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Science Quickly

This $600-Million Room Contains the World's Largest Collection of These Tiny Endangered Animals

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2639 Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Inside a vault at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles lies a microscopic population of immense value—the repository for vernal pool fairy shrimp. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

0:05.8

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0:11.0

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0:20.1

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yawcult.co.

0:22.7

.jp. That's Y-A-K-U-L-T.C-O.JP. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt. This is Scientific American Science Quickly.

0:45.3

It's pretty much every kid's dream, or at least it was mine.

0:50.3

Well, welcome Christopher.

0:52.3

You're at the Natural History Museum, and the scientists who work there are like,

0:55.0

kid, we're taking you behind the scenes.

0:58.0

This is not part of what the public is to see.

1:01.0

Well, on a recent evening, my childhood dreams came true as collections manager of the

1:05.0

crustaceans, Adam Wall, took me right into the vaults of the Natural History Museum of

1:10.0

L.A. This room, we consider to be incredibly valuable.

1:12.6

These collections are the part of the museum that hides in the shadow of the T-Rex and Triceratops skeletons.

1:18.6

The part of the museum that's not as charismatic as the stuffed elephants and lions.

1:22.6

It's a vast biological library,

1:25.6

shelves upon shelves upon shelves, with tens of millions of specimens not

1:30.3

on public display.

1:31.3

So we have things like coconut crabs. We have these absolutely alien-looking rabbit-eared

1:38.3

barnacle, then an acorn barnacle, which is this really traditional, hard-looking thing.

1:43.3

And then also you have a little chunk of the whale skin that barnacle, which is this really traditional, hard-looking thing. And then also, you have a little chunk of the whale skin that barnacle is attached to.

1:49.2

And there's fairy shrimp, too, which I'm kind of obsessed with because of their mad max-level

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