{"id":106585,"date":"2017-03-23T13:15:29","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T17:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=106585"},"modified":"2024-07-08T15:32:47","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T19:32:47","slug":"look-what-we-found-lee-abrahamsens-tiara-wearing-stuffed-pig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2017\/03\/23\/look-what-we-found-lee-abrahamsens-tiara-wearing-stuffed-pig\/","title":{"rendered":"Look What We Found: Lee Abrahamsen’s tiara-wearing stuffed pig"},"content":{"rendered":"

A tiara-wearing taxidermy pig stands on a shelf in the Carnegie Science Hall office of Associate Professor of Biology Lee Abrahamsen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like her smile,\u201d says Abrahamsen. \u201cI\u2019ve always liked her smile. And her snout.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s not exactly a Wilbur-type pig but a javelina, a New World species common in South America and the U.S. Southwest. Biology students from those areas often recognize the creature when they enter Abrahamsen\u2019s office. \u201cThey\u2019ve hunted javelinas,\u201d she says. “Other students come in and say, \u2018What is<\/em> that?'”<\/p>\n

The specimen in Abrahamsen’s office is a baby, she adds. Adult male javelinas can grow to 100 pounds.<\/p>\n

\"170323_Lee_Abrahamsen_Pig_0057\"<\/a>

A tiara-wearing stuffed javelina surveys the scene from a shelf in the Carnegie Science Hall office of Associate Professor of Biology Lee Abrahamsen. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

Abrahamsen has enjoyed the pig, smile and all, since 1989 when she and Pamela Baker \u201969, now retired as the Helen A. Papaioanou Professor Emerita of Biological Sciences, began to share a faculty position and an office in Carnegie.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found it in a trash pile,\u201d she remembers. At the time, many items in the college\u2019s collection of pressed plants and stuffed animals, known as the Stanton Museum, were being sent to the Maine State Museum.<\/p>\n

Baker, who had worked in the Stanton as a student, immediately recognized the pig, as well as a stuffed porcupine and squirrel. They chose to save the pig. Some pig!<\/p>\n

“Everybody should have a tiara.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This\u00ad pig shall remain nameless. \u201cWe just always called her \u2018the pig.\u2019 We thought about it over the years and just couldn\u2019t come up with a good one, which is odd. I name everything,\u201d Abrahamsen says.<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t mean she and Baker didn\u2019t shower their \u201cgirl\u201d with attention. Over the years, they dressed her in feather boas, pieces of glitter, and once, fairy wings. Most recently, she has sported a tiara. \u201cAt one point, Pam and I decided that everybody should have a tiara,\u201d says Abrahamsen.<\/p>\n

\"170323_Lee_Abrahamsen_Pig_0143\"<\/a>

Lee Abrahamsen poses with “the pig.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

When Abrahamsen asked Baker for a pig comment, she sent a sentiment that speaks for both biologists.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always liked it as a reminder that all the cells and molecules that we taught about really did add up to be organisms of amazing kinds.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI like her smile,\u201d says Lee Abrahamsen, the taxidermy pig’s caretaker. \u201cI\u2019ve always liked her smile. And her snout.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":106651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[4,133],"tags":[5213,11321,6746],"class_list":["post-106585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-creativity","tag-lee-abrahamsen","tag-look-what-we-found","tag-pamela-baker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106585"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106671,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106585\/revisions\/106671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}