Obviously it's sad when historic #taxidermy cracks, but it can show you how these specimens were converted from flat, treated skins to stand "alive" again. Here, the crack in this rhino at @nhmwien.bsky.social reveals an inner cage of willow beams. 🦏

Don’t you want to just scratch that little spot behind thier adorable ears‽

My gateway thylacine specimen Aka the first one I ever saw at a museum that unlocked my love of the species

Only four #taxidermy bluebuck are known in #museums (Paris, Leiden, Stockholm, Vienna): the only large mammal species to become extinct in Africa in recent centuries. Bluebuck disappeared in ~1800. (It feels weird to know I've seen them all - the only physical evidence of what bluebuck looked like)

Excited to be at the Haus der Nature in Salzburg today, talking through some of my reflections on what natural history #museums have been up to for the last couple of centuries, and why that's important for how we think of them today.

Here's another Bernissart Iguanodon 'sibling' in the Senckenberg Museum, #Frankfurt, this time remounted to show its more correct life quadripedal position #dinosaur

I particularly enjoy thinking about this with bats and whales - cousins who have evolved in completely "opposite directions" of scale and habitat, yet both independently arrived at echolocation.

The largest ever turtle - 74-million-year-old Archelon - really was quite large. (@themuseumofliz.bsky.social for scale) 🐢 On display at @nhmwien.bsky.social

Stellar's sea cows are fascinating for many reasons, not least because they were giant marine mammals that were first encountered by Europeans in 1741, & were driven to #extinction by 1768. I recently learnt they didn't have any finger bones (it's not just that they're missing from museum skeletons)

Little and large. I really like this display at @nhmwien.bsky.social showing the size difference between the biggest and smallest #mammals, with a single #whale vertebra alongside a tiny shrew.

You don't often see a #taxidermy echidna that is actually shaped like a live #echidna. ✅️ Correctly backwards-pointing feet. ✅️ Belly correctly not flattened on the ground. ✅️ Smoothly graded neck. @nhmwien.bsky.social

Look at this absolute chunker of a #platypus (Schnabeltier in German = "beak-animal")! #Fattypus

An absolutely stunning #thylacine at @nhmwien.bsky.social, which hasn't been posed to convey the impression that #thylacines were dangerous or threatening in the way that so many other #taxidermy specimens do. That idea was central to the false claim that they threatened #Tasmania's sheep industry.

I like the idea of museum specimens having "siblings", like casts of the same original #fossils that were sent to different #museums around the world. @themuseumofliz.bsky.social and I have been "collecting" siblings of the Iguanodon in Cambridge - here's one in @nhmwien.bsky.social in #Vienna. 🦖

If you don't have space for a whole #mammoth, half a mammoth works just fine. 🦣 @nhmwien.bsky.social

Human-thylacine interaction @jackdashby.bsky.social @nhmwien.bsky.social

I FOUND THE FEMALE! There is a single female specimen in this gallery at @nhmwien.bsky.social. For some groups of #mammals, males are almost always used as the representatives of their species in museum displays, and females rarely get a look in. It's one way that #taxidermy props up the #patriarchy

Even though it's such a fundamental mammalian behaviour, it's rare to find #taxidermy posed suckling - presumably because of nineteenth-century prudishness. But here's some lovely #badgers at @nhmwien.bsky.social. 🦡🍼

Some #taxidermy highlights from @nhmwien.bsky.social: - aye-ayes are one of those animals that taxidermists usually do REALLY BADLY. But not this time! - an absolute whopper of a walrus. - some stunning big cats - that puma is gorgeous! - a hooded seal, with its bonkers nose fully inflated.

So often when you see #amphibians and #reptiles preserved in jars in #museums, they are bleached into bland beige blobs, but at @nhmwien.bsky.social many retain much of their colours. Check out this tomato #frog!

There's amazing interplay between the architecture and specimens at @nhmwien.bsky.social - here's a #python and whale jaw around the doorways. #Vienna

Literally the first specimen you see in @nhmwien.bsky.social is a model mosquito (in a parasite display - it's really common that #museums highlight the unhelpful notion that #insects are "pests"), but soon after there's a great display showcasing insect diversity. For you @flygirlnhm.bsky.social

There are few #museums I've wanted to visit more than @nhmwien.bsky.social and boy oh boy it doesn't disappoint 🤓. This is one of the Biggies when it comes to classical majestic displays of nature. It's oozing imperial vibes. #Vienna

Remember kids, in #museums, it's Halloween every day.

If Halloween gets a bit scary for you, sleeping pygmy possums can ward off even the greatest evil. #fieldwork #MammalWatching #WildOz #marsupials

This Halloween, remember that the best #bats are the biggest bats. 🦇 #wombats

A massive lace monitor slithering off a tree in #RoyalNationalPark. Look at the size of those hands and feet!🦎 These awesome #lizards can reach 2 metres long. #WildOz #herping #NSW

When an #echidna waddles off, you can really see how their hindfeet point backwards, with long, curved backward-facing claws. Because of the unique arrangement of their limbs, they can flex so these claws can reach every part of their body to scratch between their spines. #Tasmania #MammalWatching

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wombat.

