Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy

Posted on January 11, 2012 by missalix

Last night I attended a class at the Morbid Anatomy Library / Proteus Gowanuson anthropomorphic taxidermy, which is the practice of mounting and displaying taxidermied animals as if they were humans or engaged in human activities. I received an email about one of the first offerings of this class in November, but the class sold out too quickly for me to get in. Luckily, the instructor Susan Jeiver added more dates in January and February!

Earlier this year I bought a taxidermied jackalope head for our living room (which looks amazing, by the way), so when I saw this email I thought taxidermy might not be so bad. Plus, how often do you get to taxidermy anything, and if you were to taxidermy something, how often would you dress it up? This was definitely a unique class for sure.

For you animal lovers out there, all of the mice that were used for the class were already dead feeder mice, and would have been discarded anyway if not sold. We all received a frozen mouse that we had to warm up until it felt like a “warm beanbag.” Once we did that we cut them open down the back and “fleshed out the mouse,” meaning we pulled apart the skin from the organ sac. Actually I’m surprised at how clean the whole process was, and how easy it was to get everything out. There was a slight issue removing the tail bone/cartilage out, as I accidentally ripped off the whole tail! :( Later on someone would accidentally throw out my tail, but there was an extra mouse whose tail I was able to use.

The grossest part was definitely scraping out the brain. I kept hearing people asking “when will I know I’ve gotten to the brain?” “You’ll know” was the response we’d get. You had to scrape through the bottom of the jaw to get to the brain, and once you got there it was basically the size of a booger, or some people said a really big pimple. Once you got the brain out there was still some residual slimy stuff to get out, but considering all of the other internal organs came out in one piece, it wasn’t so bad!

Once we were left with the hide, skull, arms and legs it was time to think of a pose and scene for our mouse. Coming into the class my original idea was to create a standing gentleman mouse, complete with top hat, monocle, mustache, bow tie, perhaps a vest or coat, and a cane. Then Colin had the great idea that we should put our two mice together in a scene, so how could we incorporate a gentlemanly looking mouse with another? Colin’s first idea was a magician sawing the other mouse in half, and though it would have been possible to cut the second mouse in half, it would’ve been a bit of a hassle.

We then came up with the idea of a lady mouse tied to the train tracks, and an evil Snidley Whiplash character to go along with it. Since Colin’s mouse was going to be the tied up lady, he didn’t have to do quite as much to his mouse itself, and focused more on the accessories and accoutrements of the scene. I was having a bit of an issue with posing my mouse and had to receive some help, but I think the end result came out great! Check it out!

I thought our scene came out so well! I didn’t even think about using both of our mice in a scene together until Colin brought it up. You can’t really see in this photo, but the “evil” mouse is holding a stick of dynamite, and his little mustache is my favorite! I tried to make him a hat, but all of the hats I made kept being too big. Plus I wanted his ears to stick out, so no hat for him. We’re going to hang it up somewhere (we don’t have a spot picked out yet) around eye level since it has the frame in front, and we’re going to put a photo of a desert in the background (maybe from our desert vacation!) or if we can find one of railroad tracks leading up to it with a train, that would be pretty funny! The point of this class is to really dress up the mice, and our instructor said that the scene we created was really what the class was about, to put them in a human scene with human clothes and attributes. But I think it’s definitely easier to make such a scene with two mice instead of just one.

The way we were taught to taxidermy our mice was one with readily available materials and wouldn’t cost much so that, if we were so inclined, we could continue to taxidermy at home. While I’m not sure I’m going to make a hobby out of it, it was still a good time and at least I have the knowledge in case I ever get the urge, or if a fine animal pelt happens to fall into my lap ;)