Page 181 - The Secret Museum

collections, it was decided to keep her complete and undissected, preserved in

formal saline. She was defrosted – carefully, so that the mantle, head and tentacles
defrosted at the same time – her tentacles were unravelled, and she was injected with
15 litres of preservative before finally being placed in her home. Her tank is on a
stand, so I could look at the squid at any angle.

She is 8.62 metres long and her enormous tentacles spread the length of her 9.45
metre long acrylic tank (built in California by Casco Ltd, the same team that made
Damien Hirst’s shark tank). There is another set of tentacles beside her. These belong
to the colossal squid, which shares her tank. It’s an incomplete specimen of a species

which, when fully grown, may be even bigger than a giant squid. (The museum does
not have a complete specimen yet.)

Archie and the tentacles of the colossal squid are stored in the basement because
it is the only floor in the archive that can support the enormous specimen (plus one).
Another reason for keeping her here is the formal saline (a mixture of formalin and
salt water) in which she is preserved, is more toxic than alcohol; the air around her
needs to be monitored and vented in case of a leak. She’s not a fish, of course – she’s
a mollusc – but this is the room of the museum that is best suited to be her home. You

can visit her on a Spirit Collection tour.

Archie may hog the limelight, but there are countless treasures in the fish
collection. I peered in at a small catfish called a candiru; in the Amazon, a naked man
might be shocked to feel it swimming up his penis. I saw fish collected by Darwin on
the Beagle, most of which were new to science when he collected them and are still
being used for research today.

Charmingly, I was shown an old UK record grayling specimen donated by a
fisherman proud of his catch. His grandchildren have been to visit it. Less charming
were several specimens of nature gone wrong, including a kitten with no face and a

chicken with two heads; these were on display when the museum first opened and are
now only used when children come in on school trips.

Next, we ventured towards the sharks, lifting the lid of a metal tank to reveal
several rare species. These sharks helped Olympic swimmers to win gold medals.
Fiona Fairhurst, a biomimetician – someone who incorporates good designs from
nature into technology – was working on swimsuit ideas for Speedo. She set up shop
among the tanks to study the sharks and their skin.

I stroked the skin of one of the dead sharks she worked with, and it was really
rough, like sandpaper. That’s because it is covered in razor sharp scales called
‘denticles’, like little teeth. They help the sharks swim effortlessly by controlling the

turbulence of the water next to the skin of the swimming shark. Speedo incorporated
the denticle design to make Fastskin®, their fastest swimwear ever. It was thought the
streamlined, sharky swimsuit reduced friction on a swimmer’s skin, and contributed
to the winning of 47 medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics, including the six gold
medal haul won by Michael Phelps. In 2008, 105 world records were broken, 79 of