Undersea life, clear as glass
They sold for as little as 50 cents in a scientific catalog in the 1800s, but today are priceless. They were scientific teaching tools, illuminating life under the sea in a way that drawings and preserved specimens couldn’t, but today are works of art. The Blaschka glass sea creatures are a collection of Portuguese man-o-war, sea anemones, octopuses, and other tentacled marine life that make up a new permanent exhibition, “Sea Creatures in Glass,” at the Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH), marking the culmination of an eight-year effort to clean and restore the models. 'Sea Creatures in Glass' A glass version of the athecate hydroid, a species of jellyfish. Photos by Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer Called a phosphorescent sea pen because of its resemblance to a quill pen, this creature is comprised of polyps and able to emit light. An aeolid nudibranch, or sea slug. Chrysaora hysoscella, or compass jellyfish, seen...