And the Harvard Museum of Natural History has a sea monster exhibit. Something clearly is in the water….

I’m betting it can be made available in a year or so 😉 It would be very funny, especially since when I was explaining this exhibit, more than one person asked “animal or country?”

And I thought, how silly! Narwhals don't have two tusks, you liar.

Except some of them *do*! A month after I saw that, I went to an exhibit about narwhals at the Smithsonian Natural History museum and they had a skull with two tusks! Sorry for doubting you, John Ray's interlocutor...

I once came across a letter to the naturalist John Ray that said something along the lines of-- yeah, unicorns don't exist. The horns [sic] come from these fish up north. I saw one, and it had two tusks, and the one-tusked ones are the "monsters."

And another lovely review in @nautil.us, which points out my favorite fact that I learned during my dissertation research-- that some narwhals actually have two tusks!

nautil.us/thar-be-mons...

It got a very generous review from the @bostonglobe.com. "Something to spout about," indeed! 🐳 💙

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/01/a...

It's following me! We have one of these at the MIT Museum

mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/...

I like the delicate medium of sketching translated to the hard marble of a capital. And the drawing is also a little wonky in the best of ways.

The building was likely never constructed... until 2006, that is, when a class recreated the design and 3D-printed models of the front of the palace. And while the drawing isn't on display, you can see some of these blocks on display in "Modeling Everything"

mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/...

One of my favorites is a perspective drawing of a palace façade (circa 1530) by Baldassarre Peruzzi.

mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/...

Wild as it may sound, there are some early modern things here at a museum mostly focused on modernity! It helps if you're looking for prints of whales, boats, or buildings though.