We Are All This Stuffed Rabbit With a Babydoll Head

First came the roadkill cat handbag. Then just when you thought New Zealand taxidermy couldn’t get much stranger, well, it did. Tauranga taxidermist Andrew Lancaster has been "trying something a little different" lately: incorporating baby doll faces into his animal creations.

So for anyone on the hunt for a stuffed rabbit’s body and ears attached to a baby dolls head, or maybe a duck-baby cross "dressed for the cold weather", well he’s your guy.

The “quirky Baby Rabbit” which has embodied a Hobbit-Lord of the Rings vibe, is going for $160. And the babyfaced-duck complete with a scarf and beanie is a steal at $97.

Lancaster is touting the pair as "unusual item[s] for the taxidermy collector who has everything else".

“Some people call me sick and some think it’s pretty good,” Lancaster said. “It's water off a duck's back. I'm too long in the tooth now for that to really worry me."

The Tauranga taxidermist has been collecting and transforming road-kill for over 20 years, but says recently it’s been harder to get his hands on dead animals in good nick, so he’s been forced to get a bit creative.

"Sometimes, like that duck, it had its head chopped off and I couldn't do much with it. I could have put another animal's head on it but I didn't have any spare at the time," he said.

Lancaster’s hybrid creations—such as a possum with two magpie heads or a possum head on a chicken's body—has put him in a very niche spotlight and attracted a cult following. Now, his experimentation with dolls heads in recent years has done the same.