rogue-taxidermy-of-sarina-brewer:

My road trip over spring break took me through Oklahoma City and to the Museum of Osteology, the largest privately owned collection of skeletons in the world. I will be sharing a few of my favorite exhibits over the next few days. Definitely worth the stop if you are ever in the area. Thank you @MuseumofOsteology & @SkullsUnlimited – keep up the amazing work. Looking forward to coming down again after you get the new building done and expand your current space xo.

Meet the saiga; the love child of a tapir and an antelope. Its Snuffleupagus-like nose is an adaptation for warming cold air before it enters the lungs during the winter, and cools air in the summer. Saiga once has an enormous range, but now there are only a few small pockets of them in Russia and Kazakhstan. Unfortunately Saiga horns are believed to have medicinal value in ancient Chinese medicine….. so just like rhinos, siagas are heavily targeted by poachers who sell the horns on the black market. They are now classified as critically endangered, with the estimated population to be around 50,00. This old taxidermy mount doesn’t accurately capture the detail of their unique nose, click here to see Google images of these beautifully bizarre animals ~