A team at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro is taking birds that have been preserved through taxidermy and converting them into drones in order to study flight.
of course, preserving or stuffing dead animals has been around for hundreds of years. but david tan is clear that this is different. one of the things i like to say is that we re not taxidermy, so it removes that ick factor, right? like, we re not using the real skin of the pet. this is 100% genuinely a stuffed toy. so basically, it s the same fabric we use for making teddy bears, but it looks realistic. here s how it works. customers send in photos and videos of their pets from when they were alive, as well as some measurements like the pet s height and length. then the team create a silhouette of the animal using cardboard and begin creating an outer shell that is then filled with stuffing. after a suitable synthetic fur is found and applied, it is airbrushed by an artist to recreate the pet s colours and markings. each one takes around two days to make, and costs in the region of $65. this woman is one of those who had
of them as soft toys. harry bligh reports. david tan and his team at the pampanga teddy bear factory began making realistic replicas of pets after he lost his own dog, a golden retriever, in 2019. i loved her dearly and she passed away in 2019. since i was doing plush toys at the time, i asked my pattern maker, hey, as a way of remembering my beloved pet, can you try making a realistic clone of her? the company receives commissions from all over the world for various breeds of dogs, cats and smaller pets too, like rabbits and hamsters. of course, preserving or stuffing dead animals has been around for hundreds of years. but david tan is clear that this is different. one of the things i like to say is that we re not taxidermy, so it removes that ick factor, right? like, we re not using the real skin of the pet. this is 100% genuinely a stuffed toy. so basically, it s the same fabric