Interesting Shells

Shells are exoskeletons of living creatures and have fascinated humans for millennia - they have been collected and treasured for their beauty, used in religious rituals, and even traded as currency.

Interesting Shells presents striking portraits of specimens from the Museum’s shell collections, one of the largest resources of its kind in the world. Each portrait includes a caption which reveals the most interesting biological, historical and geographic details.

It's written by Andreia Salvador, who is senior curator of Marine Mollusca at the Museum, responsible for the curation of its marine gastropods collections. Her research interests also include the history of collecting, voyages and expeditions in malacology, mostly from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.