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Scorpions hold a renowned status as iconic creatures across numerous cultures in the world. Traditionally preserved as desiccated specimens for educational purposes, they have been exhibited in museums and pedagogic collections, serving as concrete epistemological conduits for public education on biodiversity. However, these specimens frequently lack meticulous organization, potentially misrepresenting the animals' ethological characteristics. This brief article aims to offer paradigmatic guidance for taxidermy of scorpions, ensuring a more accurate depiction of their in vivo habitus, achievable through the use of readily obtainable tools and undemanding techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article emphasizes the importance of implementing Specimen Management Plans (SMPs) in scientific research to maximize the value and impact of collections. SMPs would provide funding to collections that are actively used and capable of growth, ensuring proper care, digitization, and curation of specimens. The plans would also support the recruitment and training of a diverse collections workforce. SMPs would benefit various stakeholders by increasing the reproducibility and utility of specimen-based research. The article recommends that grant-receiving institutions support their workforce in adhering to best SMP practices, while specimen-receiving institutions are funded to provide necessary information and infrastructure for specimen deposition. A coordinated approach among different organizations is needed to develop best practices and evaluation criteria for SMPs. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the intersection between natural history and U.S. imperialism, focusing on the practices of U.S. soldiers who collected animals, human remains, and cultural artifacts during military operations. The author highlights the role of Lt. Col. Edgar Alexander Mearns, who engaged in scientific work while following military orders, blurring the lines between his two roles. The article also explores the connection between military violence and natural history collecting practices, as well as the involvement of the Smithsonian in supporting imperialist collecting. The author emphasizes the need for further research on the impact of these collections on ecological knowledge and the understanding of nature and empire. [Extracted from the article]

This article discusses the Falkland Islands wolf, also known as the 'warrah', which was hunted to extinction in the late 19th century. Only 13 specimens of this species are known to exist in museums. The article presents new research on a Falkland Islands wolf specimen held in the Tūhura Otago Museum, confirming its genetic similarity to a specimen in the Natural History Museum in London. X-ray imaging and historical information reveal that the Otago specimen is a separate individual and provide insights into its taxidermy and arrival at the museum. The article concludes that this specimen is an important addition to the study of this extinct species. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the identification of a specimen in the New Brunswick Museum, Canada, previously believed to be the extinct sea mink (Neogale macrodon). The specimen, which was part of a private collection, was confirmed through genetic analysis to be the American mink (Neogale vison) instead. The sea mink was described based on a fragmentary skull found in Maine, USA, and was believed to have gone extinct as early as 1860. The identification of the specimen as Neogale vison suggests that the sea mink is only known from skeletal fragments found in Indigenous middens. [Extracted from the article]

The article focuses on the 102nd annual meeting of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH) held in conjunction with the Herpetologists' League (HL), the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles (SSAR), and the American Elasmobranch Society (AES) in Norfolk, Virginia. Topics covered include the acknowledgment of Indigenous land, student representation, and discussions on virtual meetings and financial reports.

Late-Victorian banker and private collector Lionel Walter Rothschild (1868-1937) dedicated his life to the study of zoology. He collected and studied huge quantities of zoological material, created a museum in which to house and display that material for the benefit of researchers and visiting publics, and started his own zoological journal for disseminating the research that he, his museum curators and other zoologists performed. Together, these activities constituted his 'zoological enterprise'; the building of which depended on a constant stream of financial transactions. However, little consideration has been given to how money shaped its development. A focus on money and analysis of the surviving archival evidence of Rothschild's financial transactions provides a novel methodology by which to explore his motives for the development of his zoological enterprise and the value he placed on its different parts. The argument is made that money is more than the merely pecuniary and that the approach of 'following the money' can therefore enhance our understanding of why museums, and enterprises like Rothschild's, took the form and shape that they did. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article examines the use of color in taxidermy at the Qing court in the 18th century. The court utilized various coloring techniques to bring life to inanimate forms, using synthetic materials to mimic the essence of life. Examples include taxidermized animal displays and mechanical devices adorned with colorful skins and feathers. The court's fascination with color and its transformative power highlights the belief that color is the essence of life. The article emphasizes the importance of coloration in preserving and enhancing the vibrancy of these artifacts over time. The text also provides a list of references and citations for further research on related topics such as the preservation of leather artifacts, the study of Manchu language, and the production of Buddhist costumes in the Qing Palace. [Extracted from the article]

The article sheds light on the nearly forgotten Lost City, a significant Native American site with over 60 mounds from the Mississippian period in Kentucky. Through family history and old photos, the author highlights the site's past as a tourist attraction in the 1930s, drawing attention to its current neglect and advocating for its recognition and preservation.

