Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 2432 Sonia ([-])
Although the podium building is inconspicuous, its interior decoration and facilities are more upscale than the main building.In order to keep the interior cool, it not only has thickened exterior wall insulation like the main building, but also specially installed an underground air circulation refrigeration system.Whether it is hot summer or "cold winter", the temperature here can always be kept in a suitable state.

To keep it clean, the walls and floors are tiled, and in the basement, a small ammonia-cooled freezer is installed to freeze and refrigerate certain specimens.

Sonia showed her pass to the guard at the entrance, then went to the dressing room to change into a white coat, hat and mask, and a pair of house shoes.This is to prevent infection with bacteria or viruses carried by the specimen.

There is no exhibition hall in the podium, but all warehouses and workshops of different sizes connected by corridors.Sonia felt a chill as soon as she walked in.Unlike the busy exhibition hall, there are almost no people here.

She came to a specimen library on the first floor, where the "pending approval" specimens transferred from various places were placed.

Several "apprentices" in the specimen library are busy around the table.Specimens wrapped in paper bags filled the ground and shelves.

"Teacher Suo!" As soon as she entered, one of her "apprentices" came to greet her, "You are here, there are too many specimens to be decided—we can't make up our minds."

"Hello, Dawen."

This female "apprentice" is named Ju Wenjing. With Sonia's Chinese level, it is difficult to expect her to read "Ju" and "Jing" correctly, so she simplified and called her the simplest "Da Wen".

Because she had another female apprentice named Ju Wenyi, she was called "Xiaowen".

Naturally, they didn't call her Sonia or the more verbose Sonia Lili Shapoor, but simply "Ms. Suo".

There were also a number of other senior apprentices present, and one of the apprentices, Sonia's heart would beat faster when she saw it-she had never seen such a handsome man.A beautiful boy from the Caucasus Mountains, named Asavi Omshiyan.Cui Yunhong thought it was a mouthful, so she should just call her Cui Xi.

Cui Xi came to Lingao almost at the same time as Sonia.His appearance caused a sensation among the elders.Its effect is probably not inferior to the grand occasion in Sonia back then.Even the male elder had to admit the handsomeness of this young man.It is said that Daoist Zhang also showed an expression of unwillingness when he heard about it later.

Although Cui Yunhong loves him a lot, his social status is embarrassing.After careful consideration, Cui Yunhong decided to send him to study natural history painting, so that at least he could establish a certain network of contacts in the exploration department.So Tracy became Valentina's classmate.

Cui Xi herself was not embarrassed by her identity, on the contrary she was a little happy.It was later known that he had been targeted by slave traders and was going to be castrated and sold to Ottoman Turkish nobles as a eunuch.Now Asawi Omshiyan can at least exist in the form of a man.When he grows a beard and his figure is not so handsome in the future, the master will naturally release him-according to the habits of many countries in the Middle East, the male favorite of a big man is very likely to be promoted to become a general, a minister, etc. prominent position.

At this moment, this Caucasian teenager is sitting in front of several glass jars, carefully drawing something in a sketchbook.This young man has a good talent for painting, and Trini highly praised him, thinking that if he can be well trained, he can become a professional artist.

Sonia followed Ju Wenjing to the table with several specimens placed on it.Even though she was wearing a mask, a rotten and musty smell came to her nostrils.

All the stripped specimens transferred here must be stored in the ammonia refrigeration freezer at minus 20 degrees in the basement for 72 hours at ultra-low temperature before entering the specimen bank, so as to kill the bugs and eggs that may exist on the specimens and curb the growth of bacteria. Breeding before being sent here for testing.

At this moment, the closest thing to her is a specimen of a boa constrictor, which is a smaller boa constrictor, about two meters long, lying on a tree trunk.There are obvious signs of decay on the python skin, and many places have been eaten by moths with large and small holes. The straw used as filling is exposed from these, and it is black.

Sonia picked up a bamboo probe and poked lightly on the specimen, and a hole was immediately broken in the python skin.She shook her head: "It's useless." As she spoke, she stamped the red stamp of "destroyed" on the card.

The next one was a weasel, and Sonia could tell at a glance that it was the Hainan green weasel unique to Hainan Island.She was also present when Wanning collected it.At that time, I was very happy to collect this new subspecies unique to Hainan Island.

However, there were many mold spots on this Hainan weasel specimen. In some places, the hair had fallen off in whole, and the skin also showed signs of cracking.Apparently it was poorly preserved.Sonia sighed, because the Hainan weasel is very rare and only inhabits large forests. To collect it, you have to go deep into the mountainous area in the heart of Hainan Island.

