: Casgliadau ac Ymchwil

News of a very special new fossil from north Wales was recently published in the scientific journal Royal Society Open Science.  I was lucky enough to be involved in the study of the fossil, which was led by Dr Stephen Pates of Harvard University and also included two Museum Honorary Research Fellows, Dr Joe Botting and Dr Lucy Muir.  Joe and Lucy found the fossil back in 2012, during fieldwork funded by the National Geographic Society, and donated it to the Museum along with other fascinating fossils from the same site, including various sponges and worms.  The fossil was not looked at in any detail until Stephen visited the Museum last year to research other fossils from our collections.  His experience told him that it looked like something unusual, so we decided to investigate further.  We studied it under the microscope and took detailed photographs, which were then compared with fossils from other places.  It turned out to be not only an animal previously unknown to science, but the first of its kind ever to be found in the UK, and probably the smallest known example of its kind.

The new fossil radiodont 'claw'.

Where is the fossil from?

The fossil was found in a block of rock collected from a stream section close to the Arenig Fawr mountain, near Bala in north Wales.  You can see a video of Joe collecting fossils at the site here.  It comes from the Dol-cy-Afon Formation, rocks that were laid down in the sea around 480 million years ago. What we think of as Wales today, was at that time part of a continent called Avalonia, which was located in the southern hemisphere.  The animal was fossilised inside a large burrow, along with remains of other small creatures.  We don't know if it was intentionally brought in by the burrow's owner (as a meal perhaps), or if its remains just happened to be present in mud that was pulled in during burrowing. 

What kind of fossil is it?

Reconstruction of Hurdia victoria, a close relative of the new Welsh radiodont from Canada.  White arrow points to the 'claws', equivalent to the Welsh fossil.  Credit: image adapted from original by Apokryltaros, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

The fossil is tiny, less than 2mm long.  It looks a bit like a comb, with long, thin spines coming off a chunkier shaft.  It is actually only part of an animal, a 'claw' used by a creature called a radiodont for feeding with.  Radiodonts are relatives of modern-day arthropods such as crabs, insects, spiders and scorpions - segmented animals with hard skins.  They were unusual in lacking the jointed legs that their distant cousins scuttle around on.  Instead, they had a row of overlapping flaps along the sides of their segmented body, used for swimming rapidly through the ocean.  They had large eyes on the end of stalks, one of the features that equipped them to be the earliest known group of large predators to exist on Earth.  The new Welsh fossil represents one of a pair of large segmented, spiny claws, which these animals had at the front of their head for capturing food.

Radiodont means 'wheel spoke tooth', a name that reflects their circular mouth, which had a ring of hard, sharp-edged plates that looks a bit like a pineapple ring with razor-sharp teeth.  The most famous member of the group is Anomalocaris, first found in Canada's Burgess Shale and thought to have been top predator in the seas over 500 million years ago.  If Jaws had been made about the Cambrian Period when it lived, the film might have been called Claws and Anomalocaris would've been the reason not to go back in the water.  It is thought to have spied its prey using its large eyes, swooped down and grabbed it with its spiny claws, and then crushed it between the hard plates of its circular mouth.  

But while Anomalocaris was a giant for its time, one of the largest animals in existence 500 million years ago at up to half a metre in length, the new Welsh animal was tiny.  The whole creature is estimated to have been only around a centimetre long.  That makes it the smallest radiodont fossil ever found.  We can't tell if it was a fully-grown adult or not, because, as far as we know, juvenile radiodonts looked like their parents.

What did it look like and how did it feed?

Reconstruction of Aegirocassis benmoulai, the largest radiodont ever discovered.  It lived in Morocco at around the same time as its relative, the new Welsh radiodont.  White arrow points to the 'claws', equivalent to the Welsh fossil

Credit: image adapted from original by Nobu Tamura, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Not all radiodonts were predators like Anomalocaris. Features of their 'claws' provide evidence about how they likely lived.  Some had tiny secondary spines coming off the long main spines, creating a network of fine combs that they used for sifting food particles out of mud at the bottom of the sea, or for filtering them out of the water.  The Welsh fossil 'claw' has a small number of these secondary spines on it, and it may originally have had these along the full length of the main spines.  In any case, its main spines are very close together, which suggests that it was either using them as filters to trap small food particles, or was using them to actively pick up very small items of food. 

