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The Micrarium

A beautiful back-lit cave of 2300 microscope slides giving a glimpse of the vast diversity of animal life, nearly all of which is minute.

It’s often said that 95% of known animal species are smaller than your thumb, but have you noticed how most museums fill their displays with big animals? 

The Micrarium is somewhere to come and explore some of the 20,000 microscope slides at the Grant Museum. We have converted an old office/storeroom into a beautiful back-lit cave displaying 2,323 of the tiniest specimens in the collection as well as 252 of our favourite lantern slides. All in just 2.52 square metres.

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The slides mostly show whole small animals, or slices through whole small animals but there are some bits of bigger animals too. Can you find the platypus’ tooth or the mammoth's hair?

Also on display are slides from influential zoologists through the ages: J.P.Hill, R.B.Freeman, G.H. Fowler and D.M.S Watson to name a few.

Read more about the Micrarium on UCL News and in our blog

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