REPORTAGE – The animal, which was lost in Normandy, will be one of the 68 million specimens of the Parisian establishment. To avoid trafficking, collections now follow very strict protocols.
His 52 vertebrae and his skull wait, sheltered from a building of the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN), in Paris. Carefully cleaned by Éric Pellé, an osteology assistant, the bones are about to ” enter into collectionas soon as their identification number is written in Indian ink in one of the large notebooks which list, each year, all the specimens kept at the MNHN, also entered in the computer database.
Provisional code name: Spot 15.563, i.e. 15.563e specimen entered, since the year 2000, in the service of osteological and taxidermy preparation. But it is better known as the “killer whale of the Seine”: the bones belong to the marine mammal seen on May 17, 2022 going up the river between the Pont de Normandie and Tancarville, and found dead a fortnight later.
The animal will soon join the 67 to 68 million specimens housed in the Museum.“We are not close to 1 million”smiles Christine Lefèvre, director…
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