Making the Invisible Visible: Digitizing Invertebrates on Microscope Slides

Zoom in to this new, smaller-scale exhibit in the Arthropods Gallery to discover an unseen world! Making the Invisible Visible showcases the Museum of Comparative Zoology’s collections of glass microscope slides. The data will be made available to the public, allowing researchers across the globe to learn from Harvard’s collections.

A wall of images highlights the beauty and diversity of the slide-mounted specimens. In a display case, visitors can see a slide reportedly sent to the museum by Charles Darwin. Another historical slide on display was made by William Morton Wheeler for his 1893 thesis study on insect embryos. This is paired with a microscope that Wheeler, who became a Harvard professor, used at the MCZ in the 1920s. Visitors can use a microscope of their own in the exhibit to view eight invertebrate specimens.

This exhibit was funded in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Read the press release here.