What the Fran

Victorian taxidermy

Warning: this is genuinely actually about taxidermy. There are no pictures of dead things in the post itself (certainly are in the links) but there is discussion.

Another rabbithole to go down: Victorian taxidermy. I was looking specifically for hoax taxidermy but don't seem to be finding much. After I saw an example at the museum store tour I went on. Those Victorians. What jokers.

One of my things with taxidermy is I just don't see it. I can't connect that with a real creature. It could just be a model. But they didn't have models like that back then. There is something about being able to see the scale of these things that couldn't be had from illustrations or still-rare photographs.

Taxidermy is macabre and generally these specimens weren't exactly roadkill or the grief-stricken preservation of the beloved family dog - they were killed for the express purpose of then taxidermising them. What happened to the dodos? Well there's one in my local museum store, the other side of the world where it has no business being. It's such the colonial pillaging attitude. People were taxidermied, and not just willing participants like Jeremy Bentham. Who wasn't technically taxidermied. Other preservation methods are available.

In books and stuff it talks about 'bringing specimens back' from the Galapagos or something and I'm imagining them in a nice little crate. Being fed lettuce. No, fool. They are dead. (Not always. But often.)

Much is made of gorillas. The 'missing link'. And vague stories about their bits and pieces being chopped off. I'm not sure how shocking a gorilla would be. It's just a big monkey? If it was the first of any kind of ape or monkey someone had ever experienced, yes, that would be significantly more significant.

But it does tie into another of my interests, the evolution of evolution. If you've not heard me bang on about this before, I just find the timeline of the (general) acceptance of evolution shockingly short? And gorillas played a part in it.

We also can't pretend this is all science. They taxidermied mice like some early Sylvanian families. They went very goth with dead rat jewellery. Victorians, I'm telling you.

And some more links:

#links