Typical. You wait years for an enormous whale skeleton to be hung in the entrance hall of a museum, then two come along at once.
First it was the Natural History Museum in London, which last summer unveiled the bones of a 25-metre blue whale suspended from the vaulted ceiling of its entrance hall.
Now the has followed suit with a 21-metre fin whale skeleton, which completely fills the space above your head in the lobby of this elegantly-refurbished jewel. The museum, which has been on the same site since 1865, closed five years ago for a much-needed facelift. It reopens this weekend with £4.1 million worth of investment behind it. Every penny appears to have been well spent.
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Like the blue whale in London, Bobby the fin whale is a potent symbol of humanity’s conflicted relationship with the natural world. The 80-tonne beast – one of the largest ever recorded – beached at Pevensey Bay in Sussex in 1865 and became a huge tourist attraction. It was bought by the University of Cambridge the following year and continued to thrill the punters; meanwhile wild fin whales were increasingly being slaughtered for their blubber and baleen.
For many years Bobby was on display outdoors, but the dank fenland climate and the pigeons were starting to take their toll. Cleaned, restored and rehung, Bobby is now a fitting introduction, just one of dozens of huge animal skeletons on show, many of which are critically endangered or extinct. These include Diprotodon, a rhino-sized wombat which died out with Australia’s other mega-marsupials soon after humans arrived on the scene, a giant ice-age ground sloth, the tusk of a woolly mammoth, the leg bones of a moa, and the skulls of sabre toothed cats, cave bears and an Irish elk. These magnificent creatures are now gone forever, driven to extinction by a combination of climate change and human pressure.
Last chance to see…?
There are also species that we know for sure were exterminated by humans, such as dodos and great auks, and many more that are clinging on for dear life — the kakapo, the Ganges river dolphin, the okapi. But there are also success stories too, not least the fin whale. Once hunted mercilessly, the species is now bouncing back.
Overall, the museum is a celebration of animal biodiversity and a reminder of the staggering beauty and richness of our own branch of the tree of life. Ordered taxonomically, the exhibits are spread over two floors in a stylish white and bright space. They are a whistle-stop tour of every animal group, from the humble Ecydosoza (insects and nematodes) to charismatic megafauna with perhaps 5000 specimens on display. The effect is a bit like watching a David Attenborough documentary, rendered in skeletons, skins and taxidermy.
The man himself is due to formally reopen the museum this week. He will place the final specimen in place to symbolically complete the refurbishment. The curators wanted it to be the dodo but changed their minds, fearful that the specimen was just too valuable and fragile even for the ultra-careful Attenborough to handle.
It is also a fantastic historical repository. Many of the specimens date back to the 19th-century heyday of wildlife collecting. Charles Darwin was an alumnus of nearby Christ’s College and some of his specimens are on display, from beetles he collected around Cambridge to the famous barnacles and Galapagos finches that informed his theory of evolution. Amid such grandeur it is almost possible to miss a display of beautiful old natural history books including a 1745 copy of Robert Hooke’s Micrographia and Jan Jonston’s Historiae Naturalis, published in 1657. But don’t.
Like all natural history museums, this one is also a living and breathing scientific institution with an enormous behind-the-scenes research collection. As part of the university’s zoology department, it uses its specimens not just to inspire the public but also to answer pressing questions about the loss of biodiversity and the effects of climate change. At a time when the natural world is under pressure like never before, we urgently need places like this.
University of Cambridge Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, UK reopens 23 June
 runs 23-24 June
