oVert 3D Scans Open Museum Specimens to the World

Advances in 3D scanning have transformed how researchers, and even the wider public, can explore animals internally. What was once hard for scientists to examine in full can now be digitally ‘dissected’ by schoolchildren using detailed models of these valuable specimens.

oVert makes museum specimens available in 3D

This is the aim of openVertebrate (oVert), a collaboration of 18 institutions. Over the last five years, the project has produced 3D reconstructions of museum specimens and made them freely accessible online.

Animals displayed behind museum glass represent only a small fraction of institutional collections. Museums hold thousands of specimens, gathered and meticulously preserved over many decades.

Yet the practical constraints of accessing physical specimens have long limited both scientific cooperation and education.

"If you require someone to get on a plane and travel to you to collaborate, that's prohibitive in a lot of ways," says David Blackburn, a herpetology curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History who led the oVert project. "Now we have scientists, teachers, students and artists around the world using these data remotely."

Two tortoises from the California Academy of Sciences are among the many vertebrates included in the digital collection.

"They have the largest Galapagos tortoise collection in the world. These are not things you put in boxes and loan," Blackburn says.

What the 3D scans reveal

Scanning the specimens has already given scientists fresh insight into animals they have investigated for years.

While digitising spiny mice for the project, Edward Stanley, director of digital imaging at the Florida Museum of Natural History, spotted internal bony plates across their tails. Known as osteoderms, these plates had previously been believed to occur only in armadillos.

"All kinds of things jump out at you when you're scanning," Stanley says.

The scans make it possible to look inside specimens in ways previously achievable only through destructive dissection and tissue sampling. They reveal skeletons and, in certain cases, soft tissues concealed within an animal’s body.

"Museums are constantly engaged in a balancing act," Blackburn says. "You want to protect specimens, but you also want to have people use them. oVert is a way of reducing the wear and tear on samples while also increasing access, and it's the next logical step in the mission of museum collections."

The models have already shown what killed a rim rock crowned snake (Tantilla oolitica), suggested that Spinosaurus would have been a terrible swimmer, and revealed that frogs have lost teeth at least 22 times during their evolutionary history-occasionally evolving them again later.

Using oVert models in the classroom

Schoolchildren have always been considered potential users of the models, and the project has already taught some teachers how to use them in lessons.

"It's been a game-changer for my evolution unit," says Jennifer Broo, a secondary-school teacher in Cincinnati.

"I teach juniors and seniors, and I absolutely love them, but they can be a tough audience. They know when things are fake, which makes them less engaged. Using the oVert models, you can teach concepts at an appropriate level while also maintaining the authenticity of the science."

With more than 13,000 specimens now scanned, choosing where to begin can be difficult. The collection remains somewhat challenging to navigate, but the colour-coded 3D anatomy diagrams created by Blackburn’s University of Florida lab are well worth investigating.

An impressive cave angelfish animation from the Florida Museum is another option.

Alternatively, users can explore an interactive wheel illustrating the varied structures of bird wing bones.

Sketchfab offers a user-friendly selection of interactive 3D models to view at any time. The complete 3D scan repository is hosted on MorphoSource.

A paper outlining the project was published in BioScience.