Animal Crossing and MPM

Have you hopped on the Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH) bandwagon during isolation?

animal crossingAnimal Crossing is a life-simulation video game. You'll travel to a deserted island and work to make a thriving community filled with neighbors, a town hall, local shops, and a museum!

We were excited to find that some of the bugs, fish, and fossils found in the game can also be found in MPM's collections. With the help of the ACNH community and our Museum Curators, we set out to find as many counterparts as we could. 


Atlas Moth

video game character holding a moth atlas moth

Have you gotten the Atlas moth model from Flick yet? It might seem large, but they are among the largest moths in the world with a wingspan of 9.4 inches. Adults live for up to a week, their sole objective to reproduce. They lack functioning mouthparts as adults.

 
Mammoth

video game character in museum mammoth

You might have a mammoth in your ACNH museum, but did you know that MPM’s Hebior Mammoth is among the oldest evidence of humans in America? Found in southeast Wisconsin, 85% of its bones are intact with visible butchering marks.


Hammerhead Shark

video game character holding shark hammerhead shark

This species in our collection is a real cutie that prefers inshore waters and eats bony fish, rays, and other sharks.


Desert Hairy Scorpion

video game character in flower field scorpion

The desert hairy scorpion is the largest scorpion in North America. It beats the heat of its desert home in burrows and hunts in the evening, feeding on insects, lizards, and even small mammals. Tip: To catch a scorpion in the game, dig holes!


Giant African Snail

video game character in the rain giant snail

One of the largest land snails is the giant African snail with a shell reaching 5.5 inches. In the early 1960s, three were introduced into Miami, and by 1969, over 20,000 had taken over the city. Thankfully, that won't happen in ACNH!


Tarantula

video game character holding spider tarantula

We aren’t surprised that Flick likes tarantulas! Typically nocturnal hunters, they use touch and vibrations to find prey. About 90% have urticating, or nettle-like, hairs. Most tarantulas can flick these hairs, although some genera deliver via direct contact.


Frog

video game character dressed as a frog tadpole

Did you give Blathers a frog or tadpole yet? Frogs begin life as fish-like tadpoles. Tadpoles exist to eat and grow, and later sprout legs and lose their tails. This change from tadpole to frog is called metamorphosis.


Fossils

video game character in museum nautilus fossils

Ammonoids are a group of extinct marine mollusks. These fossils are approximately 130 to 165 million years old! Have you completed the fossil hall in Animal Crossing?


Megaloceros

video game character in museum megaloceros

This drawing depicts a Megaloceros, an extinct deer-like mammal that lived about 300,000-10,000 years ago. The largest of these animals, known as the Irish elk, grew to be about as large as an American moose and carried antlers that spanned up to 14 feet.


Trilobite

video game museum trilobite

The earliest trilobites appeared in the fossil record about 540 million years ago and were a group of marine-dwelling arthropods that lived on the sea floor. They are also Wisconsin’s state fossil! Don’t forget to donate it to Blathers.


Walking Stick

video game character in pink clothes walking stick on arm

Walking sticks are nature's masters of camouflage. They not only look like twigs and leaves, but they "act" like them, too!


Plesiosaurus

video game museum plesiosaurus hanging in museum atrium

There is a Plesiosaurus hanging in the MPM atrium. It's much larger than how Animal Crossing depicts it. It's a marine reptile and technically not a dinosaur. Dinosaurs are terrestrial, meaning they don’t swim or fly.


Sabertooth Tiger

video game character in museum sabertooth tiger skeleton

The sabertooth tigers were predatory mammals characterized by long, curved, saber-shaped canine teeth. Which, if you ask Blathers, he will tell you terrify him!


Stegosaurus

video game museum stegosaur

Although Stegosaurus was large, their brain was about the size of a walnut! They lived in the Late Jurassic Period, about 135 million years ago. You’ll need to collect three fossils in order to put together the Stegosaurus in Animal Crossing.


T. rex

video game museum t. rex

Despite Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex being near each other in the Animal Crossing museum, they never met each other. Stegosaurus was already extinct by the time Tyrannosaurus rex was roaming the Earth.