Although the podium building is inconspicuous, its interior decoration and facilities are more upscale than those of the main building. In order to ensure the indoor coolness, not only does it have thickened exterior wall insulation like the main building, but also a specially installed underground air energy circulation refrigeration system. Whether it is hot summer or "cold winter", the temperature here can always be maintained at a suitable state.
To facilitate cleaning, the walls and floors are paved with ceramic tiles, and a small ammonia-refrigerated cold storage is installed in the basement to freeze and refrigerate certain specimens.
Sonia showed her pass to the guard at the entrance, then went to the locker room to change into a white coat, hat, mask, and a pair of indoor loafers. This is to prevent infection by bacteria or viruses carried by the specimen.
There is no exhibition hall in the podium, but warehouses and workshops of different sizes connected by corridors. Sonia felt a chill as soon as she walked in. Unlike the busy exhibition hall, there are almost no people here.
She came to a specimen library on the first floor, where specimens "pending review" that had been transferred from various places were placed.
Several "apprentices" in the specimen library are busy around the table. Specimens wrapped in paper bags filled the floor and shelves.
"Teacher Suo!" As soon as she entered, one of her "apprentices" came over to greet her, "You are here. There are too many specimens to be decided - we can't even make up our minds."
"Hello, Dawen."
This female "apprentice" is named Ju Wenjing. With Sonia's Chinese proficiency, it is a bit difficult to expect her to read "Ju" and "Jing" correctly, so she simplified it and called her the simplest "Da Wen".
Because she had another female apprentice named Ju Wenyi, she was called "Xiao Wen".
Naturally, they didn't call her Sonia or the more lengthy Sonia Lili Sharpe, but simply called her "Teacher Suo".
There were several apprentices of other senators present. One of the apprentices made Sonia's heart beat faster when she saw him - she had never seen such a handsome man. A beautiful boy from the Caucasus Mountains, his name is Asavi Omshiyan. If Cui Yunhong found it difficult to speak, she should just call her Cui Xi.
Cui Xi came to Lingao almost at the same time as Sonia. His appearance caused a sensation among the senators. The effect is probably no less than that of Sonia back then. Even the male senator had to admit how handsome this young man was. It is said that when Zhang Daozhang heard about this later, he also showed a look of unwillingness.
Although Cui Yunhong loved him very much, his social status was quite embarrassing. After careful consideration, Cui Yunhong decided to send him to study natural history painting, so that he could at least establish certain connections in the exploration department. So Trish became Valentina's classmate.
Cui Xi himself was not embarrassed by his identity, but was actually a little happy. Later people learned that he had been spotted by slave traders and was about to be castrated and sold as a eunuch to a noble in Ottoman Turkey. Now Asawi Omshiyan can at least exist in the form of a man. When he grows a beard and becomes less handsome, his master will naturally release him - according to the customs of many countries in the Middle East, the male favorite of a big shot is very likely to be promoted to a general, minister or the like. Prominent position.
At this moment, the Caucasian boy was sitting in front of several glass jars, carefully describing something in his sketchbook. The young man had a good talent for painting. Trini praised him greatly and believed that if he could be properly cultivated, he could become a professional artist.
Sonia followed Ju Wenjing to the table, where several specimens were placed. Even though she was wearing a mask, a putrid smell hit her nostrils.
All taxidermied specimens transferred here must be stored in an ammonia refrigeration cold storage at minus 20 degrees Celsius in the basement for 72 hours of ultra-low temperature cooling before entering the specimen library to kill bugs and eggs that may be present on the specimens and curb the spread of bacteria. bred before being sent here for testing.
At this moment, the closest thing to her was the specimen of a python. This was a smaller python, about two meters long, lying horizontally on a tree trunk. There were obvious signs of decay on the python skin, and in many places large and small holes were made by insects. The straw used as filler was exposed from these and turned black.
Sonia picked up a bamboo probing stick and poked the specimen gently, and a hole immediately broke in the python's skin. She shook her head: "It's useless." She stamped the red stamp of "destroy" on the card.
The next item was a mustelid, and Sonia could tell at a glance that it was the Hainan Green Weasel, which is unique to Hainan Island. She was also present when Wanning collected it. At that time, I was very happy to have collected this new subspecies unique to Hainan Island.
However, there are a lot of mold plaques on this Hainan Green Weasel specimen. In some places, the hair has completely fallen off, and there are also signs of cracks in the skin. Apparently it was poorly preserved. Sonia sighed, because the Hainan Green Weasel is very rare and only lives in large forests. To collect it, you have to go deep into the mountainous areas in the heart of Hainan Island.
