Stuffed Stuff

Lollipop Rats

Last time I was in New York, I visited the American Museum of Natural History (actually, I visited it the time before too, and plan to visit it every time I go to New York in the future, even if I am only in town for half a day). Like the Natural History Museum in London, it’s a massive museum, and therefore occasionally a bit patchy. A lot of it - the ocean hall and biodiversity gallery in particular, are absolutely beautiful. And some bits are a bit more… um… old-school.

This particular display, as far as I can remember, is in a section about regional wildlife. I suspect that it was originally intended to be quite scientific and detached, rather than the idealised, ‘Garden of Eden’ displays of the dioramas. The curator probably intended that visitors (or scholars, as the likely intended audience) should be able to make direct comparisons between the full range of local species. This also makes it a sort of ‘museum in a museum’ - an anachronistic display, stuck in a little time capsule of a side gallery, that tells us something about how the museum and its curators worked in the past.

All of which is really interesting. But I have to admit that my first thought when looking at these poor beasties is that, with their stick-straight tails and fat little bodies, they just look a bit like lollipops.