Ever seen a mouse-deer in Mumbai?

When a forest official from Virar recently came over to the Borivli national park with what appeared to be a huge dead rat, little did he imagine it was a rare animal species.

For, it turned out that the carcass he had found in a thickly forested area, was that of a mouse-deer, mainly found in islands of Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand. The creature resembles a mix of a deer and a mouse.

Realising that this was a prize catch, the park authorities got in touch with Dr Santosh Gaikwad, the country’s only taxidermist, now working on preserving the carcass.

Taxidermy is the art of stuffing the dead bodies of animals in order to preserve them for display and educational purposes.

Once Gaikwad is done with working on the prototype of the mouse-deer, it will be displayed for visitors to see what this rare creature looks like.

A professor at Bombay Veterinary College, Parel, Gaikwad said he is likely to start the taxidermy process next week and expects it to be ready within a month.

The mouse-deer will then be put on display at the Nature Information Centre at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. .

“Such rare animals need a taxidermist so that people get to see what it looks like. “Being a rare species, an assignment like this is always exciting.”

The stuffed trophy is estimated to last between 70 and 80 years, says Gaikwad.

Get to know the mouse-deer
It is found in India and Nepal and lives in rainforests. They are nocturnal and live in pairs, feeding exclusively on plant material.

The Telugu name for it is jarini pandi, translated as ‘a deer and a pig’.