being a fan of eggs, i really enjoyed this brainscoop episode on the field museum‘s egg collection. lately i’ve been thinking about museums (it’s even the writing prompt of the month on Postcrossing’s blog) and specifically about the importance of natural collections to the understanding and preservation of the species’ biodiversity.

unlike typical collections of random or futile objects, natural collections are much more than a number to aim for — they are often a genetic repository of invaluable information. who knows what the technology of the future will be able to tell us about the past through the specimens we’ve preserved? or when we’ll need that information to start again? but in order to study, understand or start again, stuff needs to be collected and kept, sometimes for centuries.

we were surprised to discover recently that this is something our local town hall has been doing for the past few years… can you guess what they’ve been collecting?

i’ll tell you about it in the next post. :)