The museum of natural history has some amazing examples of taxidermy, and many of these exhibits are over 100 years old. They even had some of those sloths that are so cute looking. I hear that some people keep them as pets? I don't know why people would want sloths as pets when they could just as easily rent out their basement to some Grateful Dead fans. The museum had platypus and armadillo too. Now those are weird looking creatures. God invented those when he invented shrooms, I'm thinking.
Oh, hey. That's something you never see in natural history museums; preserved fungus. How cool would it be to have a mushroom exhibit? I guess they don't preserve well. Or at least, whey you dehydrate them they don't look much like they did when they were picked. Or the biologists keep eating the specimens. :)
Great post Ahren! I love the reference to Dead fans.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant post. Thanks. My father worked in the National Museum when I was a child and I remember being taken across the road to the Nat. Hist. bit and finding it all rather terrifying! Particularly the suspended whale skeleton, and the giant elks inside the front doors. But your photos are so beautiful I might even give it another try when I'm in Dublin again :)
ReplyDeleteWay in the back they had a row of primate skeletons. It was amazing to show the differences and similarities between orang-utans, chimpanzees, gorillas and homo sapiens. The gorilla's skull has a fin on the top that looks like a mohawk; I am told that is to allow their powerful jaw muscles to connect to the skull. Apparently they spend most of their time chewing tough plant material.
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