Taxidermy is an art form typically built around making preserved animals look as natural and lifelike as possible. Unfortunately, not every attempt succeeds. Sometimes the finished result looks less like a carefully preserved animal and more like a rough approximation of one.

The biggest problems tend to involve the faces. Eyes can be positioned strangely, mouths can sit at unusual angles and expressions can end up looking remarkably human. Even animals that should be instantly recognizable can become difficult to identify when their features are assembled incorrectly.

A few specimens are almost recognizable. You can identify the general animal, but something about it is unmistakably wrong. Others require a second look before you can figure out what you're supposed to be seeing.

Some are oddly cute, some are deeply unsettling, and others are simply impossible to take seriously. There are awkward smiles, vacant stares, bizarre poses, and facial expressions that seem to belong to entirely different creatures.

The craftsmanship varies considerably, but the results share one thing in common: they don't quite capture the animals they were intended to represent. Instead, they've created something much stranger.

Here are 25 examples of bad taxidermy that look spectacularly messed up. They may have started as ordinary animals, but somewhere along the way, things went very wrong.