The hippopotamus, the giraffe and the zebra have long been dead and taxidermised.
But the noises of the African plains seemed to continue at Proctor Auctions on Sunday where there was fierce bidding on them.
Auctioneer Ronnie Proctor said they were among about 650 lots of exotic taxidermised animals, antique toys, clothes, cultural items and coins which attracted a large herd of bidders.
"We had a lot of people in the room on the day — 40-50 people — and they were quite vocal.
"Bidding was very fierce at times."
Mr Proctor said two pairs of elephant tusks fetched the top prices of the day — $5750 and $5250, respectively.
He said the tusks came into New Zealand before the ivory trade conventions came into place, so they were legally able to be sold.
The most valuable item up for auction was a large hippopotamus head, but it narrowly failed to reach the reserve price of $13,000.
So if you have a blank wall that needs a little zhooshing, Mr Proctor said it was still available.
He was delighted with the overall prices at the auction and was pleased with the way they had bounced back post-Covid-19.
"The prices were very buoyant for what we had.
"Some of the specimens that we had weren’t like the polar bears that we’ve had before.
"Some of these items we had were much smaller, but we had a bigger range of animals this time around. I think we sold about 80% of the items that we had in the auction."
