Saturday, April 5, 2008

The Frog Museum





Where would you find the world's finest frog museum? France, of course! Le Musee Des Grenouilles (The Frog Museum) is a charming institution housed in a 15th century building located in the town of Estavayer-le-Lac.

The pride and joy of the musem is a collection of 108 frogs. According to the website, around 1850, "a Napoleonic guards officer developed a fascination with frogs and started collecting them as a hobby. He extracted the innards through their mouths and refilled them with sand before putting them into displays." Now the little croakers portray amusing scenes of everyday life in France.

Though I pity the frogs, I must agree with the museum. "If it is originality you are seeking, you won’t be disappointed."

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool, but wait, I'm a little bit confused. It says you posted this at 6:58 p.m. April fifth, but it's 9:24 a.m. my time! No way is eastern time that much faster! I'm only a time zone away! But yeah, I'm defidently sending this to my friend!

Nellie said...

Go froggies!

Invisible Turtle said...

I do not pity those frogs. They could have a worse fate being dissected and have their innards become playthings for immature kids. One girl tried to make me eat it's stomach!
(PS. Her name was Mr. Bagels and she was a girl! We though she was a boy before we started, and by then it was too late.)

International Mastermind said...

Yuck. The French must have something against frogs- eating their legs and filling them with sand! poor amphibians.

Raph said...

Reminds me of a line from the book Chasing Vermeer: "We shall pick up an existence by its frogs."

ss chick said...

gross, the ones in the pic look like they're all bout to explode.

hey! my stepgrandma if french! easy peasey frog seeing for me!

Kitty said...

Frogs!! XD

Thumb Biter said...

Darn! I should have known about this last summer.
BTW, Ananka & other blog readers: For my Global term paper, I have to write about a significant event between 1350-1550 and why it was such an important turning point in history. Any ideas on events that would interest even me? Haha. Preferably tunnel/underground city/etc. related.

Anonymous said...

WOW! Cool! i have a friend who is totally OBSESSED with frogz! (She would feel sorry for them, but she would luv it that someone made a frog museum!) Awesome find, Kirsten!

Anonymous said...

Man, I love France! Only there could you find a museum dedicated to frogs!
Jin Ai: It may be boring, but you could write about the printing press being invented or the Renaissance.
Ananka: Found a timeline of significant zombie and vampire events. Wasn't too interesting, but when I looked to see who made it I came up with the Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency (I swear I'm not kidding!), and apparently it's real because it was a .org and had the seal of the United States on it. Odd...there seems to be a Federal Agency for everything I look up...

ananka said...

Jin Ai: What about the Black Death? I always find that an uplifting subject. Interesting note on the topic, they've found that the same gene mutation that prevented a small percentage of people from succumbing to the plague is still around today. And believe it or not, it makes anyone who possesses it invulnerable to HIV as well. Seriously interesting.

You can read more here: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_plague/.

I'll try to think of underground places that date from that time.

ananka said...

Anonymous: I've got to check out the federal vampire and zombie site!

Anonymous said...

'...extracted the innards through their mouths'
ewww! PETA anyone?

Cupcakedoll said...

Federal vampire and zombie agency?! Post a link if you find it! That sounds cool. Ok actually everything related to vampires and zombies is cool, from Vlad Tepes to fugu.

Just finished reading Empress' Tomb, from the library. Great stuff! I think it's better than the first one.

6yearsoldandcute said...

it is frogs. they are so cute.

Anonymous said...

hahahaha oh lord!

falcon said...

Jin ai: Black death is such an UPLIFTING subject! ;D

Patsee said...

Did he kill the frogs?


Ananka- I should do the Black Death for my Academic Fair (research report -- kinda like a science fair without the experiments) paper next year. Bet the judges would love that

Anonymous said...

To invisible turtle:
what are u talking about, this girl named mr. bagel and she mad e u eat a frogs stomach and she was a girl before u started(started WHAT) and by then it was 2 late?

ookamishinzui said...

wait Ananka, you speak french?