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A short history of taxidermy in the National Museum of Natural History “Grigore Antipa” from Bucharest is presented, from the beginning, in 1834, until nowadays. The main trends of this art of animal preparation were pointed. Prodigious contributions to this science were brought by Carol Valstein (1837), who worked with several taxidermists: Carlo Ferreratti, Nicolae Stahi, Petrache Georgiu (Gheorghiu, then Georgescu) and his sons, Cristian and Simion, Constantin Hepites – pharmacist, Carlo Ferreratti. Other notable figures in this field who have made outstanding contributions to bird and mammal collections are: Ion P. Licherdopol, Vasile Dumitrescu – engineer, R. R. Dombrovski and his most valuable help Constantin – “old man” Dăianu, Rudolf Ion Pop, Richard Canisius, Anghelie Bardan, Richard Hoenicke, Max Bleich, Tănase Modval, Nicolae Semen, Carol Borsiczky, Nicolae Pușcașu, Pamfil Polonic, Octavian Crăciunescu, Mircea Lucian Șerban, Aurel Papadopol, Marcel Ionescu, Adrian Mihalcea-Suru, Radu Ștefan Pană, Mircea-Liviu Ciobanu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Museologia e Patrimônio is the property of Museologia e Patrimonio and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract Internationally, the value and usefulness of museum zoological specimens are compromised when supporting contextual data are lost or disconnected from the specimen. In this pilot study, twelve Macropodidae Thylogale (pademelon) skins with known provenance from the Australian Museum (Sydney) were analysed using portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and principal component analysis. Elemental composition of preservative residues was assessed to establish if common patterns existed and could be associated with particular field collectors. Specimens were differentiated, and the field collector deduced, based on elemental analysis of preservative residues on skins. Each of the nineteenth century field collectors, in this study, were found to have applied the same or similar preservatives to zoological specimens over a number of years, which showed a consistent pattern of practice. Additionally, the specimens obtained by each of the field collectors could be distinguished from one another based on the preservative residues. These discoveries provide exciting prospects for the use of X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to couple museum specimens with unknown contextual data via their field collector and associated archival evidence, and hence, enable a considerable enhancement of their value as museum and research objects.

