how do you present that? The Regional Natural History Museum in Turin came up with a great solution - this exhibition mocks up the inside of a boat, with each booth representing an expedition @zoologymuseum.bsky.social

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

@dollyjorgensen.bsky.social we so enjoyed your talk at the @zoologymuseum.bsky.social and so I wondered if you’d seen the bird pairs in the Zoology Museum of Turin University? No consistent height hierarchy in the displays of these birds of paradise

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

The zoology collection in Turin shares the same building as the herbarium, and I thought this was the most beautiful display @zoologymuseum.bsky.social

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

The Turin Uni Zoology Museum also has a fin whale, which is 1m longer than ours, but lacks the baleen (side by side for comparison) @zoologymuseum.bsky.social

Fin whale skeleton at Turin Uni Zoology Museum

Fin whale skeleton at Cambridge University Zoology Museum

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

I also really enjoyed the taxidermy in the Turin Uni Zoology Museum @zoologymuseum.bsky.social

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

In Turin for the @wildposh.eu AGM, and the Uni Zoology Museum was next door, so what could I do but visit at lunchtime. So, bonus museum posts coming! I loved this amazing light-enhanced elephant (definitely worth watching the whole video) @zoologymuseum.bsky.social

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Ants 🐜 are my first scientific love, so this week’s post is a reminder of the little creatures that run the world! Ants are dominant predators, herbivores, and ecosystem engineers around the planet. We couldn’t live without them. And they’re also beautiful! @zoologymuseum.bsky.social

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