Whilst sitting at our desk and managing the enquiries coming in over the phone and website, we do get to overhear the visitors' reactions to a lot of our physical displays. We get the same ones quite often, so I thought I'd chronicle a few of my favourites here.
Image: Siobhan Motherway Source: Museum Victoria
"Bird-dropping spider?!"
Yes, really! This is my favourite almost-question. The tone of voice employed by the visitor is almost universally a mixture of amusement, fascination, disgust and disbelief. Isn't evolution brilliant? It has worked out best for this particular spider to look like poo - I imagine the other bird-dropping spiders don't mind.
Image: Siobhan Motherway Source: Museum Victoria
In reference to Murray, our favourite live exhibits cabinet denizen: "Is he real?" (Yes!) "...is he ALIVE?"
Yes! He's not very active, but he does like to come and bask on his upper branches and soak up a bit of the heat lamp. It's a hard life, eh?
Image: Siobhan Motherway Source: Museum Victoria
"Look at this giant bee! Is this real?"
Er, no. That's actually a large-scale model of a European Wasp. Something tells me that if the model were to scale, the Great Australian Barbecue would be an awful lot more fraught with danger than it typically is.
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