A Darwin find

Among the many things that Charles Darwin brought home with him from the HMS Beagle’s around the world journey from 1831–1836 were several coralline algae from the sea off Bahia in Brazil. Two of these can be found today at NTNU’s Museum of Natural History and Archaeology in Trondheim.

They were sent by an Irish professor at the end of the 19th century, so that Michael Foslie, the museum’s world renowned coralline algae expert at that time, could identify them. Since then the two specimens have been more or less hidden and forgotten in the museum’s storeroom. But now that this is Darwin’s year, the museum’s staff have wiped the dust off these treasures, which represent the only Darwin artefacts in Norway.