It wasn't really a hoax, in that the artists never intended to actually
fool anyone, but along the lines of the Museum of Jurassic Technology,
The Moore College of Art (in Philadelphia, PA) presented an installation
8 or 10 years ago called "Dr. Ameisenhaufen's Fauna". The catalog is at
home, so I don't have access to the names of the two artists who created
it but can find it, if there's interest.
What was presented was the life and work of the (fictional) field
biologist, Dr. Ameisenhaufen. The catalog includes a biography, photographs,
and field notes. The exhibit included: photographs of the rare and unusual
animals described by Dr. Ameisenhaufen, field notebooks, and even field
recordings of the calls of the various animals. The animals were things
like an elephant with wings, a snake body with five pairs of chicken feet
(a skeletal x-ray was included for that one) and a rabbit with weird fangs.
I work next door to Moore College of Art, at the Academy of Natural Sciences,
so I had a special appreciation for the faux seriousness (descriptions of
behavior, even "personality" of the animals, formal measurements and
morphologic descriptions, etc.) because I read that stuff (for real) all
the time. I only wished that the artists had taken the time to make their
composite photos a little more carefully. There were often just big blank
spots where parts of one animals were joined to another. Anyhow, a very
fascinating exhibit. I wish there was some biographical information about
the creators. I don't recall there being any.
Elana Benamy
Collection Manager, Invertebrate Paleontology
Academy of Natural Sciences
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http://www.acnatsci.org
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