At present, there are still certain risks in entering the mountainous areas of Hainan Island.In the past, every time the expedition team entered the mountainous area, they were escorted by Li and Miao mountain troops, which can be said to be mobilizing.

The green weasel has a cautious and concealed habit, and is good at climbing trees. It is the most tree-climbing species among the weasel family in the south.The number of populations is not large, and it is rarely encountered during the inspection.You have to be lucky to get it.

She changed a bamboo probing stick, tried it out, and felt that the leather was still well preserved and still elastic.No decay was found, as long as the mold spots can be removed and there is a possibility of repair.Or try to save and repair it.After all, it is not easy to collect once.

"Keep this one, it should be okay to repair it again."

The next specimen was a monster: a sailfish.This is a sailfish caught by the Navy's fishing team from Sanya a few years ago. The specimen is about 4.5 meters long.Wang Luobin, who was in Sanya at the time, realized that this swordfish could be used as a specimen, so he asked someone to peel off the skin and fins of the fish completely, and then store it in ice cubes and send it to Lingao to make a specimen.

This specimen is generally complete, and there is no mildew, but it is full of dust.The skin of the fish is cracked, broken and peeled off visible to the naked eye, and the bones of the fish are poked out in some places.However, when touched, it was found that the skin of the fish remained largely intact, and there were no signs of rotting or moth-eaten.The fish can continue to be exhibited after a simple repair.

"This fish has the least problem." Sonia said to her apprentice while looking around, "most specimens that have been stored for a long time will have similar problems. Repeated shrinkage and expansion will eventually lead to cracking and damage to the skin. The texture of the skin of the peeled specimen will become thinner and brittle. After drying, the tensile force of the specimen skin becomes larger, lacking the toughness of living animal skin, and it will grow after repeated dry and wet changes. Cracking, breaking, falling off, etc., causing the skin to deform, the body color to fall off, and the stuffing to overflow. Look here—” She pointed to a place where the fish skin was broken with a probe, “There is obvious deformation here. First, deformation, Then there are the cracks. If patched as soon as possible, these cracked gaps can grow very quickly, causing further insect infestation or mold.”

Dawen and Xiaowen nodded together.

"...So our repair is also the easiest-as long as the skin is not weathered or rotten, it can still be repaired. We will repair this swordfish together in a while."

The overall condition of the stripped specimens is not ideal, which is also expected by Sonia. She has visited the herbarium of Fangcaodi and the herbarium of the exploration team, and the conditions are very poor.Something went wrong for sure.

The soaked specimens are better than worse. Although there was no formalin in the early years, the specimens of small animals, plants and insects soaked in high-concentration alcohol at that time were generally in good condition, and most of them did not appear to be corrupted and fell apart.The only problem is that the alcohol in the early specimens is starting to turn yellow and cloudy and theoretically needs to be replaced.

As for dried and waxed specimens, the situation is very strange, that is, some are well preserved, with intact flowers and leaves, some are shriveled, and become fragments when touched;Some whole boxes of insect specimens have been broken and fallen apart even though the packaging is intact and the sealing wax is not damaged.

The best preserved ones are the bones and soaked specimens sent from Bairen General Hospital.On the one hand, doctors are more rigorous when making specimens, and would rather not do it if the conditions are not met; on the other hand, their preservation conditions are much better than Fangcaodi.

For the "apprentices", most of them are observing the various parts and skeletons of the human body up close for the first time. Naturally, the visual and conceptual impact is very strong, and some timid people dare not even look at it at first.It was only with the encouragement of the elders that he dared to approach.

In comparison, Sonia is more used to it-this kind of collection is very common in Europe.In particular, soaked specimens or skeletons of various "deformed fetuses" or deformed people can often be sold at high prices, and are regarded by collectors as a kind of "wealth" that can be shown off.

But Australians are apparently not too interested in collecting "freaks".Most of the handovers were macerated specimens of human organs or diseased tissues.

These specimens are well-made and soaked in high-purity alcohol or formalin.The vast majority of them are in good condition, only a small number have tissue dispersion or discoloration of the liquid, which can be ignored for the time being.

Sonia stamped the card while reading it, and dictated the relevant situation and comments, and wrote notes in Dawen.She estimates that about half of the damaged specimens can be repaired, but there are too few staff in the Natural History Museum. If the elders don't come to help, in fact, only she and two "apprentices" can do it, so I don't know When will it be repaired.There are still a bunch of stuffed animals waiting to be made in the basement.

(End of this chapter)