© UCL, Grant Museum of Zoology / Matt Clayton
Not to be confused with a natural history museum, the Grant is the only remaining university zoological museum in London.
With 67,000 specimens covering the whole of the animal kingdom, it is hard not to find something you've never seen before, reopening in a new location which offers more for the inquisitive amateur and science historian alike.
Even some creatures you may think you know well will be revealed to you in a different way, so watch out for some surprises.
Re-homed in the former medical library at the UCL's Rockefeller building, the museum retains an ancient feel by retaining original wood panelling and using medical library shelves to house many of its objects.
New technology has also been incorporated into the experience. Throughout the museum, iPads are loaded with captions relating to groups of specimens, as well as questions for the reader and a Twitter page where viewers can post their responses and share their experiences (in brief) with the world.
This is a novel approach, but it will be interesting to see how these comments are used – and how the museum will prevent members of the public writing completely random comments. There were already a few odd things posted when I got there, and it had only been open to the public for ten minutes.
The questions are a way of getting the audience to consider the specimens from a different perspective – placing, for example, the question "should we preserve domestic animals?" alongside a pickled cat.
Cute from one side, spooky from the other, it is – as one person Tweeted – not every day you see a cat sliced in half.
However, these creatures have been preserved for a reason, and it is easy to forget this when staring in awe at a luminescent sea mouse in a jar or standing next to a massive Asian elephant with a skull as large as most onlookers. The creations of the natural world are simply amazing.
- Open Monday-Friday 1pm-5pm. Admission free.
Watch a video on the Grant Museum's move:
