It’s nice to see a ‘dynamique’ Asian Elephant on display on the atrium of @MuseumToulouse - just shy of 4m it’s an impressive sight Don’t think I’ve seen an elephants butt so prominently displayed before… #MuseumNerdsAbroad Jack Ashby #taxidermy

Fact of the week!

It's our first #MuseumNerdsAbroad trip this year, and Dr Erica McAlister and I have just spent over seven hours exploring Muséum de Toulouse. It is outstanding. We nerded hard, but only got halfway round. Looks like we're going back tomorrow! 🤓

Just can't get over how spectacular the Wall of Skeletons is at Muséum de Toulouse. #MuseumNerdsAbroad Dr Erica McAlister

Back for Day Two of Dr Erica McAlister and my #MuseumNerdsAbroad trip to Muséum de Toulouse. There is some genuinely gorgeous mammal #taxidermy here. (Have you ever noticed that most #museums' mammal displays are heavily biased towards male specimens?) #MuseumBiased

It's time for the Muséum de Toulouse edition of Rate My Platypus, and here we have a solid entry in the #fattypus category, with a charming smile, smooth curves, good webs, and a tail full of fat. 9/10. #MuseumNerdsAbroad #taxidermy #platypus

Marmots and #wombats are basically the same animal, but on different sides of the globe: bulky, beige, waddling, burrowing herbivores with teeth that never stop growing. (But unlike wombats, #marmots can't crush predators to death with their butts). #MuseumNerdsAbroad #taxidermy

Fungi models looking so good you could eat them for breakfast. Obviously for many reasons don't either eat any of these models or several of the real things.. Muséum de Toulouse Jack Ashby #MuseumNerdsAbroad #Fungi #models

Today I learnt that in French, #SugarGliders are called "flying marsupial #squirrels." #MuseumNerdsAbroad Muséum de Toulouse #marsupials

Emotions of marsupial #taxidermy at Muséum de Toulouse: 😊 Enthusiastic #koala. 😮‍💨World-weary #TasmanianDevil. 😖 Determined yellow-bellied glider. 😵‍💫 #Bandicoot on crystal meth. #MuseumNerdsAbroad Dr Erica McAlister #marsupials

Hippos' closest living relatives are #whales & #dolphins. I love it when #museums display them together to communicate this fact. (As hippos are closely related to cows, it means cows are more closely related to whales than they are to horses). #MuseumNerdsAbroad Muséum de Toulouse

Here's a species you don't often see as #taxidermy: a four-horned antelope, or chousingha, from India. #MuseumNerdsAbroad Muséum de Toulouse

You don't often see deer #taxidermy with their antlers in velvet (presumably because it's a faff to remove the skin, tan it, and reattach it to the antlers). Velvet is the blood-rich skin that covers the antlers as they grow. #MuseumNerdsAbroad Muséum de Toulouse

There's some gorgeous #taxidermy here, but does that #hyena's head look overly enormous to you? They do have massive jaws, but has the taxidermist got overenthusiastic here? (Dr Erica McAlister as scale). #MuseumNerdsAbroad Muséum de Toulouse

One of the biggest moments in mammalogy in the last 30 years was demonstrating that all these animals are each other's closest relatives. Together, elephants, manatees, aardvarks, elephant shrews, tenrecs and golden moles make the group Afrotheria. #MuseumNerdsAbroad jenn

Tag yourself, Muséum de Toulouse #primates edition. Tarsier Aye-aye Proboscis monkey Loris #MuseumNerdsAbroad #taxidermy

Taxidermy has long been used to communicate political messages. Species like #bears (and wolves, foxes & thylacines) are very often posed as menacing as possible, with teeth bared in ferocious expressions, sending a message they should be considered an enemy. #MuseumNerdsAbroad