What Tim Flannery seeks...

To open the drawer of an old museum cabinet and find the remains of a creature that lived on a distant tropic isle long since dramatically changed by European impact, and which had traveled halfway round the globe to reach its keeping place, is a magical experience - like traveling in time itself. That moth-eaten skin, or even fragment, may be all that remains of an entire species, tinting the thrill of seeing with with immense sadness. For here lies all, perhaps, that is knowable of a branch of life that may have gone its own way for a million years or more, a life form that once played an important role in an island ecosystem, but which had now winked out, never to be seen again.

From his upcoming title: Among the Islands: Adventures in the Pacific

[Post pic from The Natural History of the Museum by Mark Dion; it depicts Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, Nîmes. View of the main exhibition room, beginning of 20th century.]