Want to borrow a dinosaur fossil? Try California’s one-of-a-kind taxidermy lending library

Transporting specimens from the Nature to You program at the San Diego Natural History Museum. Photograph: Courtesy of San Diego Natural History Museum

On a hot afternoon in August, I walked out of the San Diego Natural History Museum carrying a whale rib, a leopard pelt, a taxidermized weasel and a small piece of fossilized dinosaur poop.

It felt like a heist. These were real specimens that belonged to the museum, not gift shop replicas. But for two weeks, they were mine to take home, display in my living room, even bring to events with my friends.