Earlier this week, OUMNH Librarian and Archivist @dczerkaszyn attended #UnderstandingBookbindings @GlosCathedral by @greens_books.

Now that she's back in our library, she has been sharing what she learned using our collections. One of the big advancements in the binding and decoration of books came in 1832 with the invention of the Imperial Arming Press, also called an embossing, stamping or blocking press.

Partula dentifera & Partula hebe

There were once many native species of Polynesian tree snails found across the French Polynesian islands, but now species like P. dentifera and P. hebe are Extinct in the Wild. Extinct in the wild means that there are no, or no significant, wild populations remaining, but the species lives on in captive breeding programmes. In 1986 an international conservation initiative started to try to save this snail genus.

Did your parents always tell you not to play with your food? Well, at our special #MeatTheFuture Late Night event, you’ll have the chance to do just that!

Checkout these fun food-themed games in the thread below! Join us for talks, drinks, snacks, and activities that will give you some ‘food for thought’ about the impacts of animal agriculture and meat consumption on people and the planet.

oumnh.ox.ac.uk/event/late-nig…

Pangolins are the most internationally traded non-human animal on the planet. There are eight species of pangolin found in Asia and Africa and all are threatened with extinction. This is a Sunda pangolin which is found across SE Asia. Pangolins are hunted both for their meat and for their scales which are used in traditional Chinese medicine. Pangolin scales are made of keratin, the same as our hair and nails, and have no medicinal qualities.

Probably the most well known of all major extinction events is the Cretaceous-Paleogene, also called the K-Pg, extinction event which happened about 66 million years ago. About 80% of all species were eliminated. Nearly all dinosaurs and many marine invertebrates went extinct during this time. In fact, the only lines of archosaurs (the group that contains dinos, birds, and crocodilians) that survived were those that led to modern birds and crocodilians

About 201 million years ago the Triassic-Jurrasic extinction event (also called the end-Triassic) took place and some 76% of all species (marine and terrestrial) went extinct and about 20% of all existing taxonomic families were lost. The extinctions that took place during this period really paved the way for the rise of the dinosaurs. It is hypothesized that climate change and rising sea levels are largely to blame for this mass extinction event.

About 252 million years ago the largest known extinction events occurred, the Permian-Trassic. Also known as the ‘Great Dying’ an estimated 96% of all species went extinct during this period. Ecosystems on land were dominated by a group of animals called Therapsids. It included many of the first megaherbivores and carnivores as well as smaller creatures

Some more #MassExtinction chatter today:

The Late Devonian not only suffered from a protracted extinction event, but was marked by low speciation (meaning that fewer new species were evolving at this time than average). About 375 to 360 million years ago the Devonian period experienced elevated rates of extinction that lasted as long as 20 million years. Evidence has suggested that this rise in extinction rates was caused by a dramatic decrease…

The Ordovician-Silurian extinctions events occurred between 450-440 million yrs ago. It is the earliest, & the 2nd-most severe. About 85% of marine animal species went extinct over two close spikes of extinction. Let’s look at some of the creatures that lived around this time and explore some theories on why this mass extinction might have occurred:

Let’s talk about #massextinctions:

The first animals evolved around 600 million years ago. While balance is usually maintained between extinctions and the evolution of new species, there have been six major events where the rate of extinction has drastically spiked. In some cases entire groups of animals have disappeared from existence. These are known as ‘mass extinction events’.

Time for a mini thread about #slugs! Compared to their externally shelled snail relatives, there’s a preservation bias in natural history museums against slugs. But what are slugs you might ask? It’s a handy name for grouping together gastropod molluscs that have fully or partially lost their shells through evolution but “slugs” have evolved many times.