There are still certain risks when entering the mountainous areas of Hainan Island. In the past, every time the expedition team entered the mountainous area, it was escorted by the Limiao and Miao mountain troops. It can be said that it mobilized troops and mobilized a large number of people.
Green weasels are cautious and secretive in their habits, and are good at climbing trees. They are the favorite species of the southern weasel family that like to climb trees. The population is not large and is rarely encountered during inspections. You have to try your luck if you want to collect it.
She changed to a bamboo probing stick and tested it. She felt that the skin was well preserved and still had elasticity. No signs of decay were found, and repairs are possible as long as the mold stains can be removed. It’s better to save and repair as much as possible. After all, collecting it once is not easy.
"Keep this one, it should be fine with some repairs."
The next specimen was a giant: a swordfish. This is a swordfish caught by the navy's fishing team from Sanya a few years ago. The specimen is about 4.5 meters long. Wang Luobin, who was in Sanya at the time, realized that the swordfish could be used as a specimen, so he had the skin and fins completely peeled off, preserved in ice, and sent to Lingao to be made into a specimen.
This specimen is generally complete and has no mold spots, but it is full of dust. The fish skin was visible to the naked eye to be cracked, broken and peeled off, and the fish bones were poked out in some places. However, upon touching it, I found that the fish skin was generally intact, and there were no signs of decay or insect infestation. The fish was simply repaired and ready to go on display.
"This fish has the least problem." Sonia said to her apprentice as she looked around. "Most specimens that have been stored for too long will have similar problems. The reason is simply that the skin is affected by changes in dryness and humidity in the environment. Repeated shrinkage and expansion will eventually lead to the skin being cracked and damaged. The texture of the skin of the taxidermied specimen will become thinner and brittle. After drying, the tensile force of the specimen skin becomes larger, lacking the toughness of the living animal skin, and will occur after repeated dry and wet changes. Cracks, fractures, shedding, etc., cause the skin to deform, lose color, and overflow the filling. Look here -" she pointed to a cracked place in the fish skin with a probing stick, "there is obvious deformation here. First there is deformation, Then come the cracks. If repaired quickly, these cracks can quickly expand and cause further pest infestation or mold."
Da Wen and Xiao Wen nodded together.
"...So it is the easiest for us to repair it - as long as the skin is not weathered or rotten, it can still be repaired. We will repair this swordfish together in a moment."
The overall condition of the taxidermied specimens was not ideal, which was also expected by Sonia. She had visited both the herbarium in Fangcaodi and the herbarium of the exploration team, and the conditions were very poor. Something went wrong for sure.
The situation of soaked specimens is better than not. Although there was no formalin in the early years, the specimens of small animals, plants and insects soaked in high-concentration alcohol at that time were generally in good condition, and most of them did not decay and fall apart. The only problem is that the alcohol in the early specimens has started to turn yellow and turbid, and theoretically needs to be replaced.
As for dried and wax specimens, the situation is all kinds of weird. Some are well preserved, with flowers and leaves intact in color, some are dry and shriveled, and fall into pieces when touched; some are moldy and deteriorated. Although some entire boxes of insect specimens were intact and the sealing wax was not damaged, they were already broken and falling apart inside.
The best preserved ones are the bones and preserved specimens sent from Bairen General Hospital. On the one hand, doctors are more rigorous when making specimens and would rather not do it if the conditions are not met; on the other hand, their preservation conditions are much better than those in Fangcaodi.
For the "apprentices", it was mostly their first time to observe various parts and skeletons of the human body at close range. The visual and conceptual impact was naturally very strong, and some timid people did not even dare to look at it at first. It was only with the encouragement of the elders that I dared to approach.
In comparison, Sonia is more accustomed to it - this kind of collection is very common in Europe. In particular, the soaked specimens or skeletons of various "deformed fetuses" or deformed people can often be sold at high prices, and are regarded by collectors as a kind of "wealth" that can be shown off.
However, Australians are obviously not too interested in collecting "deformed" things. Most of what was handed over were preserved specimens of human organs or diseased tissues.
These specimens are well-made and soaked in high-purity alcohol or formalin. The vast majority of them are in good preservation condition, and only a few have tissue dispersion or liquid discoloration, which can be ignored for the time being.
While reading, Sonia stamped the card, dictated the relevant information and comments, and wrote notes in large letters. She estimated that about half of the damaged specimens could be repaired, but there were too few staff in the Natural History Museum. If the elders didn't come to help, only she and two "apprentices" could do it. When will it be repaired? There are still a bunch of animal specimens waiting to be made in the basement.