As Samuel Johnson - perhaps the most accomplished wordsmith ever - said, "When a man is tired of #wombats, he is tired of life". #WombatWednesday #fieldwork #Tasmania #wombat #MammalWatching #WildOz

I know it came out 25 years ago, but wow what a book. Why Weren't We Told explains how historians tackled the "cult of forgetfulness" that omitted the violence of Australian colonisation. It also serves as a damning rebuke for when the Right accuse researchers "rewriting #history" in the UK today.

Buddies! It's hard to go for an evening walk in #Tasmania without meeting these little fellas: Bennett's #wallabies and Tasmanian pademelons. 🦘🦘🦘 #MammalWatching #WildOz #marsupials

See how a #platypus uses its hind-legs as wedges to hold them in position while they're doing stuff, like stopping floating away whilst feeding (as here), or wedging themselves into underwater branches avoid danger at the surface, or to lock into the soil while their hands dig their burrows. #WildOz

Watching #PolarBears waiting for Hudson Bay to freeze was one of the most incredible wildlife experiences of my life. Here's a nice 🧵 about this same population by someone who knows what they're talking about 👇. #MammalWatching #WildCanada #bears

What a great experience- watch the video

Whoop! The American paperback edition of my kids' book WILD has just arrived, to add to the translated versions. 🤩 WILD encourages kids to look for similarities among completely different animals, to see patterns in nature when the same adaptions appear amongst very distantly related animals.🐡🦔

#OTD in 1858 a Malay teenager called Ali collected this bird-of-paradise for Alfred Russel Wallace & described its behavior. It led to the species' first scientific description. I wrote about how a far greater diversity of people deserve credit in the history of science in my new book #NaturesMemory

Happy #WorldKangarooDay! There are around 70 species of hopping #marsupial in Australia & New Guinea, filling a whole host of niches, in every terrestrial habitat.🦘 This is one of the smaller ones: Tasmanian pademelons are adorable forest #wallabies, readily spotted across #Tasmania. #MammalWatching

Eastern barred #bandicoots aren't only near the top of the leader-board for being utterly adorable, but they also have one of the shortest pregnancies of any #mammals: they give birth to mini-bandicoots after only 12 days! #BandiCute #Tasmania #marsupials #MammalWatching #WildOz

From Tassie - for #WorldWombatDay

Oh to be as happy as a wombat

Natural history #museums are magical, but do they really represent nature, or the people that actually built them? And how they can help save the world? Can't wait to be chatting about my book #NaturesMemory at @linneansociety.bsky.social on 13th Nov. Come along! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/natures-me...

The stars have aligned so that #WorldWombatDay falls on #WombatWednesday this year. Congratulations to #wombats everywhere, for: 🍑A butt that can crush predators to death. 🦷Ever-growing teeth that never wear down. 🧊The ability to poop cubes (so they don't roll off things). 🔵Glorious roundness.

Two of #Tasmania's animals foraging: while I was busy watching an #echidna (and she was busy watching me), a currawong snuck up and started investigating my bag in search of snacks (these guys know all about human bags: they can undo zips and buckles). #MammalWatching #WildOz #echidnas #OzBirds

Walking up on #IlkleyMoor and it's absolutely teeming with red #grouse. 🦃 Their bubbling, babbling, gargling, gobbling, ribbeting calls are a constant companion. [🔊 Sound on] #birds #birding #UKbirds #UKwildlife

There's a special buzz when you spot your book in a #bookshop window! 🤩 I spy #NaturesMemory in @grovebookshop.bsky.social (ahead of my talk at @ilkleylitfest.bsky.social later)

Good people of #Yorkshire, I'm coming your way tomorrow to chat about the ways natural history #museums do and don't represent nature, some hard truths about how these collections came together, and the ways they help save the world. Come along to the @ilkleylitfest.bsky.social! #NaturesMemory

A little Bennett's #wallaby grazing on the very shortest of grass. Across #Tasmania you find patches of extremely tightly cropped grass - known as "marsupial lawns" - because these fellas and their buddies keep them constantly "mown". 🦘✂️🌱 #MammalWatching #WildOz #wallabies

Whoop, whoop! The new queer wildlife documentary 'Second Nature,' narrated by the inspirational Elliot Page, will premiere in New York on Saturday. 🐠🏳️‍⚧️🐧🌈🐘 It looks awesome; check out the teaser. Hopefully it will be available in the UK soon. www.secondnaturedoc.com #lgbtq #nature #film #PrideInSTEM

Did you know that only 1% of the world's natural history collections are on display? The fantastic @jackdashby.bsky.social will be giving us an insiders guide to natural history museums, and exploring their role in today's world. 📆 13 November, 6pm 📍 The Linnean Society 🎟️ From £8