London 'Micrarium' aims to showcase tiny animals

LONDON (AP) - They're miniscule, there're millions of them, and one museum manager says they're massively under-represented.

Jack Ashby, who manages London's Grant Museum of Zoology, says he's trying to give dragonfly nymphs, tortoise mites, and sea spiders the attention they deserve, unveiling a "Micrarium" devoted to some of animal kingdom's smallest subjects.

Ashby says the Micracrium - housed in a former storage room within the larger museum - displays 2,323 slides of mini-monsters, from tortoise beetles to baby cuttlefish.

He says many of the slides were once used as study aids for British zoology and anatomy students and that some of them date back to the mid-19th century.

Ashby says that the Micrarium opens Thursday and is free of charge. But don't all come at once. The room is very small.

Much cooler conditions behind the front