Author: Molly Quell / Source: Atlas Obscura
The Dode Dieren Met Een Verhaal or Dead Animal Tales exhibit started with a literal collision. In 1995, Kees Moeliker, the curator of Natural History Museum Rotterdam in the Netherlands, was sitting at his desk when he heard a noise.
A duck had crashed into the museum’s glass facade. It wasn’t the first time he’d witnessed an animal’s untimely demise against the building, but this time, the duck’s lifeless body was then assaulted by another male duck.It was the first time an act of homosexual necrophilia was witnessed in the species and Moeliker published a paper about the incident, which won an Ig Nobel prize in 2013. The story spread, and occasionally visitors to the museum would ask to see the duck, which had been immortalized with the help of taxidermy. Though Moeliker would bring the duck out upon request, it was another incident, infamous in the Netherlands, that really launched the exhibit.
An annual event known as Domino Day, which started in 1998, televised the attempts of a Dutch team to break the world record for the number of dominos set up and toppled. The event garnered a lot of local attention each year and even boasted hosts like Lionel Richie and Shania Twain. At the 2005 event, a sparrow (a mus in Dutch) got into the exhibition hall and, after it knocked over 23,000 dominos, an expert was brought in to deal with the bird. Attempts to capture it failed and it was eventually shot. The incident caused a tremendous outcry in the Netherlands, and the shooter was fined €200. After Moeliker appealed to the Ministry of Justice and Security, the body of the so-called dominomus joined the duck at the museum.
The bird generated a lot of interest and was featured in an exhibit about sparrows at the museum. “We have half a million dead animals and plants at the museum,” says Moeliker “and most get a half of a second of attention from the visitors.” The ill-fated duck and dominomus, however, got a lot more. So, Moeliker had his insight for the Dead Animal…
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