Back in 1877 when Canterbury Museum founder Julius von Haast was looking to add some mounted animals to the collection, an Austrian taxidermist named Andreas Reischek rose to the task, filling the then-expanding museum with big cats, a grizzly bear, antelope and even an elephant.

This eye-bogglingly international parade of animals was a hit with Christchurch locals, many of whom would have never seen anything like them before.

Among the collection that Andreas mounted for the museum was this Javan rhinoceros, a smaller one-horned rhinoceros that is now critically endangered. Is it estimated that only about 74 individuals remain, all confined to a protected area in Indonesia. Poignantly, DNA taken from Canterbury Museum’s rhinoceros was used to confirm the extinction of the Vietnamese population of its species.

You can see the Javan rhinoceros in Canterbury Museum’s Victorian Museum exhibition.

canterburymuseum.com