This study examines the contribution of Johann Friedrich Naumann (1780–1857) to knowledge of the biology of Pinguinus impennis (great auk; "der fluglose Alk/ the flightless auk"), written for his natural history of German birds, Naturgeschichte der Vögel Deutschlands (1820–1844) and published in the twelfth and final volume in 1844, the year in which the great auk is generally accepted to have become extinct. Naumann, a farmer in a rural area of central Germany, never saw a live great auk, yet by careful examination of the literature, correspondence and conversations with other ornithologists, together with the examination of at least nine skins and three eggs, he produced an extraordinarily accurate and perceptive account of the bird. In the winter of 1830–1831, Naumann obtained his own great auk specimen – a bird in summer plumage – through Johann Heinrich Frank, one of several natural history dealers responsible for importing great auk specimens from Iceland to Denmark and Germany in the 1830s. Naumann noted several differences between the great auk and the smaller but morphologically similar Alca torda (razorbill), and suggested that the two species represented separate genera. Despite the plethora of publications relating to the great auk following its extinction, it is remarkable that Naumann's exceptional account should have been almost entirely overlooked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of the American Institute for Conservation is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Internationally, the value and usefulness of museum zoological specimens are compromised when supporting contextual data are lost or disconnected from the specimen. In this pilot study, twelve Macropodidae Thylogale (pademelon) skins with known provenance from the Australian Museum (Sydney) were analysed using portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and principal component analysis. Elemental composition of preservative residues was assessed to establish if common patterns existed and could be associated with particular field collectors. Specimens were differentiated, and the field collector deduced, based on elemental analysis of preservative residues on skins. Each of the nineteenth century field collectors, in this study, were found to have applied the same or similar preservatives to zoological specimens over a number of years, which showed a consistent pattern of practice. Additionally, the specimens obtained by each of the field collectors could be distinguished from one another based on the preservative residues. These discoveries provide exciting prospects for the use of X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to couple museum specimens with unknown contextual data via their field collector and associated archival evidence, and hence, enable a considerable enhancement of their value as museum and research objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article relates taxidermy to oil in the subculture associated with the oil sands in the Canadian West. Kitsch as it relates to postmodernism, and postmodernism to oil, share a sense of melancholy; an affect which is explored through the author's own practice as a visual artist and in the work of Claire Morgan, an artist from the UK. The affect of oil, and its implications as to mortality on the landscape are examined through an engagement with objects considered as 'remains' sourced from the local area, generally in or near the town of Fort McMurray. The author, expanding on past work, proposes a mode by which the subculture of oil workers might be engaged in environmental narratives, necessitating attentiveness to issues of class. The author's artwork describes her own personal experiences in the region and the experiences of members of her community. This article is an attempt to contextualize and elaborate on specific experiences of oil culture; the 2016 Horse River (Fort McMurray) wildfire is a focal point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Anuario Turismo y Sociedad is the property of Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Empresas Turísticas y Hoteleras and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Lion Attacking a Dromedary was a sensational object for its first viewers at the Paris Universal Exposition in 1867. As an entity or thing, it provoked a powerfully visceral response and, as the current essay explores, it remains a difficult object to view or display today. As we now know, the Verreaux brothers embedded human remains in the figure of the rider that had formerly been assumed to be just a clothed mannequin. (I have elected to exclude any image of this controversial diorama containing human and other animal remains because it is not necessary for this theoretical inquiry). This essay suggests that theoretical tools derived from Material Ecocriticism and Monster Theory that may help us to think about, or alongside, the affective power of this disturbing taxidermy assemblage, ever aware that this piece draws its power from the theatrical, colonial violence of extraction and extinction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lions Attacking a Dromedary created at Maison Verreaux brings up a larger discussion about representations of racialized bodies (real and synthetic) in the history of museum display. Looking to the history of racialized bodies on display, I outline how taxidermied animals and racialized mannequins oscillate to reinforce continual colonial projects of the present. I show my reader how the construction of a 'specimen' is used in the dehumanizing processes that shapes who and what is human: a recognizable being that is (borrowing from Judith Butler) grievable upon death. Since the discovery of real human remains inside the racialized mannequin, the group is now redisplayed at the Carnegie Museum alongside educational insights that seek to ethically interrupt the colonial violence that the display narrates. In order to push this discussion further, I seek direction from decolonial artists and scholars on the best approaches to take in response to postmortem human rights abuses (past and present) and to show the ways that art can be both a destructive and reparative exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike the vast majority of large‐scale showpieces exhibited at nineteenth‐century universal exhibitions, Édouard Verreaux's taxidermy group, Lion Attacking a Dromedary, has defied the odds and has survived well past its initial public display in the Tunisian section of the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris. In the context of its original ethnographic display in a space dedicated to the promotion of French colonialism, Verreaux's ambitious taxidermy tableau would have been understood as a representation of authentic life in Tunisia. This illusion of authenticity issued from the object's expert mimicking of the period's artistic conventions for depicting the relationship between people and animals in North Africa by artists such as Horace Vernet, Eugène Delacroix, Antoine‐Louis Barye, and others. Instead of paint or plaster, Verreaux's composition took the form of an uncanny assemblage of body parts taken from a camel, two lions, and an anonymous human: in so doing, Verreaux used the tragic material of living beings to create a literal interpretation of the aesthetic tropes of French orientalism; with this world's fair showpiece, he thus violently bridged the theoretical and material divide between art and life. In this essay, I take these conjunctions between the "real" and the imaginary as a point of departure for discussing the feigned credulity of Lion Attacking a Dromedary. I contend that Verreaux's Lion Attacking a Dromedary should be considered as an imperial tableau, that is, as a didactic object that participated in training nineteenth‐century viewers to be what the historian Ariella Azoulay has called "imperial citizens" by drawing equivalences between nature and culture, and between representation and reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frederic Webster, chief preparator at the Carnegie Museum (CM) from 1897 to 1907, is credited by some for "rescuing" Lion Attacking a Dromedary (LAD) from destruction by the American Museum of Natural History. Webster's work on LAD was not his only involvement with the preparation and display of controversial bones, however. Webster mounted the hide and bones of Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's war horse, Little Sorrel and displayed the skeleton at CM. In 1949, Little Sorrel's skeleton were returned to Virginia, where it was eventually cremated and interred under a statue of Jackson in a public ceremony in 1997. This article compares the return and reburial of the bones of a Confederate horse to the continued display of the remains of a person of unknown origin in LAD to highlight the very differing treatment of these human and equine individuals. By considering the return of Little Sorrel's remains to be a repatriation, I argue that the horse was transformed from a museum specimen into a monument, leveling him as a symbol of the Lost Cause and further cementing the status of the individual contained within LAD as a specimen. Through a displayed proximity to animals, Jackson (and his horse) become more human, while the person whose remains remain on display in LAD is treated as less than human. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides newly unearthed details about the specimens of taxidermy and anthropomorphic groups produced by Carl Akeley (1864–1926) in his private studio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, before he embarked on his career in museums. The essay uses Akeley's decorative work and 'grotesque groups' as a springboard to explore the broader context of the rise of decorative taxidermy in the USA in the late nineteenth century, and the influence of European taxidermy on that trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Americanía. Revista de Estudios Latinoamericanos is the property of Revista Americania - Universidad Pablo de Olavide and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Audiovisual archives in local television stations favor the processing and preservation of audiovisual information for his retrival. The peculiarities of the processing of audiovisual information on local television stations archives have been little addressed from the scientific production. In the methodological order, there is a shortage of tools and instruments that allow diagnosing the processing of audiovisual information on local television. There are specific techniques and procedures that allow the processing of information, but which are limited to the traditional technical documentary processes: classification, cataloging, indexing and abstracting. Due to its characteristics, local television stations requires specific media and models that allow diagnosing the processing of audiovisual information from the materials they produce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of FinanzRundschau is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Henrietta Rose-Innes' novel Green Lion illuminates how art participates in human-animal relationships and impacts the lives and deaths of animals. As it narrates the demise of the Cape lion, the novel reveals the continuing influence of settler-capitalist ideologies and practices of preservation on representations of and responses to lions. This essay explores Rose-Innes' turn to taxidermy as inspiration for both the form and content of her novel, arguing that she crafts a work that resonates with new taxidermy in visual arts as she deploys narrative strategies that expose the consequences of images that neglect nonhuman life worlds and conceal death to offer consoling illusions of perpetual presence. Rather than recovering stories of lost animal worlds, Green Lion repositions animal images within histories of multispecies entanglements, exemplifying how literary texts can reframe animal lives and deaths to confront feelings of grief and guilt and reckon with legacies of settler-capitalism that have been obscured by images of timeless nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Minerals as Art Most mineral specimens undergo some degree of preparation prior to display in a museum or even a personal collection. I Rare Earth: Crystalline Treasures, i running this past summer through 5 September at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (fig. 1), brought together more than two hundred spectacular mineral specimens from around the world. Other cave formations in the exhibit included malachite stalactites from the Tonglushan mine, China (fig. 17), which have a very different morphology than calcite. Using Lavinsky's world-class collection of Chinese minerals as the foundation, the exhibit explored the long history and appreciation of natural objects for art and cultural expression primarily in Asian cultures. [Extracted from the article]

