The Animal Attic
The Animal Attic is at the top level of the Otago Museum building on Great King Street, (which opened on August 11, 1877). At this time the Museum was lit by skylights and windows that flooded the gallery with natural light. Because of this, many of the specimens became faded over the years. This was one of the reasons the Animal Attic underwent a major redevelopment project in 1979, with the goal to restore the gallery (as close as possible) to its original layout.

The Gallery Layout
The layout reflects a Victorian view of evolution, with the specimens displayed in a linear fashion from single celled animals to human beings, seen as the pinnacle of evolution. To follow this line, the gallery needs to be viewed by first examining the inner cases, then the outer ones.

The inner cases start at the lowest end of the evolutionary line, with Protozoa (the single-celled animals). They are mostly microscopic and parasitic animals.

The line follows with Porifera (sponges), Cnidarians (corals, sea anemones), Mollusca (shell fish, snails, octopus), Echinoderm (starfish, sand dollars) and finally annelids (segmented worms, leeches).

In the inner cases on the opposite side of the gallery are Arthropoda (insects, crabs, spiders; anything joint legged with an exoskeleton).

The evolutionary line is continued from here by viewing the outer cases starting with the amphibians (frogs, newts/salamander), Reptilia (crocodiles, lizards snakes turtles), and Aves (birds).

The outer cases on the opposite side of the gallery start with Monotremata (echidna, platypus), and move on to Marsupiala (koala, kangaroo) through to mustelids (badger, otter, skunk, world relatives of some of our most destructive introduced pests like the ferret, weasel, and stoat). The final category is mammals, ending with a human skeleton.

Many of the specimens on display today date back as far as the 1880s or even earlier. The Museum has a current policy of not purchasing animals that have been shot by collectors, although museums in the past, including Otago Museum, have done this.