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

A natural history museum lets residents take home 1,400 specimens, from bobcats and beetles to snakes in jars 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.