The Process of Taxidermy

The term taxidermy comes from the Greek taxis ‘arrangement’  derma ‘skin’, which is what the process is all about. The skin of an animal is cleaned and preserved and then stretched onto a ‘body-shaped’ frame, usually modelled on the animal itself. The ‘mounted’ animal can then be adjusted to provide a reproduction of the creature in life, or in the case of scientific collections, a reference specimen from which accurate measurements, observations and even samples can be taken.  While taxidermy models grace the galleries of the Museum, scientists working behind the scenes prefer to use flat skins to advance their research. Each skin is a biological snapshot, a moment in our planet’s evolutionary history. Skins allow scientists to access that data, and compare it to results we have got from modern DNA analysis. Those things together allow us to uncover evolutionary changes in birds. Whole taxidermy mounts are used in our galleries, and skins are used for scientific research.