6 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Taxidermy

What’s the first that comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘taxidermy’? Almost everyone would think about stuffing an animal with materials and keeping them. However, animal preservation is much more than just stuffing. It is a scientific art that has lasted for centuries. The beauty of taxidermy is that humans can preserve living beings for years to come. It requires knowledge and immense patience. Before you start taxidermying animals, you must first know the anatomy of the animal as it requires many steps. 

Here are 12 things you might not know about the history, development and practice of taxidermy:

1. The word ‘taxidermy’ is derived from Greek words

Taxidermy means “arrangement” and “skin” respectively. It is believed that the first person to use the word taxidermy was Louis Dufresne of a Parisian museum who wrote a book on it in 1803. However, according to Merriam-Webster, the word appeared three years earlier in an ornithology book written by a zoologist named Marie Daudin. 

2. Mummies aren’t “true taxidermy”

We have seen centuries worth of proof that civilisations have been doing animal preservation especially the Egyptians bumming cats. However, a conservator commented that mummifying should not be considered as true taxidermy as both have different goals and techniques. For instance, mummies were created in a religious context while taxidermy was developed out of curiosity about nature.

3. Modern taxidermy took off in England in the early 19th century

According to Pequinot, taxidermy began to emerge in the 16th century, when Europeans started to mount the skins of animals while developing methods and the right chemicals needed to preserve them. As years go by, better methods have been developed and by the 19th century, animal preservation has been established within the scientific community.

4. Taxidermy was used on Captain James Cook’s expeditions

Captain James Cook embarked on many expeditions around the South Pacific where taxidermy was commonly used to preserve animal specimens. For example, according to the Royal Museums Greenwich, it was discovered that the captain brought back the first kangaroo skin which was believed to have been killed by a dog that belonged to naturalist Sir Joseph Banks to London in 1771.

Related link: 9 WAYS TO PROMOTE ANIMAL WELFARE

5. Charles Darwin learned this preservation technique from a former enslaved Guyanese man named John Edmonstone

John Edmonstone learned the skill from naturalist Charles Waterton who brought him on multiple expeditions. Edmonstone charged Darwin a guinea an hour to learn his services to where Darwin wrote to his sister.”gained his livelihood by stuffing birds which he does excellently”. 

6. Early taxidermy mounts were stuffed with sawdust and rags without regard for actual anatomy

Obviously, these models were oftentimes disfigured. In fact, mounts from back in the day skewed how we imagined creatures like the long-extinct dodo bird. In today’s time, taxidermists can purchase a mannequin where they then sculpt to achieve the position they want, then stretch and sew the skin over it. They can either be created using old methods such as the Victorian-era process of winding the body shape out of a string.