Taxidermy specimens are cloaked in animal skin; organic material that can decay or be eaten by insects. This essay examines the tactile relationship between this changeable skin-creature, and the figures of the taxidermist and the natural history curator in the turn of the twentieth century museum. Using Bristol Museum as a case study, it argues that specimens were not inert or stilled within museum collections. It explores how taxidermy specimens were meeting places between animal remains and human bodies, as natural history curators sought to remount existing specimens, and prevent them from deteriorating further. Taking a material approach, it examines how animal skins were physically shaped by human hands, and figuratively woven into stories of science, the British Empire and the natural world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extinction of nonhuman species, as well as human-induced environmental change in general, is happening at a frighteningly fast pace. A recent global joint scientific assessment suggests that around a million animal and plant species are currently threatened with extinction because of human activity. In this article, we propose that museums have an opportunity to slow time for their visitors in a period of rapid extinction. First, we discuss the role of museums as galleries for active reflection and encounter with the loss inherent in extinction by changing the time scales in which people think and move. Then we introduce the articles in this themed issue on Exhibiting Extinction as all grappling with the tension between fast environmental loss and taking the necessary time to reckon with extinction. Time functions on another scale when extinction is involved, with the jumbling of past, present, and future. We argue that offering ways for people to think about and with extinction by slowing down time may be museums’ greatest contribution to addressing the real and present danger of extinction.

