Skeleton of a Javan tiger, an extinct species, restored for an exhibition

The skeleton of a Javan tiger, a rare object in museums anywhere in the world, was made part of the Story of Bones exhibition at the Finnish Museum of Natural History in autumn 2018.

Published on 15 August 2018, Photos: Jenny Mujunen ja Sanna Saari

The animal is a sub-species of a species that lived on the island of Java in Indonesia, of which no reliable observations have been made since the 1970s. The bones of the Javan tiger at Luomus were originally acquired by Professor E.J. Bonsdorff in the 1850s. For years, it has been included in the national collections in the natural sciences. For the exhibition, the Javan tiger skeleton was assembled by the museum’s expert taxidermists. The assembly and placement were primarily funded with a donation made by Steven and Anne Tseng, Chinese-American friends of Luomus.

You can find the full story in Finnish here.