From a two-headed baby goat to a 500-million-year-old fossil, Paxton Gate in San Francisco is filled with strange and unusual finds.
With Halloween approaching, the store's collection of taxidermy, animal skulls, preserved insects and rare fossils might seem fitting for spooky season. But Paxton Gate is an oddities and natural science store that showcases these unusual items year-round.
I got an exclusive tour of the store with founder Sean P. Quigley, who gave me a closer look at some of its most unique items.
Among the strangest finds was a taxidermied two-headed baby goat, displayed alongside its skeleton. The store also has a collection of unusual animal skulls, including a sheep skull with a single eye socket.
Another fascinating item was a large
spider preserved in amber, which Quigley said was an exciting find because insects trapped in amber are typically much smaller.
The store also features a rare trilobite fossil dating back more than 500 million years, long before dinosaurs roamed the Earth, along with a giant preserved centipede.
Not everything in the store is creepy. Quigley also showed off a large Tillandsia xerographica, a type of air plant that he said is endangered in the wild. He estimated that the plant, which was grown from seed, took eight or nine years to reach its size.
Paxton Gate first opened in 1992 as a quirky gardening store before expanding its collection of oddities. It moved to Valencia Street in 1999.
Quigley said the shop sources its unusual items from estate sales, private collections and vendors, as well as an annual gem and mineral show in Tucson, Arizona.
More than three decades after opening, Paxton Gate continues to bring together an unusual mix of natural history, science and curiosities, offering visitors a glimpse into some of the stranger wonders of the natural world.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Inside Paxton Gate, San Francisco's store of strange finds