The paradise parrot is mainland Australia’s only bird to have become extinct since white settlement. First named by British ornithologists in 1844, the bird has not been seen since 1927, its population declining rapidly due to changes in land-use. This creative-critical article investigates the history of the bird alongside personal encounters with six paradise parrot skins found in the storerooms of three UK museums, questioning whether the presence of such bodies negates our sense of total absence. It looks at changing taxidermy practices, and ongoing curatorial work to protect specimens from decay, refuting Donna Haraway’s notion that taxidermy animals have ‘transcended mortal life, and hold their poses forever.’ This enquiry examines what kind of encounter is generated between the viewer and taxidermy animal, and how this might enable us to bear witness to species loss during an age of mass extinction.

Considering the fact that in the specialized literature the data regarding the comparative morphology of the eyeball in birds are summary, being only details regarding the general structure, size and color, for a limited number of species, we considered it necessary to make a complex table, which includes all the anatomical elements from the level of the eye, especially those integrated to the artistic anatomy, a field of great importance for professional taxidermists. Following a laborious study, carried out on different reference materials, we managed to draw up this original table, which is intended to be a useful tool for the correct and easy choice of artificial eyes used in professional taxidermy. Based on this table, top manufacturers can be ordered to manufacture complex artificial eyes that present all the anatomical elements characteristic of a certain bird species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the history of a marine zoo-anthropomorphic hybrid, the human-fish (ningyo), within the socioreligious mindscape of Japan from the second half of the seventeenth to the end of the nineteenth century. Because of the interspecific anatomy attributed to them, ningyo have always been addressed from heterogeneous perspectives (religious, literary, political, erotic, scientific) and have thus been subject to continuous hermeneutic oscillations between the fringes and the centers of human/nonhuman networks. Focusing on this bidirectional process, the present study aims to shed light on the phenomenon of the ningyo , taking into account the material culture (taxidermic items, printed talismans), practices (sideshows, public exhibitions), and social actors (itinerant ritualists, scientists, politicians) that conceptually informed and anatomically reified this liminal marine creature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Der vorliegende Beitrag ging aus Überlegungen hervor, wie Dokumente, die als Fälschungen oder Nicht-Originale bewertet werden vom archivistischen Standpunkt aus zu betrachten sind. Welchen Wert hat eine öffentliche oder auch Privaturkunde, bei der aus diplomatischer und paläographischer Sicht alle äußeren und inneren Merkmale als echt gelten, deren Text aber Aussagen aufweist, die historisch gesehen als ungenau oder falsch angesehen werden müssen? Aber auch die umgekehrte Frage ist zu stellen: kann man ein Dokument als echt einstufen, dessen Ausführungen aus historischer Perspektive als echt anzusehen sind, die aber einige wichtige diplomatische oder paläographische Merkmale aufweisen, die als ungewöhnlich einzustufen sind? Im Laufe der Zeit haben sich Archivare, Diplomatiker und Paläographen immer wieder zu diesem Thema geäußert und damit zu einer Debatte über Fälschungen beigetragen, die immer noch aktuell ist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how critical acts of making during a participatory museum workshop and subsequent studio-based research-creation can inspire poly-vocal discourses around museum taxidermy as repositories of complex histories. Centred on four animals on display at the Redpath Museum, this research program sought to reanimate these animals and reposition their context within the museum space and the wider world. Through collaborative exploration and creative acts of making, art educators can engage and shape the discourse around taxidermied animal bodies, giving them new life as tools for teaching and learning in museum spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chincoteague pony swim is a cherished tradition in Chincoteague, Virginia, where noble saltwater cowboys round up wild horses to be sold at auction the next day. The island thrives off this event’s economic impact, which is amplified through Marguerite Henry’s series “Misty of Chincoteague”, allowing the pony’s fame to reach all corners of the world. The tradition is rooted in Chincoteague culture, but several different ethical aspects come into question after critical consideration. The islander’s economic dependence and pride in the ponies and yearly round up act as a disguise for these ethical quandaries, through the practice of modern myth making. This paper explores concepts of breed, the state of being wild vs. free, language surrounding horses, and hidden symbols within the swims organization to uncover the covert way in which Chincoteague culture upholds colonial values.