Although we have only found the fossilised 'claw' of this animal, the bodies of other known radiodonts are all fairly similar, so we can make a good educated guess as to what the rest of it probably looked like.  It is likely to have looked similar to one of its closest known relatives, Hurdia, which is known from North America and the Czech Republic.  The head was likely covered in a tough carapace with stalked eyes, a mouth underneath consisting of a circle of tooth plates, and the pair of claws attached in front of the mouth to capture and shovel in its food.  The segmented body likely narrowed backwards, and had an overlapping row of flaps along its sides for swimming, with gills along its back for breathing.  Almost all radiodonts, like the Welsh animal, would have been good swimmers, perhaps spending much of their time skimming along just above the sea bed in search of food.  Intriguingly, this tiny Welsh animal is a very similar age to the largest radiodont ever discovered, its relative Aegirocassis from Morocco, which reached two metres in length.  By 480 million years ago, radiodonts had clearly adapted to life at both ends of the size scale.

The radiodont shared its home with a huge variety of different sponges.  There were also various kinds of worms around, trilobites, shellfish including brachiopods and primitive molluscs, and primitive relatives of starfish.

What can I do if I find an unusual-looking fossil?

Reconstruction of Aegirocassis benmoulai, the largest radiodont ever discovered.  It lived in Morocco at around the same time as its relative, the new Welsh radiodont.  White arrow points to the 'claws', equivalent to the Welsh fossil

Credit: image adapted from original by Nobu Tamura, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

As this fossil shows, there are still lots of exciting new things to discover in Wales.  If you find something that looks interesting and you're not sure what it is, our Museum scientists would be happy to try to identify it for you, whether it's a fossil, rock, mineral, animal or plant.  Just send us a photo (with a coin or ruler included for scale) with details of where you found it.  You can contact us via our website or on Twitter: @CardiffCurator

Since lockdown began, I have found myself spending more time than ever peering in to people’s windows. Not because I’m nosy (well, maybe just a little) but because our streets have become almost living galleries, with art popping up in windows everywhere – mostly rainbow art, as symbols of hope.

This got me thinking about the rainbows in the national art collection, like the Turner watercolour given to us by Gwendoline Davies in 1952 as part of the Davies sisters bequest; Thomas Hornor’s rushing waterfall rainbow; and this more melancholic painting in the manner of Constable of a rainbow cutting through dark clouds, with a solitary figure at a fence seemingly oblivious to the rainbow above.

Comfort on our doorsteps

The weather was a constant source of fascination to Constable. He was drawn to rainbows as a scientific spectacle, and also for their calming effects. He once said ‘nature… exhibits no feature more lovely nor any that awaken a more soothing reaction than the rainbow’. For Constable, the rainbow represented a glimmer of hope in tumultuous times – something that may resonate with many of us today, as we struggle to come to terms with traumatic world events.

Constable believed artists should paint views and subjects with deep personal connections – things that they know and love; things that have stirred their senses and emotions. He once said that ‘painting is but another word for feeling’. For some, this is key to understanding his art. Constable’s paintings are not meant to looked at – they are meant to be felt.

Much of his work was inspired by childhood memories of his native Suffolk. A Cottage in a Cornfield shows a humble cottage in the country, with what appears to be a little donkey and foal hiding in the shadows at the gate – a simple scene he saw every day on his way to school as a boy. He delighted in the smallest details – things that many of his contemporaries in the nineteenth century art would have overlooked. ‘The sound of water escaping from mill dams, willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things’ he wrote. Nothing was too commonplace, too mundane to be in his paintings. He saw beauty in things that at the time were not considered worthy to be the subject for art. He teaches us to find beauty in the everyday, and comfort on our doorsteps.

Today lockdown has stripped many of us right back to basics, and we are being encouraged to seek comfort and value the everyday more than ever before. We would love to see the things that are helping you get through these difficult times. You can share your #ObjectsofComfort with @AmgueddfaCymru on Twitter, or follow to see the items in our collections that have brought comfort to different people through the ages. 

Learning from Constable’s rainbows

Six years ago I had the privilege of being part of the Aspire partnership project which saw Constable’s incredible six-footer  painting Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows 1831 (Tate) displayed at National Museum Cardiff, after it was saved for the nation in 2013. 

The painting shows Salisbury Cathedral under a storm-heavy sky, a flash of lightning striking its roof. When he began paiting it in 1831, Constable was caught up in his own personal storm. His wife Maria had died from tuberculosis, leaving Constable to raise their seven children alone. He was also plagued by anxiety about political and religious changes raging around him. The painting is seen as an expression of the deep anxieties Constable felt at this time - anxieties, which were nonetheless mixed with a glimmer of hope for the future, symbolised by the faint rainbow. It is no coincidence that the rainbow ends at Leadenhall, the home of his friend and patron John Fisher who supported him through his darkest days.

Alongside the display we co-ordinated a series of learning activities, working with different visitor groups to create artworks and poems inspired by this painting. Over 6000 people took part in the programme, and I loved seeing the creative responses like these amazing pop-up rainbow landscapes made in family workshops. The animated light projections made by school groups working with artist Anne-Mie Melis , and CPD workshops for teachers led by poet clare e. potter were also real highlights.

