Jack Ashby
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jackdashby.bsky.social
Jack Ashby
@jackdashby.bsky.social
3.1K followers 280 following 660 posts
Award-winning author #PlatypusMatters & #NaturesMemory. Assistant Director of @ZoologyMuseum.bsky.social at Cambridge Uni. President of the Society for the History of Natural History. Australian mammal nerd. He/him. Own views.
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jackdashby.bsky.social
Oh, and here's the link to the tickets!

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sedgwick-m...
Sedgwick Museum Lates: Behind the Scenes Uncovered
Explore the Museum in an atmospheric evening setting, as we share our work and collections behind the scenes.
www.eventbrite.co.uk
November 20, 2025 at 10:21 AM
jackdashby.bsky.social
Most people, particularly in Europe, don't imagine #wombats (or any Australian #mammals!) in the snow, so it's cool that the #wombat diorama at @nhmwien.bsky.social depicts a snowy habitat. Snow wombats are common in #Tasmania - like the live one above. #taxidermy
A taxidermy wombat in a diorama including a dusting of snow on the leaf litter, and a painted background showing a snowy scene
November 13, 2025 at 11:19 AM
jackdashby.bsky.social
Want to know more about how #echidnas got their European names? Here's part of that story from my book #PlatypusMatters: The Extraordinary Story of Australian Mammals (the bit about why we can't explain that echidnas appear to have been named after vipers is in the footnote).
The cover of PlatypusMatters: The Extraordinary Story of Australian Mammals by Jack Ashby. The image shows a platypus diving A screenshot of a page of the book. It reads: "Shaw dithered about where they should be placed taxonom-ically, suggesting that a new genus may need to be created for them, but in the end decided to lump them in the same group – Myrmecophaga – as South America’s giant anteaters. He gave them the common name ‘porcupine ant- eater’, and they have otherwise become known as the ‘spiny anteater’, ‘Australian porcupine’ and ‘New Holland hedgehog’.* Over the years they were subsequently put in the same genus as porcupines and then platypuses, but eventually taxonomists followed Shaw’s original notion and gave them a name of their own. The one we have settled on is Tachyglossus, meaning ‘swift tongue’, with the species name aculeatus, or ‘prickly’. This is perfectly descriptive – echidna tongues can flick out 100 times in a minute in search of their insect prey.One of the strangest, most surprising and most fondly remembered social experiences of my life took place in the tiny township of Adventure Bay, on Bruny Island, off Tasmania’s south coast. Toby and I were there for the island’s incredible wildlife – particularly the abundant echidnas. We spent a couple of weeks sleeping in our car – a minuscule, ancient bright- yellow Holden Gemini – in the empty beach parking lot overlooking the Southern Ocean (it was, without exaggeration, * The etymology of the word echidna is an interesting one, as ékhidna in Ancient Greek means ‘viper’. The word ekhînos, meaning ‘hedgehog’ (or, if Latinised to echinus, also ‘sea urchin’), would make much more sense, but that doesn’t explain where the ‘d’ came from"
November 11, 2025 at 4:53 PM
jackdashby.bsky.social
The only other #taxidermy #thylacine in Austria is also posed to look non-threatening. This one in storage in @nhmwien.bsky.social is crouching in a diminutive or even curious pose. It came from a natural history dealer in Hamburg in 1870. Looking closely it appears to have been given a full pouch.
A taxidermy thylacine specimen on a shelf of other marsupials (a quoll is in front). Viewed from its left side, the animal has been posed to have its head dipped, looking down, and both front and back legs bent into a crouch. Between its back legs the pouch is extended A taxidermy thylacine specimen on a shelf of other marsupials (a bandicoot is to the left). Viewed from its front right side, the animal has been posed to have its head dipped, looking down, and both front and back legs bent into a crouch. Between its back legs the pouch is extended. A label around its neck reads: ST134 THYLACINUS CYNOCEPHALUS
November 10, 2025 at 7:29 AM
jackdashby.bsky.social
There's the International Thylacine Specimen Database - which is one of humankind's most glorious accomplishments (though it's sadly not that easy to access, as it's on a cd-rom, but you might be able to find it in a museum library)!
November 6, 2025 at 7:35 AM