Programme information and Audio links.

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Chopped, Pickled And Stuffed Easter Special
Sunday 16th April 2006 - Listen here

Programme 1: 2nd January
How to stuff a giraffe
No, not 'extreme cooking', but the first in a new series of tall tales from Dublin's dead zoo, otherwise known as the Natural History Museum. Science writer Mary Mulvihill talks to staff and fans of this wonderful Victorian 'museum of museums', and explores the stories behind the exhibits and the people who killed, chopped, pickled and stuffed them. And if you want to stuff a giraffe, you must first catch your giraffe.

Programme 2: 9th January
Polar bear steak, anyone?
Nigel Monaghan, Keeper of Dublin's Natural History Museum, tells Mary Mulvihill some tall tales of derring-do on the Arctic ice. In 1852, Irish explorer Captain Leopold McClintock shot a polar bear, used the blubber for fuel, ate the steaks, and saved the skin for the museum. Look for the bullet holes in the polar bear next time you visit!

Programme 3: 16th January
How to pickle an eel:
Sylvianne Vaucheret's job at Dublin's Natural History Museum includes making sure the pickled specimens don't run out of alcohol. From two of these specimens, Mary Mulvihill learns what happens when you bite off more than you can chew: meet the eel that choked on a frog, and in the next jar, the eel that choked on another eel.

Programme 4: 23rd January
How to make a crystal jelly:
Dublin's Natural History Museum has the world's biggest collection of Blaschka glass animals. These zoological treasures, made in the 1870s by Dresden glass makers, Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, show visitors what jellyfish, anemones and other marine and microscopic creatures look like. And glass conservator Lorna Barnes tells Mary Mulvihill about the challenges involved in curating these fragile objects.

St Patrick's Day Special: 17th March
Snakes alive!
In the Natural History Museum, keeper Nigel Monaghan tells Mary Mulvihill why snakes are banished from the ground floor.

Programme 6: 20th March.
Dead as a Dodo
It was the world's largest pigeon, now it is extinct - Mary Mulvihill gets up close with a dodo skeleton at Dublin's Natural History Museum, and hears what dodo pie tasted like from zoologist Paolo Viscardi.

Programme 7: 10th April 2005
Scary, hairy spiders
Mary Mulvihill visits Dublin's Natural History Museum with Ireland's spiderman, Myles Nolan and tackles her arachnophobia.

Programme 8: 24th July 2005
Crusty Crustaceans:  Mary Mulvihill goes behind the scenes of Dublin's Natural History Museum with copepod enthusiast Mark Holmes

Programme 9: 31st July 2005
This week Mary Mulvihill brings us the stories behind the exhibits at the Natural History Museum in Dublin. Dublin's Natural History Museum has hardly changed since it opened in 1857 and visitors today include museum connoisseurs in search of the real thing.

Programme 10: 7th August 2005 
Nigel Monaghan of the Natural History Museum tells Mary Mulvihill a truly tall tale about how the giant deer became extinct here some 10,000 years ago.

Programme 11: 14th August 2005
Skulduggery amid the bird skins - Mary Mulvihill hears another tall tale from the Natural History Museum when zoologist Dr. Julia Sigwart reveals how a rare Indian owl came back from the dead.

Programme 12: 21st August 2005
Mary Mulvihill hears the remarkable story of surgeon and African explorer Thomas Heazle Parke, whose statue stands in front of the Natural History Museum.