Hope and broken hearts

What struck me during this project is that people of all ages responded so openly to the painting, and how it sometimes opened up dialogues about complex emotional states like grief, loss, hope and happiness.

One young pupil, Charles, asked ‘why does the dog look up for hope but the horses look down with their broken hearts?’; another, after learning that it took Constable four years to complete this painting, wondered ‘can you be that sad for that long? cos for every day you have a different feeling.’ I think about these questions even six years later: how emotions are never seperate - they intermingle and change so easily - and how our emotional states are never static, but are in a constant state of flux, which can sometimes make them difficult to deal with because they seem impossible to control.

This, I think, is why we need art and creativity more than ever. Not because I think art will solve the issues we are facing today - but perhaps it has a role in helping us to ask the right questions, and in teaching us how to feel our way through, together.

In 2013 Constable’s Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows 1831 was secured for the British public through the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Manton Foundation, the Art Fund (with a contribution from the Wolfson Foundation) and Tate Members. The acquisition was part of Aspire, a five year partnership between Amgueddfa Cymru, Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service, The Salisbiry Museum, National Galleries of Scotland and Tate Britain, sponsored by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Art Fund.

To secure the painting, a unique partnership initiative was formed between five public collections: Tate Britain, Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, Colchester and Ipswich Museums, Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum and the National Galleries of Scotland. This initiative, named Aspire, was a five-year project supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Art Fund enabling the work to be viewed in partner venues across the UK. National Museum Cardiff was the first venue to display the work. 

“Codi i’r Wyneb - Brought to the Surface” is a project on freshwater snails led by the Museum’s Department of Natural Sciences, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. For more information on the project I recommend reading; Shells at the Surface of “Brought to the Surface” (January, 2019) and “Brought to the Surface” Now in Full Flow (June, 2019). 

Ben and I have been busy since the last blog entry in June 2019! We took our project on tour, visiting a variety of different public events, training workshops and conferences. As a result, we have had the pleasure of engaging with a bunch of interesting people. 1,263 people to be exact! This has included professional consultants, scientific researchers, amateur naturalists, keen gardeners and more! We would like to thank you all so much! Your commentary and feedback has supported us on our way to producing an identification guide for environmentalists of all ages and backgrounds.

Snail Safari was one of our favourite public events of the last year. The bilingual educational workshop was designed for children aged 8-11 and was held at St Fagans National Museum of History. The purpose of the event, which consisted of two separate sessions, was to simulate and promote the type of work that we, as taxonomists, carry out at the museum.

For the introductory session we led the group on a safari to survey the ponds and lakes in the gardens at St Fagans. With nets and buckets the children collected freshwater snails to examine back at the classroom where, many of them were given a chance to use a microscope for the first time! The Gweithdy carpentry workshop served as an excellent impromptu laboratory with plenty of space for the group to lay out trays of pond water for sifting. The session ended with a lively competition to find the biggest and/or fastest snail. The enthusiasm displayed by the group impressed us so much, that we decided to kick it up a notch for the second session.

Inspired by Guess Who, Guess Whorl is a competitive card game in which players take turns asking questions about identifying features. The goal is to deduce the identity of a mystery freshwater snail species using the process of elimination, with questions such as, “Does your snail have a pointy shell?” or “Does the shell have stripes?”. The indoor Snail Safari session consisted of an exciting tournament to award the best taxonomist and Guess Whorl player in the group. Driven by the competitive element, the children became fascinated by our card game and the variety of different snail shells illustrated on the cards. With 17 species to guess from and 9 different identifying features, Guess Whorl kept us occupied for an entire afternoon!

By the end of the session, the group had learned about the differences between types of British pond snails and how to deduce and describe those differences in the same way as a taxonomist might. With some nets and buckets, a few laminated cards, and a bit of ‘thinking outside the box’ we delivered our favourite workshop yet.

Guess Whorl can now be used as a useful teaching tool for a variety of future public engagement events. With some adjustments, we think that the card game could be used for training purposes in identification courses for professionals as well as beginners!

We would like to thank Ian Daniel from St Fagans for his enthusiastic approach and brilliant improvisational skills. Thank you to the children from Ysgol Plasmawr, Ysgol Bro Edern, Ysgol Glantaf, and year 7,8 and 9 ladder group and platform group from Cardiff West Community High School, for taking part in our Snail Safari.

