The University of Reading's Museum of English Rural Life has caught a mouse in a trap, but not on one laid by the museum staff to catch pests and rodents that frequently enter the museum’s building and cause menace. This rodent managed to get caught in a trap that was 155 years old and stored in the museum so that it could be put on display.

When the museum’s assistant curator discovered the mouse inside the trap when searching for objects to use in an interdisciplinary research session on animals, he was puzzled because the mouse wasn’t supposed to be part of the object. He sent an email to the museum’s staff, which began:

There appears to be a dead mouse in this mousetrap which is not described as being there on the database.

Can you perhaps check whether it should be there and/or decide if having a dead mouse in the trap is the best way forward from a conservation perspective.