The Dead Zoo

You know how most natural history museums have lots of fossils, and charts about soil levels, and skeletons of things long dead, displayed next to artists renditions of what they probably looked like? Not here.

Oh, they had the obligatory extinct animal skeletons, but they skipped the nice friendly dinosaur skeletons and went straight for the nightmare monsters, also known as Giant Irish Deer. Oh, and they skipped the "what this might have looked like when it was alive" picture, so feel free to let your imagination run wild.

Oh, and STAR WHALE SKELETONS.

The rest of the museum was made up of a vast and bizarre menagerie of taxidermied animals. It looked a lot like what I would imagine much of the Bloggess' childhood looked like, except the museum had much less blood. And none of the animals talked (Don't ask, just buy the book. You will thank me. Or have nightmares. Either way, I win).

They had all sorts of animals, in some very questionable displays. Many of them were in pristine condition, other had not been quite as loved. Or maybe those had been more loved, who knows. Regardless, they were awesome. Unfortunately I missed snapping a picture of wild dogs fighting on top of a severed deer head. There were tons of small scary rodents, a sea otter that was probably much friendlier alive...

A warthog that is on his way to win a beauty pageant.

Just look at that hair. 

James Garfield's brother.

This guy that just wants to be friends, but seems to be in danger of being eaten.

And the eager to please one.

Oh, and did I mention that in honour of St. Patrick's day, they had live snakes?

It was awesome. I made friends. With snakes.

-El

P.S. Snipes are REAL. They just live in Ireland. They are also much less threatening than I was led to believe.

The glowing red eyes must have been replaced when he was stuffed.