Mae'n hanfodol bwysig ein bod yn parhau i aros gartref ac aros yn ddiogel yma yng Nghymru. Yn ystod wythnos y Sulgwyn mae rhai ohonoch yn gwersylla yn yr ardd neu'n mwynhau aros yn y garafán ar y dreif. Efallai bod eraill yn hiraethu am wersylla neu garafanio yn Eisteddfod yr Urdd dros y blynyddoedd, neu anturiaethau i rai o'ch hoff fannau gwyliau ar hyd ein harfordir. Felly, i’n helpu ni i gyd gydag ychydig hiraeth am wyliau wrth i ni aros gartref, dyma Ian Smith, Curadur Amgueddfa Genedlaethol y Glannau gydag ychydig o’r hanes y tu ôl i’r llun hwn:

Tynnwyd y llun hwn tua 1951. Ynddo, gwelir y teulu Dodds a oedd yn byw yng Nghaerdydd. Comisiynodd Mr Dodds y garafán ym 1950 i'w hadeiladu a'i gosod gan Louis Blow & Co yn Nhreganna, Caerdydd. Costiodd y fan £ 600.00 - ffortiwn fach yn y dyddiau hynny.

Aeth y teulu ar daith ledled De Cymru ynddi er i'r fan gael ei gadael yn barhaol ar gae ffermwr ger Casnewydd yn Sir Benfro yn y pen draw. Yno, cafodd y teulu eu holl wyliau haf tan 2009.

Y teulu creodd y cynllun a oedd yn cynnwys pethau fel top cwpwrdd arbennig y byddai crud cario'r babi yn ffitio'n berffaith iddo; gwely dwbl plygu i lawr ar gyfer Mam a Thad a sgrin rhannu derw oedd yn llithro i’w le, a oedd i bob pwrpas yn ffurfio dwy ystafell wely. Roedd cegin fach gyda stôf nwy a sinc gyda thap pwmp troed i ddarparu dŵr golchi. Roedd yn rhaid casglu dŵr yfed mewn canistr alwminiwm mawr - gwaith da i'r plant os oedd angen eu blino allan cyn mynd i’w gwely! Roedd yr adlen yn dyblu maint y lle byw ac yn darparu ardal i gadw pethau'n sych.

Yn 2009 cynigiwyd y garafán i'r amgueddfa gan Michael Dodds, a oedd erbyn hynny yn ei 70au. Mike yw'r bachgen hŷn yng nghefn y grŵp yn y llun. Mae’r garafán yn cael ei harddangos yn Amgueddfa Hanes Cenedlaethol Sain Ffagan, yn Oriel ‘Byw a Bod’.

Last week, we launched an online questionnaire asking for your experiences and feelings of living in Wales during the coronavirus pandemic. From the responses we’ve received so far, it seems that a number of you are finding comfort and peace of mind through making – from quilts to facemasks, scrub bags to small embroideries. The connection between making and improved mental health is of course widely-known, with studies showing that craft and the visual arts can help to alleviate anxiety and stress in some people.

The textile collection at St Fagans includes several pieces which reveal the historic interplay between craft and mental health. These include needlework stitched by sailors on long voyages away from home, to more formal forms of occupational therapy made by convalescing patients. In all cases, we can only assume that the repetitive rhythm of the making process, and the focus required to complete the task, must have benefitted the makers in some way. I say ‘assume’ because the voices of these makers are usually missing from the narrative, which makes documenting current experiences of crafting through the pandemic even more important.

One of the most poignant pieces in the collection is a tablecloth made at Whitchurch Hospital, embroidered with the signatures of a group of soldier-patients and staff in 1917. During the First World War, the Cardiff City Mental Hospital (as Whitchurch was then called) was ceded to the military and became known as the Welsh Metropolitan War Hospital (1915-19). Civilian psychiatric patients were moved to other institutions, while injured soldiers returning from the frontline occupied their beds. From 1917 until 1919, the hospital specialized in both orthopaedic and mental health conditions.   

The signatures embroidered on the tablecloth include two important figures in the history of psychiatric care in Wales – Dr Edwin Goodall and Matron Florence Raynes. Goodall, an eminent psychiatrist who trained at Guy’s Hospital in London, was appointed the first Medical Superintendent of Whitchurch in 1906, two years before the hospital opened. He was awarded a CBE in 1919 for his pioneering treatment of shell-shock. Florence Raynes was also a trailblazer in her own right, being the first woman to have overall responsibility for the hospital's entire nursing staff. 

The exact reasons for creating the tablecloth are unknown. Was it made as a form of occupational or diversional therapy for the soldiers? Could it have been an exhibition piece or a fund-raiser? Or perhaps initiated as a memento for a patient, nurse or doctor? Despite several attempts in recent years to unravel its history, the tablecloth remains a mystery. 

In general, the feelings and intentions of makers are frustratingly absent from our records, and we know very little about the emotions of the people who crafted the historic objects in our care. How did they feel about making in times of crisis, ill-health or confinement? What did the creative process give them? If you're finding solace in your sewing machine or knitting needles during these difficult days, please consider sharing your lockdown crafting experience with us through the questionnaire. We want to hear your story to ensure that the wellbeing benefits of making in the present do not go untold.