From herbarium to museum
1952, the famous ichthyologist Zhu founded the fish specimen room of Shanghai Fisheries University. At the beginning of its establishment, equipment, personnel and funds were very tight. Zhu led his colleagues to overcome many difficulties and began to collect fish specimens and materials themselves. In just a few years, the herbarium has collected more than 900 species and more than 25,000 specimens, initially taking shape, and soon became an important base for ichthyology research in China. Since then, the specimen room has been renamed the fish research room. By 2000, the fish laboratory has become one of the four bases for studying fish taxonomy in China.
In 2002, the laboratory obtained the largest sperm whale specimen in China, with a body length of18.4m. Subsequently, the laboratory was upgraded and evolved into the Whale Hall of Shanghai Fisheries University.
At the end of 2005, China Fish Culture Museum was opened in the former Shanghai Fisheries University at No.334 Simon Road. At the same time, Shanghai Fisheries University signed a cooperation agreement with Shanghai Ocean Aquarium, which opened the prelude to the establishment and protection of fish culture in China.
Now, Shanghai Ocean University is moving to the new campus of Nanhui Lingang, and the China Fish Culture Museum will be renamed again. Starting from 2008, the new campus will be the first museum with the theme of ocean in China, realizing the transformation from fish culture to marine culture. The new museum will have a building area of 7,000 square meters, with 12 exhibition hall, including fish culture museum, fishery history museum, fishing gear fishing method museum, etc. It will become a professional museum integrating teaching, scientific research, popular science and cultural heritage.
The jewel of city hall
The treasures in the town hall of China Fish Culture Museum seem to be a bit overwhelming, eclipsing all the fish in the collection. On entering the door, a huge sperm whale specimen stood in the center of the museum, next to a white skeleton. It is said that this exhibition hall is specially designed for this sperm whale specimen, and the "treatment" is not high.
This sperm whale specimen and its skeleton are18.4m long, which is the largest sperm whale specimen in China. This whale is named "Sperm Whale" because it can produce a gray or black secretion-Long Xianxiang. It is the most famous of all large toothed whales. It is classified as a family-physeteridae, and has two small close relatives, namely the small sperm whale and the dwarf sperm whale. Therefore, strictly speaking, they are not fish, but mammals.
Sperm whale's head accounts for about 1/3 of its body length, and its nostril position is asymmetrical with the central axis of its body, far to the left, which is a very unique and interesting example of mammalian body asymmetry. Adult sperm whales are generally 15-20 meters long, so this pair of sperm whale specimens in the collection can be described as "tall" of its kind.
Sperm whales eat squid and all kinds of small sharks, so there are stories of sperm whales fighting giant squid all over the world. The king squid looks fierce, but it is actually very fragile, and its blood has poor oxygen carrying capacity. It is a natural "anemia patient". Therefore, sperm whales always win more than lose in the struggle with the king squid. Occasionally, some unfortunate sperm whales are choked to death in the entanglement with the "King Squid". As for why the sperm whale in the collection died, it has become a permanent mystery.
A thrilling production process
This sperm whale specimen is an uninvited visitor to the museum. Where did it come from and how was it made into a specimen?
Time goes back to the morning of May 1 2006. Guangxi Beihai Guibei Fishing 12025 fishing boat goes fishing as usual. When it arrived in Qiongzhou Strait, it found the body of a whale, and the ship towed it back to the shore of the North Sea. At first, no one paid attention to whales, until some institutions in Guangdong and Fujian expressed their willingness to buy them, which attracted the attention of relevant departments. At that time, the Fisheries Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture came forward to show that whales are national second-class protected animals and cannot be killed, sold, transported and used without permission. The whale belongs to the state according to law, and then it was decided that Shanghai Fisheries University would make the whale into a specimen for scientific research and teaching.
Then experts from Shanghai Fisheries University flew to Beihai to identify the whale as a male sperm whale. However, because the bodies that have been stored for many days have stinked, experts have to dissect them on the spot with relevant personnel. Just burying the internal organs on the spot requires a lot of lime and alcohol. The experts then simply processed the bones and skin of the sperm whale, numbered them one by one, and then transported the bones and skin weighing five tons to Shanghai by a refrigerated truck with a load of ten tons.
After arriving in Shanghai, Shanghai Fisheries University and Xiamen Shang Biological Specimen Research Institute conducted a study on the specimen stripping, which lasted for one year and finally recovered into two complete specimens: a sperm whale skin specimen and a sperm whale skeleton.
Not inferior to the "green leaf foil"
Compared with these two huge "treasures of the town hall", other exhibits can only be regarded as green leaves, but if they are exhibited separately, they are also treasures. Among them are leopard sharks, groupers, Chinese sturgeons and Chinese alligators donated by Shanghai Ocean Aquarium, as well as the teeth of red turtles, sperm whales, baleen whales of Brucella whales and various snails.
This Chinese sturgeon specimen in the collection is 3.3 meters long and weighs 3 19 kg. It is the largest Chinese sturgeon specimen in China. Acipenser sinensis is distributed in the main stream of the Yangtze River in China, and it is one of the most primitive species of existing fish. It has a history of 65.438+0.4 billion years on the earth and is known as a "living fossil". At the same time, it is also the southernmost species of sturgeon, ranking first among 27 sturgeons in the world. What is even more impressive is its "loyalty"-it always swims back to the hometown of the Yangtze River to have children, hence the name "China". In a sense, it is the nature of the Chinese nation to show amazing hunger tolerance, hard work and the ability to know the way and tell the direction on the way back.
Besides, snails with the most colorful colors in the exhibition hall include conch, snail and spider snail. , and four precious snails, namely, Tangguan snail, 0 snail, Nautilus and Onrongsnail. Their shapes are unique and charming.