Photo Story Visitors from Samoa
Preserving natural history in the museum

The work of building collections and preservation is an ongoing process. To preserve flora and fauna, the National University of Samoa is building up a natural history collection.

After a successful field project with the Übersee-Museum Bremen in Samoa, a team from the Environmental Science Department of the NUS visited Bremen.

Sene Taupega, Asonei Leauga and Vensel Chan accompanied the Übersee-Museum’s natural history team for two weeks to share experiences of the diverse work with collections and conservation.

Eight people are posing together for a group photo in front of the exhibition entrance. — Welcoming the NUS team in the foyer of the Übersee-Museum (from left to right: Vensel Chan, Sene Taupega, Michael Stiller, Etta Grotrian, Wiebke Ahrndt, Asonei Leauga, Diana Michler-Kozma, Mitiana Arbon)
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Volker Beinhorn

Two women are looking into a table-top display cabinet; their faces are reflecting in the glass. — The group visited the exhibition and the specimens and models on display.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Volker Beinhorn

A group of four people in front of a museum exhibition displaying a white garment made of bark fabric — Mitiana Arbon gave a guided tour of the visible storage, here in front of a dress made of bark cloth (tapa).
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Volker Beinhorn

A group of four people are standing in front of a compact shelving unit; one of them is taking photos with a smartphone — Behind the scenes, the guests were given an insight into the museum’s natural history collections. Ruth Nüß took the team on a tour of the mammal storage in the basement.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Volker Beinhorn

A group of four people in a room with lots of white cupboards, a row of large whale bones in the middle, and antelope horns hanging on the wall — The magazine houses the skeletons and skins of a variety of mammals, while the storage requirements can vary greatly. A blue whale jaw, for example, does not fit in any cupboard.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Volker Beinhorn

Four people are standing in front of a stack wooden crates; one person opens the top crate, which contains birds eggs. — In addition to bird specimens, nests and eggs are also safely kept in the bird storage.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Volker Beinhorn

A group of people watching a presentation in a taxidermist’s workspace, surrounded by various tools and craft materials. — In short workshops, the prepartion of animal specimens and the various conservation techniques were discussed.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Volker Beinhorn

A group of people sitting at a table, discussing bird specimens. — Nina Richelmann shows how a bird’s bellows is mounted on an artificial body to obtain a specimen. The animal skins are not “stuffed” here.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Volker Beinhorn

A group of three people are working together at a table with bird specimens — The NUS team takes a closer look at the skin of a buzzard.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Volker Beinhorn

A person is pressing a plant onto a sheet of paper. — Special techniques are also required to preserve plants. Sene Taupega creates a herbarium specimen by fixing a dried plant to a sheet of paper.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Volker Beinhorn

A view over the shoulders of three people looking at an insect under a microscope — In the insect storage, Volker Lohrmann works with the team at the microscope. The workshop focused in particular on the identification of insect species and on collection management.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Volker Beinhorn

Two people watch as a man in a lab coat places a dissected freshwater crayfish into a display jar — Preservation in alcohol is a tried and tested method for conserving organisms. Alexander Horn shows how he fixes a prepared freshwater crayfish in an exhibition jar.
CC BY-SA 4.0 Übersee-Museum Bremen, photo: Volker Beinhorn

Find more stories …

As part of preparing our permanent exhibition “The Blue Continent—Islands in the Pacific,” we’ve built networks and collected stories. There are more stories to discover here!