![]() In 1792 George Shaw (who would also publish the first scientific description of the platypus seven year later) included “The Porcupine Ant-Eater” in The Naturalist’s Miscellany. That mystery echidna popped back into my mind recently when re-reading the original species description on the Biodiversity Heritage Library, and I think I know the answer. Why does this taxidermy echidna at Manchester Museum have blue eyes? Photo Credit: Jack Ashby. I’ve come across tens of wrong-footed echidnas, and I know the reason why, but I was flummoxed a few years ago when I encountered an echidna with blue eyes at the Manchester Museum. In the case of the echidna, it is extremely common for the back feet to point in the wrong direction - in life they should point backwards (enabling echidnas to scratch in between their spines and dig vertically downwards to bury themselves in defense), but taxidermists often didn’t know that, so twisted their feet around. This means that their poses are often incorrect. The trouble is that throughout history, the person doing the taxidermy - particularly for specimens that had travelled to Europe from Australia - had often never seen the living animal. Taxidermy is intended to make visitors forget the animal is dead, and to achieve that a flat animal skin has to be rebuilt into the shape of a living animal. While museum specimens are in one sense a primary source, they are also modified by people in order to make them presentable to the public. This has made the topic of how animals are depicted - in writings, illustrations and museums - a real focus for me.Ī live (undoctored) echidna, in Tasmania. However, we wouldn’t be able to confirm exactly how these things are put to use without seeing them alive.Īs someone with one foot in the world of Australian mammal ecology (the living) and another in natural history museums (the dead), one thing that really interests me is the cross-over: how do the dead represent the living? Museums are sites of communication - they provide windows onto the natural world for people to engage with animals they may never see alive. The impenetrable coat of thick spines is clearly for defense against predators and guessing at an ant-eating lifestyle doesn’t require too much imagination when you think about what its narrow toothless snout and stout, digging claws might be for. ![]() Examining echidna specimens in museums helps us to understand their evolutionary relationships and enables us to come up with some reasonable suggestions for how they live their lives. ![]() Photo Credit: University of CambridgeĬonsider the echidna, for example. Taxidermy short-beaked echidna ( Tachyglossus aculeatus) from the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge. ![]()
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