What do you do when you see a two-headed creature?
If you are the director of a Dunedin museum the answer is simple: You buy it.
The Dunedin Museum of Natural Mystery is now the owner of a taxidermied two-headed calf and it is now on display.
It arrived from a farm in the Coromandel last week after museum director Bruce Mahalski spotted it on TradeMe.
"I thought, well, I’d be mad not to bid on it.
"I did think it would be a useful addition to this museum’s collection and I was surprised that it was so easily available."
The calf was still-born on a farm in the Coromandel in 1993 and had been preserved, Mr Mahalski said.
"They thought it was unusual enough to have it taxidermied.
"They’ve obviously hung on to it for quite a while and decided it was time to part with it."
It was shipped from the Coromandel last week and when Mr Mahalski opened the box he felt immediate relief that it was in one piece.
"They’re either born dead or they die almost instantly.
"The body just isn’t designed to have two heads."
A skull of a two-headed calf was also displayed at the museum, among other similar exhibits such as a lamb with one head and two bodies and a cow with a horn growing out the middle of its skull.
"Part of the mysteries of life is we do get these anomalies happening."
The museum recently registered itself as a charity and its items were now in a trust.
This allowed it to work more closely with other museums.
"We can do loans with other museums. We’ve already done a bit of that.
"It just sort of firms us up with the existing structures and makes it more of a reputable institution."
There were a lot of valuable items in the collection and people wanted to keep it together.
