1 hour ago
2
Before Kiani, fellow Melbourne Zoo resident Bong Su, an Asian elephant, died in similar circumstances in 2017. The public mourned the disappearance of a larger-than-life presence that had been a local fixture for 40 years.
But Bong Su still stands tall, thanks to the museum’s preparatory department.
Dean Smith (seated) and Steve Sparrey with Bong Su, the former Melbourne Zoo resident who has been “taxidermied” for the Museum’s new gallery.Credit: Simon Schluter
Hidden deep beneath the spacious halls of the museum, the department is a maze of spaces devoted to taxidermy and other practices that produce the illusion of life where there is none. With six staff members, it’s one of the largest of its kind in the world.
Senior preparator Dean Smith has been at the museum for almost four decades. He began as a volunteer, working every day for two years while earning a science degree at night school.
Loading
“Taxidermy” is the arranging of skin, he says. “That’s the Latin definition. ‘Taxis’ is motion and ‘dermis’ is skin, so ‘motion of the skin’.”
They may look like complete animals frozen in a moment of time, but beneath that skin there’s often nothing of the original creature. There are exceptions – if it’s been freeze-dried, or the skeleton has been retained – but many of these figures are as much artistically arranged sculptures as they are scientifically preserved specimens.
That’s why they can seem so lifelike. The way they’re posed gives the sense the creature still possesses the spark of life.
“We want people to connect with these objects and specimens. Eyes are one of the very important aspects. The first thing people do is have a look at the eye of a specimen that’s looking at you too,” says Smith.
Taxidermy techniques have changed over the centuries. These days the department can use 3D printers to recreate bones and other body parts, but age-old materials like coconut fibre and cotton wool are still commonly used.
“With 3D printing you can whip something out, but in 10 years’ time that will become brittle, whereas something that was modelled and moulded and cast in other mediums may last longer. We’ve got some wax models that were made in the museum 120 years ago and they’re as good as the day they were made,” says Smith.
Melbourne Museum taxidermy specialists Steve Sparrey and Dean Smith.Credit: Simon Schluter
“Some of those older techniques are potentially faster and might be more long-lasting. The work that we do, we want it to be here for a long time,” says department manager Steve Sparrey.
A lot of the work down below the museum goes beyond mounting specimens for display. Preparators also perform “skin studies” that collate morphological data – head length, wing span and so on – to produce a representation of an animal that will be useful in the future. These studies allow researchers to track variations in species over time – how a particular population of little penguins has changed in size over 100 hundred years, for instance.
The perils that preparators and their subjects face are many. They range from the colossal – the body of an elephant falling on you wouldn’t be pretty – to the tiny insects and bacteria whose feasting can undo years of work. These same tiny threats can be taken on as assistants, however. One room in the preparatory department features cases filled with domestic beetles who strip flesh from bone with far more precision than a human hand can.
“These are the museum’s hardest working employees,” says Sparrey.
While the temperature in the beetle room is mild, just around the corner the barometer plummets 50 degrees. The department is home to giant walk-in freezers that can keep specimens from decomposing indefinitely. A few seconds inside will leave your own bones frosted for the rest of the day.
Then there’s the post-mortem room, whose the assortment of tools is chilling in its own way. “It was a rude awakening when I first had to go and help with this whale stranding and carve into something so big,” says Smith.
Sparrey says it took some time to get used to the job. “I was day-in, day-out doing skin studies, and the first six months were pretty rough for me.”
Loading
He found he had to change his mindset. “Rather than it being a really sad thing, I was providing this creature with a second life. Bong Su’s mount will be around for a lot longer than we are.”
Back upstairs, the exhibition has that sense of perspective.
Upon entering, visitors are invited to touch their hand to a plate where pulsating lines flow out, showing their place in the tree of life. In another section, a huge maze of plant roots recalls the blood vessels in our veins. Curators hope to show people they don’t just live on Earth, but are part of Earth’s web.
The first-floor gallery is crafted in organic curves and bright colours. In the rainforest section, huge flowers have been built, their stamens replaced with small speakers that project the busy hum of a living forest. The gallery’s light-show is interactive and each footfall sends small bugs and motes scurrying across the carpet.
Visitors can also lend their energy to spawning corals, which play out on the space’s roof. Amid the soil and roots, people touch “nutrient crystals” to help the plants take up minerals from the soil.
Along with Kiani and Bong Su, there are hundreds of other specimens from the vaults, including giraffes, jaguars, emperor penguins and dancing birds of paradise.
In the ice section, there is a taxidermied polar bear. Next to a taxidermied snow leopard is a small alcove where you can feel the warm, wet nose of a cub safe in its burrow. There is video taken from cameras strapped to leopard seals, catching fish and squid kilometres under the icecaps.
The whole exhibit – and the decision to keep Kiani’s cells on ice – play out in the context of a rapidly warming and collapsing climate. But there has been a very deliberate decision to focus on possibility rather than peril.
One interactive invites people to wipe away the grime and damage of our current lifestyle and paint a new, cleaner, better future. Another lets people download actions they can take to save the planet to their smartphone.
“We put together a fairly urgent but compelling story – but one that does have that side of ‘there are things to be done’,” says Kate Phillips, senior curator of science exhibitions.
“There is cause for optimism and hope, as well as cause for concern.”
Our Wondrous Planet is open at Melbourne Museum now.
Get fascinating insights and explanations on the world’s most perplexing topics. Sign up for our weekly Explainer newsletter.
