It’s still the first week in January, but already museum Twitter is on the very top of its game – competing to find who has the best duck-based exhibits.
That’s thanks to the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL), which threw out the challenge to no more distinguished an institution than the British Museum.
It started when the MERL, which found online fame last year for posting a picture of an enormous ram, presented an image of a duckling from its archives.
mother i'm ready to conquer the world pic.twitter.com/8auYYcXmIj
— The Museum of English Rural Life (@TheMERL) January 4, 2019
Not content with bringing in the likes for such a fine specimen of bird, the museum then decided to throw down the gauntlet.
hey @britishmuseum give us your best duck
— The Museum of English Rural Life (@TheMERL) January 4, 2019
Such a fearsome challenge no doubt sent fear ringing round the august corridors of the British Museum, and while staff scrambled to find something suitable, other institutions got on board.
Can't. They gave them all to us. pic.twitter.com/Up8TJFp29K
— Natural History Museum (@NHM_London) January 4, 2019
Ahem. We still have quite a few pic.twitter.com/jYnOyhLfNy
— BL Prints & Drawings (@BL_prints) January 4, 2019
Cough.
The life cycle….
Nesting duck….
Water duck….
ROAST DUCK! pic.twitter.com/zaJd5e8lvP
— Kew Gardens LAA Team (@Kew_LAA) January 4, 2019
We're not @britishmusem but here across the pond we have a bird that is quite duck-like! 🦆 https://t.co/eYGKog10bp pic.twitter.com/nZyKVLKrKY
— J. Paul Getty Museum (@GettyMuseum) January 4, 2019
NMR 9989-000232 is our best dead duck specimen, and this is his (end of) life history: https://t.co/dNk46CyKWS pic.twitter.com/RupuPTG2gI
— Het Natuurhistorisch (@HetNatuurhist) January 5, 2019
The Royal Academy went above and beyond by creating a gif especially for the occasion – albeit one of a goose.
It lays: pic.twitter.com/Hyc86YvFzm
— Royal Academy (@royalacademy) January 4, 2019
And eventually the British Museum also came good, producing a very fine specimen indeed – an ancient Egyptian cosmetics case, no less.
Hey @TheMerl, here's a quacking duck that's got to be at the top of the bill✨
It's a cosmetics container made around 1300 BC in ancient Egypt🦆 https://t.co/XJPetqlnRQ pic.twitter.com/CU1N0iMuLD
— British Museum (@britishmuseum) January 4, 2019
Ultimately though, nobody beats the MERL at its own game, and this when you can produces pictures like this one, you can see why.
this man is divining ducks pic.twitter.com/MtEWei5s9o
— The Museum of English Rural Life (@TheMERL) January 4, 2019
It’s not the first time the MERL has thrown out a challenge like this to an illustrious museum.
Back in November the museum asked the Louvre in Paris if it had any pictures of roosters in trousers.
Hello @TheMERL! We do have cocks in our collections, but none of them have trousers 😅
Here is a nice chicken to apologize 🐓 pic.twitter.com/b64oFDVAIz
— Musée du Louvre (@MuseeLouvre) November 12, 2018