[Last modified: March, 25 2019 03:55 PM]

Biological change

Welcome to the Garden.

The biological definition of metamorphosis is a sudden and abrupt change in an organism’s physical appearance during its maturation. For instance, the butterfly transforms from a caterpillar to a cocoon All of the most obvious examples of this occur in insects, but some fish, amphibians, molluscs and other taxa exhibit metamorphoses.

But metamorphosis can also simply mean a complete change in appearance, character, state, or circumstance (Oxford Dictionary). Some form of physical metamorphosis or change, in the alive and the nonliving, is essentially inevitable. Buildings and landscapes metamorphosize with their inhabitants, objects are constantly dismantled and their materials made into new shapes, and living organisms grow and change throughout their life cycle. Even death is a kind of metamorphosis, as a body, once alive and serving an individual purpose, re-joins the earth and becomes its components again.

This particular trilobite (Dalmanitus Caudatus) is between 427 and 433 million years old, and was born by accident. After the trilobite died, its exoskeleton became impregnated with minerals and hardened into limestone, forming the fossil exhibited today.  The fossil originally was attached to a larger matrix before it was chipped away and transported to a museum, another form of physical change.

The particular change exhibited by the specimen, the process of fossilisation, ironically in itself halts change. As it prevents the organism from decomposing, it allows us to observe species from before our era, frozen in time. We are able to display and observe this object because its natural route of decay has been halted.

Or, if not halted, it has been slowed down dramatically. Species conservation is largely about managed change. When exhibiting live animals, their lives as objects continue even after they have technically died. As their lives continue, so does their deterioration and decay. For example, with fossils, pyrite decay – the oxidisation of iron pyrite to form sulphuric acid – can cause the specimens to crack and crumble. Museum conservation is not about stopping these natural processes of change, but rather about slowing them down and lengthening the life of these objects.

With this fossil, I invite you to observe the objects and beings around you, and consider the physical changes they undergo during their life cycles. What changes have you undergone?

Exhibition continues this way: The Chapel