Dunedin writer, illustrator and mural artist Bruce Mahalski has come up with a striking alternative to this unlikely scenario.
He has just painted a long wall at 123 Highgate with a mural featuring nine animals from the museum's much-loved Victorian-style exhibition.
They are all exotic animals found in one form or another - often stuffed - at the museum attic.
Among them a porcupine fish, a secretary bird, an argonaut, or paper nautilus - an unusual form of octopus - and a giant anteater.
''It has been arousing a lot of interest in the local area,'' Mr Mahalski (56) said of the mural.
''I hope to do at least 50 over the next couple of years to show my love and appreciation for the museum and I have already painted quite a few animal murals round the city, some as museum tributes and some just of local animals,'' he said.
''It's been great.
''It's been really nice to see kids engaging with it.
''Some of them have been leaving notes inside the letterbox.''
Among the requests: an elephant and a couple of tapirs, the latter being large, plant-eating mammals of tropical America and southeast Asia.
Mr Mahalski is keen to help raise the public profile of the Animal Attic, to encourage others to visit and enjoy it as he has.
Museum director, visitor experience and science engagement, Dr Craig Grant, said it was ''fantastic'' that Mr Mahalski was raising awareness about the attic.
When Mr Mahalski was growing up in Dunedin, he loved visiting the museum attic, and his enjoyment of it had also recently inspired the creation of his own museum, ''The Dunedin Museum of Natural Mystery''.
''Dunedin doesn't have a zoo, and I used to hang out down there.
''I just love the place.''
