Learn: Stories of Success!
A Wallace bee specimen
Join us to hear about the fascinating story behind the rediscovery of the largest bee species on Earth! In this short
video, Conservation Optimism and Lost & Found Nature will take you on a journey through time and continents to bring to light the story of the incredible Wallace’s giant bee, which can be found in the museum’s collection.
Want to know more about the Wallace giant bee? You can find more information about its rediscovery on Lost & Found Nature and you can also download a poster about the species on the Conservation Optimism Kids’ Corner.
Though you cannot find Wallace’s giant bee in the UK there are many native bees that you can easily study! Find out some activities you can do at home with local bees, or check out our Bee Diversity page.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/T-9o91vaegU
A taxidermy Swift
Find out about a local success story that shows how a museum and a city council worked together to protect a species!
The Oxford Swift City project was created in 2017 to help protect swifts in Oxford and has since been working to increase the knowledge of the many ways that we can all help those threatened birds.
Watch the video to find out more about what it entailed! Want to know more about the swifts in the tower of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History? Check our dedicated page here.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ez2AFP1j9zs
Humpback whale baleen (centre), surrounded by other ocean specimens
Find out the fascinating story behind the comeback of the humpback whale! In this short video, we take you on a journey through time to bring to light the incredible recovery of this marine species. After being overfished in the 1900s, the population of humpback whales had dropped in the southwest Atlantic to only 450 individuals. However, there are now about 25,000 whales in that region today! So how did we go from a few hundred whales to such a high number? Watch the video to find out!
Want to know more about the humpback whale? You can download a poster about the species on the Conservation Optimism Kids’ Corner.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/VDh4wUqCKu0
