120 Years in 120 Objects
Join the KwaZulu-Natal Museum in celebrating the museum’s 120th year of orbiting the sun. Staff and guest curators have chosen one object or item per year of our existence to highlight to the public. Visit the website and our social media platforms regularly to see the latest object and keep an eye out for information about a physical exhibition later this year!
Today’s Object is from 1913
Giant of the cemetery, the oldest earthworm specimen in the collection (Geogenia caementerii) by Thembeka Nxele, Curator of Oligochaeta
This is the oldest specimen in the Natural Sciences collections. It was collected in 1905 by E. Warren who sent it overseas to a German zoologist, Wilhelm Michealsen, for identification because there was no expertise in the country at that time. In 1913, Michaelsen described the specimen as a new variation of Microchaetus papillatus (var. caementerii), which Plisko later transferred to Geogenia. Warren collected this species from St. Peter’s Churchyard in Pietermaritzburg. More specimens of this species have been collected from the cemetery yards around Pietermaritzburg in recent years. During a funeral at Thembeni cemetery, one specimen of G. caementerii showed up and because of its big size, people started saying it must be an ancestor of the dead because how can such a big earthworm be in the cemetery!
The earthworm collection at the KZN Museum is the largest on the continent and play a vital role in understanding soils and soil ecology in the region. Though there was no resident expert when this specimen was collected, we now have in house research and are leaders in this field.
Photo taken from: http://pdfpublish.co.za/uploaded/CathedralOfTheHolyNativity.pdf
Geogenia caementerii (in the original bottle and original name)
