Ross’s Gulls From Nansen’s Fram Expedition

In the middle of the Arctic Ocean, Fridtjof Nansen satisfied one of probably many longings; he got to see, and even collect, not just one, but eight Ross’s Gulls! The birds in the picture are two of these young Ross’s Gulls that were collected during Nansen’s Fram Expedition in 1894. As representatives of the High North, with an assumed breeding ground north of what was then known land, they were one of many important pieces in Nansen’s theories about the northernmost regions of our globe.

The collections at the Natural History Museum in Oslo contain a number of objects that were collected on Nansen’s expedition across the Arctic Ocean in 1893–96. In the Bird Collection, for example, there are three out of a total of eight Ross’s Gulls collected at approximately 81°N in the beginning of August 1894. Still unknown to Nansen at the time, the sight of these birds way up in the icy wastelands must have really made an impression on him; he describes the event over several pages in his book Farthest North (vol. 1, 306–309), including the following emotional statement: “To-day my longing has at last been satisfied. I have shot Ross’s gull, three specimens in one day. This rare and mysterious inhabitant of the unknown north...”.

Of course, the documentation of this and other species at such high latitudes represented new knowledge at that time, and even today, knowledge about the distribution of this species is limited. And, since the birds were collected and deposited in a collection like the Bird Collection at the Natural History Museum, they can still contribute new knowledge. Although Nansen obviously had good reasons for collecting them at the time, new methods are constantly being developed enabling new analyses of, and access to knowledge about, the objects.

For example, genetic analyses now make it possible to answer a number of new questions related to both the individual objects and the species to which they belong. Where did e.g. these birds, being just a few weeks old, come from? And were there as few Ross’s Gulls back then as there are today? Isotope analyses may be able to say something about their diet, which can then be compared to present-day Ross’s Gulls and perhaps shed light on any changes in their distribution or population size.

Although we at the Natural History Museum are naturally most concerned with the objects themselves and the scientific answers they can give us, they can obviously form the basis for research and analysis in other fields as well.

Do you have questions or comments to the text? Contact Lars Erik Johannessen.