Daily life at the museum
Álvaro Conejos is a technician at the Natural History Museum of the University of Valencia
I studied Biology at the University of Valencia and then did a Master’s Degree in Applied Palaeontology. I am currently a research technician at the Natural History Museum of the University of Valencia (Spain). My job is to look after and prepare the palaeontology collections, give guided tours and educational workshops, and look after the minerals in the geology collection.
At the moment I am preparing a sample that arrived a few months ago: a sandstone rock from a deposit in Albaida. This nodule is made up of a pile of debris left by a family of hyenas.
In the nodule we found horse skulls and deer jaws, but the best of all was a hyena tooth, which confirmed that it was indeed from a shelter of these animals.
Álvaro Conejos also works on taxidermy maintenance at the Natural History Museum of the University of Valencia, as well as other collections. / Photo: Lautaro Iglesias
The public of the Natural History Museum is not used to seeing us working with the collections, securing both current and ancient specimens, maintaining the collections databases to avoid losing information in the event of an accident, or taking care of fossils and stuffed animals, all of which requires a lot of work.
Interview by Marta Gutiérrez and Inés Pérez Peris. Edited by Sofía Fernández Hernández.
