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Museum-quality insect taxidermy specimens, butterfly domes, and natural history art, preserved and mounted by a zoologist with university entomology experience.

Brahmaea tancrei, the Siberian owl moth, from Russia. On the bench and not yet under glass.The workshop is back. Foundat...
10/09/2026

Brahmaea tancrei, the Siberian owl moth, from Russia. On the bench and not yet under glass.

The workshop is back. Foundation repairs are finished, I am most of the way moved back in, and shipping is at full capacity again. This week is the ramp up for the holidays.

Custom and commission orders stay closed for the rest of the year. The bench is full until January.

Lophozozymus pictor, the mosaic reef crab, from Indonesia. Framed under glass in an 8 x 6 x 2.5" shadow box.It is widely...
10/02/2026

Lophozozymus pictor, the mosaic reef crab, from Indonesia. Framed under glass in an 8 x 6 x 2.5" shadow box.

It is widely considered the most toxic crab in the world, and it makes none of that itself. The toxins come from its diet, picked up from worms and molluscs and whatever else it scavenges on the reef, then concentrated in its own tissue. Saxitoxin and tetrodotoxin, the same compounds that make pufferfish dangerous. Heat does not break them down, so cooking does nothing.

Available now at zoologicashop.com. Website only, not on Etsy. Link in my bio.

Pulchriphyllium pulchrifolium, the leaf insect, from Indonesia. Female and male, captive bred, both under glass on cork ...
09/25/2026

Pulchriphyllium pulchrifolium, the leaf insect, from Indonesia. Female and male, captive bred, both under glass on cork bases, 5x3". (Long catalogued as Phyllium pulchrifolium. The genus was revised and most references still use the old name.)

She does not need him. Unmated females produce viable eggs that hatch into more females, so a population can exist for generations without a single male. It costs her time. Unfertilised eggs take roughly six months to hatch, against three or four when a male is involved.

Males are far scarcer, and he barely looks like the same animal. Narrow-bodied and built to fly, where she is broad, flat and flightless. Both are on Etsy now. Link in my bio.

A flat mount takes about two minutes. Glue the animal to a stick or a paper backing, spread whatever needs spreading, do...
09/18/2026

A flat mount takes about two minutes. Glue the animal to a stick or a paper backing, spread whatever needs spreading, done. That is most of what gets sold as insect taxidermy.

Live posing is not that. It runs across multiple posing stages with revisions in between, then stabilisation, then making sure the pose survives being shipped across a country. People always ask how that last part is done. I am not telling them.

Posed properly there is motion in it. There is tension, and a sense of movement. Flat and pinned has none of that and reads a bit uncanny. These are meant to teach, and if a piece is going to stand in for its species on someone's shelf, it deserves to look the way the animal did.

First slide, Rhombodera javana, female.

Cyclommatus metallifer finae, the metallic stag beetle, from Sulawesi. Male, bronze, under glass on a wooden base, five ...
09/04/2026

Cyclommatus metallifer finae, the metallic stag beetle, from Sulawesi. Male, bronze, under glass on a wooden base, five by three inches.

Those are mandibles, not antlers, and they are weapons. On a large male they run close to the length of his own body. Males meet on a branch at a sap run and fight over it: he works the mandibles underneath his rival, closes them, lifts him clear of the bark and drops him.

Reach costs him power. A long mandible is a long lever, so the force he delivers at the tip is a fraction of what he generates at the base. He compensates with muscle, which is why the head is that wide. Most of what reads as head is jaw. He can afford the trade because the fight is decided by leverage rather than by damage. He does not need to injure anything, he needs to get underneath first.

He is available on Etsy now. Link in my bio.

Idolomantis diabolica, the giant devil’s flower mantis. Female, in full threat display, under glass on a cork base.Pale ...
08/28/2026

Idolomantis diabolica, the giant devil’s flower mantis. Female, in full threat display, under glass on a cork base.

Pale green delicately pigmented wings, conical head and compound eyes, and extraordinarily spiky raptorial arms held ready to defend herself. At rest her shape mimics a flower. She hides there and waits for the pollinators, which are her prey. Both of these came from Tanzania, and the species is notoriously difficult to rear and to source, so this is a very limited run.

These two females go to my collector list on August 31st. Website only, they will not be listed on Etsy. The list goes out once a month and subscribers get first dibs on all my top rarities, so if you want in, the link to join is in my bio.

Protogonomorpha parhassus, the mother-of-pearl, back in stock after a long gap. Four inch glass dome on a cork base. Old...
08/22/2026

Protogonomorpha parhassus, the mother-of-pearl, back in stock after a long gap. Four inch glass dome on a cork base. Older references and plenty of collections still catalogue it as Salamis parhassus.

The common name is not marketing. Pearly white through pastel pink and violet, and the colour moves as you do: what you see straight on is not what you see from the side. It photographs as one shade and reads as several in the room.

Available now on Etsy, linked in bio.

These are vintage specimens from a museum collection in SE Asia. Unfortunately, they are in an unsealed case. The first ...
08/13/2026

These are vintage specimens from a museum collection in SE Asia. Unfortunately, they are in an unsealed case. The first (identified as Danaus sita, nomenclature since revised to Parantica sita) carries a label that dates the collection about as well as the damage does. That damage is likely from dermestid beetles.

Dermestid beetle larvae notoriously feed on taxidermy. They work from within and out of sight until it’s too late. The first sign is debris: frass (f***s), fragments, and sometimes even larval molts appear around the specimen. There may even be visible holes where the larvae entered and exited. The Graphium agetes has lost most of both forewings.

Warm, humid conditions and unsealed enclosures allow this. This is why I prefer sealed glass domes as my mounting method. The glass dome is not decoration, it’s insurance against conditions and dermestids.

Four Morphos on the setting board.After a specimen is relaxed, the wings are positioned and held under paper strips for ...
08/07/2026

Four Morphos on the setting board.

After a specimen is relaxed, the wings are positioned and held under paper strips for several days while everything dries. There is no adjusting it afterward. Whatever angle the wings set at is the angle they keep, permanently.

That blue, incidentally, is not a pigment. It is microscopic structure in the scales reflecting blue light back at you, which is why it shifts as you tilt it. Grind the wing to powder and the colour disappears entirely.

It is the step that decides whether a piece looks alive or looks pinned.

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