Preserving the Dead

For the first time in my life, I am enjoying handling dead animals! Working on fixing taxidermy mounts and self-teaching the art of pinning native bees has become my work and weekend hobby of late, although I've been preserving natural objects for most of my life. Have you ever cleaned off a patterned rock to display on a sunlit surface, or pressed plants between the pages of a field guide? Those first steps of preservation mimic the delicate practice of museum preservation. Because a natural history museum can host many forms of objects, a variety of methods are used to sustain them. Taxidermy is most likely the first to come to mind. However, the majority of our Museum's specimens are preserved through other means.

Taxidermy: The word "mount" often gets thrown around when discussing the preservation of animals. A taxidermy mount is a prepared skin of an animal that is mounted over a form to give it a realistic shape. Mounts usually range from a full body to a shoulder mount where only the head and neck are included. We usually see shoulder mounts of ungulates like deer, elk, or moose, whether in a museum or Grandpa's workshop. Taxidermy that the Museum owns range from hummingbirds to a moose.

A raptor wing during preparation.

Some may think of taxidermy as a gross process and frankly, it is. Birds and mammals need to have their skin pulled off like a sleeve from bottom up. Once the head is reached, eyes get removed through the mouth and brains are scrambled like eggs until they turn into a goo that can be scraped out. By the time an animal is fitted into a less disturbing state, children will be asking all throughout the Museum, "Is it real?" 

Pressing: The life of a plant can be fleeting, especially after being picked. A standard way to preserve plants for a museum is to flatten them out as much as possible. This is called pressing, and if taxidermy seems like it requires too much effort or skill, preserving plants may come as a relief. On almost every family vacation out of state I have grabbed a few flowers and squished them flat between the pages of a book. When I moved to the Jackson Burke house during my first Museum internship, I discovered a proper plant press in the basement storage--stacks of cardboard sandwiched between wooden frames that were tightened together with buckled straps.

Pressing plants quickly removes moisture and the resulting two-dimensional structure can be more easily mounted without breakage. Dried plants are placed onto a mount of heavy, archival paper and glue or mounting strips used sparingly to keep delicate bits from breaking off. Plant specimens are fragile and usually kept in storage to be removed for study only. 

Quaking aspen preserved in our herbarium.

Fluid: Fluid preserved specimens seem to only show up in popular culture as jars of deformed critters in horror films. Museums however, have historically preserved a variety of whole specimens by "pickling" them in fluid for centuries. The Cable Natural History Museum houses the following types of materials preserved in fluid: mollusks, insects, fish, amphibians, snakes, plants, and even a fetal beaver. Preparation usually involves plopping a specimen into a fluid preserve of ethanol or isopropyl alcohol. Larger specimens, like a fetal beaver, may need to be injected with chemicals to further keep from decaying. Placed in a airtight jar, these specimens can last for a couple hundred years with little upkeep.

This fetal beaver was recently gifted to the Museum,
preserved in a glass jar filled with ethanol. 

Pinning: Insect pinning can be a fun project for 4-H and Scout groups. Insects, more loosely referring to most arthropods, don't even need to be collected alive to pin. If found dead and dried, they can be placed in a homemade relaxing chamber that re-hydrates the tiny body to be more flexible during placement. Pins pierce through a particular area of the bug's thorax, depending on the type. Once all parts--wings, legs, or even antennae--are properly positioned, the bugs are allowed to dry, labels are added to the pin, and the specimen can be placed in a display or storage case. 

A bald-faced hornet ready to be removed from a
spreading board where it was allowed to dry. 

Etcetera: Natural history collections store a wide range of objects. The Museum has plentiful variety in preservation needs not yet discussed, with objects including geology specimens, bird nests and eggs, skulls, artwork, and man-made artifacts. Sometimes, preservation requires the simple yet complex work of maintaining an appropriate environment for long-term care. Rocks and mineral, often more hardy materials, are scrubbed of debris before storage. Skeletal remains similarly get cleaned of organic matter. Others more simply are placed in archival containers. No matter which preservation method is used, the act of preserving helps to ensure our collections of information and wonder last for as many years as we can possibly ensure.