Meticulous collectors
Li Tzu-ning says “Discovering Taiwan” is intended to illustrate how these naturalists gathered knowledge in an orderly fashion, and given their discovery of many new species, to astonish the world with this small island’s diversity.
The large creature located at the front of the exhibition hall serves as a fitting opening: a Formosan sambar deer, one of the earliest Taiwanese mammals known to Western science. One was collected in 1862 by the British naturalist Robert Swinhoe (1836-1877), who was the British consul in Formosa. In the same year, he published “On the Mammals of the Island of Formosa” in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, marking the first time mammals in Taiwan, such as the Formosan clouded leopard and Formosan macaque, were systematically described.
Following in Swinhoe’s pioneering footsteps, other naturalists thereafter made outstanding contributions in their individual specialist fields.
Yonetaro Kikuchi (1869-1921), who specialized in the collection and taxidermy of animal specimens, won acclaim for capturing the world’s first complete specimen of a male Mikado pheasant. Many species endemic to Taiwan were discovered by him, such as the Taiwan vole (Microtus kikuchii) and the Taiwan mountain pitviper (Trimeresurus gracilis). Many of the NTM’s extant mounted animal specimens, including a pair of male and female Mikado pheasants displayed in the exhibition, were prepared by his skilled hands.
Zoologist Chen Jian-shan (1898-1988), who took over as the museum’s director in 1945, and his student Liang Run-sheng (1914-2002), used their expertise in ichthyology to make many contributions to the museum’s fish collection. Many are rare species or subspecies, such as the Formosan landlocked salmon (Oncorhynchus masou formosanus) and the Formosan ayu (Plecoglossus altivelis altivelis). Now extinct, the Formosan ayu can only be seen via the specimens collected by Chen.
A pioneer of anthropological fieldwork, Ushinosuke Mori (1827-1926) trekked throughout the mountains of Taiwan and visited numerous tribal communities. In addition to collecting Aboriginal artifacts, he used a camera in his fieldwork during an era when photography was very costly. He took pictures of many indigenous people, capturing images of religious activities, different social classes, attire, handicrafts and totems, in which visitors to the exhibition can catch a glimpse of Aboriginal figures and lifestyles from a century ago.
Yonetaro Kikuchi personally prepared this female Mikado pheasant. It's a treasure of the NTM’s collection.