Paxton Gate

Paxton Gate San Francisco store Paxton Gate was once described as “Martha Stewart meets David Lynch." Our mission Now offering personal in-store appointments!
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Open for curbside shopping and pick-up of web orders 6 days a week 11 a.m.-5 p.m., closed Wednesdays. Book here: https://paxtongate.com/products/shopping-appointment?variant=35809676886169

09/26/2026

Yes, this is actually a beetle. 😳🪲

Meet the Harlequin Beetle (Acrocinus longimanus) a bizarre longhorn beetle native to the rainforests of Central and South America.

And those ridiculously long legs aren’t an accident: its name “longimanus” literally means “long-handed,” referring to the male’s extremely elongated front legs.

🌿 Its striking black-and-orange body is covered in intricate patterns, while its enormous antennae help it navigate its rainforest environment.

Even stranger? Its larvae develop inside decaying wood, helping break down plant material as they grow.

It genuinely looks like someone designed a beetle for a fantasy movie.

Would you pick this up if you found one in the wild? 👀

09/26/2026

🧚✨ A real-life fairy? Not quite…

Meet the Purple-Winged Grasshopper (Titanacris albipes), an incredible insect found in the rainforests of South America.

🌿 At rest, its green coloring helps it disappear among the leaves.

💜 But once it opens its wings, it reveals enormous flashes of vivid purple and violet, which is where things start looking a little magical.

Would you believe this was a grasshopper if you saw it flying past you?

09/24/2026

The process of diaphonization (dying dead animals) has also been known as “clearing and staining.” The animals are rendered transparent (the “clearing”) by bathing in a soup of trypsin, a digestive enzyme that slowly breaks down their flesh. They also soak in several batches of bone, muscle, or cartilage dyes (the “staining”), with alizarin red and alcian blue the most commonly used. The result is a visually striking display of anatomy.

09/22/2026

Approximately 65 to 95 million years ago during the Campanian and Maastrichtian stages of the Late Cretaceous.

Mosasaurs comprise a group of extinct, large marine reptiles from the Late Cretaceous. Their first fossil remains were discovered in a limestone quarry at Maastricht on the Meuse in 1764. They belong to the order Squamata, which includes lizards and snakes.

Mosasaurs had a snakelike body with a large skull and a long snout. Their limbs were modified into paddles having shorter limb bones and more numerous finger and toe bones than those of their ancestors. The tail region of the body was long, and its end was slightly downcurved in a manner similar to that of the early ichthyosaurs. The backbone consisted of more than 100 vertebrae. The structure of the skull was very similar to that of the modern monitor lizards, to which mosasaurs are related. The jaws bore many conical, slightly recurved teeth set in individual sockets. The jawbones are notable in that they were jointed near mid-length (as in some of the advanced monitors) and connected in front by ligaments only. This arrangement enabled the animals not only to open the mouth by lowering the mandible but also to extend the lower jaws sideways while feeding on large prey.

Along with being a crazy cool extinct terrors of the seas, they’re famous! You may seen them in the Jurassic world movies. The big scary guy that eats the Indominus Rex at the end of the movie (sorry for spoilers) this one! They make Jaws look like a guppy.

09/18/2026

Meet the Empress Cicada. It spends years underground as a nymph before emerging, shedding its exoskeleton, and transforming into a winged adult. Males produce extremely loud mating calls using specialized organs called tymbals, with some cicadas reaching sound levels comparable to a chainsaw or subway train. While singing, they can reduce the sensitivity of their own hearing by mechanically folding their tympanal membranes, effectively turning down their internal “volume” by about 20 decibels.

Because of that life cycle, cicadas have long been associated with rebirth, transformation, and renewal. It’s an interesting symbol for those quieter periods of growth where not much seems to be happening on the surface, until suddenly something changes.

09/15/2026

A creature steeped in mystery, folklore, and myth, the Death’s-head moth has long captured imaginations. In Europe, it was often called the “harbinger of death,” and seeing one was thought to be a sign of ill fortune. In Poland, it earned the nickname the “wandering bird of death,” with its squeak likened to the moaning of a grief-stricken child. Charming, right? In France, it was even believed that dust from the moth’s wings could cause blindness. Makes total sense to us. Overall, this moth has some truly heartwarming, “Chicken Soup for the Soul” style stories surrounding it.

In reality, the Death’s-head moth gets all this attention because of the distinct skull marking on its back. It was even featured in a film about a very hungry doctor because of its grim appearance. But is all the superstition warranted?

09/11/2026

Otodus is an alluring, widespread genus of mackerel shark that existed during the Paleocene to Pliocene epoch. The moniker, Otodus, can be traced back to the Ancient Greek words ὠτ- (ōt-, meaning "ear") and ὀδούς (odoús, meaning "tooth"), thus "ear-shaped tooth". It was an early and pervasive predator of its time, now known solely through fossilized teeth. Scientists have determined that this fierce hunter could grow up to 30-40 feet in length, as evidenced by its impressive 4 inch long teeth. These teeth make for perfect gifts or souvenirs for shark enthusiasts.

09/09/2026

During the Victorian era, there was a deep fascination with the natural world, anatomy, botany, and all things curious and unusual. Collecting oddities and curiosities was a way for upper-class Victorians to demonstrate class and sophistication, with collections ranging from armor and human skeletons to botanical specimens, animal remains, and taxidermy. These collections were often displayed in curiosity cabinets where guests could see and discuss the objects over tea or brandy, making collecting a social way to connect, share interests, and exchange knowledge.

But was collecting limited to the wealthy? Not at all! People of all classes collected things like buttons, pocket-sized portraits, and animal bones. Today, these objects give us a glimpse into what fascinated Victorian society, and the tradition of collecting the strange and curious is still alive today, including here at Paxton Gate.

09/04/2026

Megalodon teeth are impressive enough on their own. They’re massive fossilized teeth from one of the largest predatory sharks to ever exist. That alone makes them cool. Like, objectivity cool and there can be no argument surrounding their cool factor. But like most fossils, there’s a lot more to them than just, “Wow, that’s a really big shark tooth.” These teeth are millions of years old, survived the extinction of the animal they came from, and give us a physical connection to a predator that once dominated the world’s oceans.

Each of our Megalodon teeth is pulled from the water by a diver we’ve worked with for years and hand-selected by us before it gets to the store. You know, for quality and all of that jazz, but mostly because we think Megalodon teeth are cool and want to pick out our favorites. These particular specimens were recovered from the Pamlico Sound in North Carolina. If you have ever been there, you know how rough the currents can be, which makes the feat of retrieving them even cooler.

Every tooth is a one-of-a-kind specimen with its own shape, coloration, and character. The one pictured here is the specimen you’ll receive.

09/02/2026

In this video, our lovely Ento expert is dry mounting a scorpion. Dry mounting is a way of preserving an insect so you can show it off, like framing it.

Here, our expert is yanking out all the internal organs and stuffing it with cotton, so it’s basically a taxidermied scorpion. This takes way longer than dry mounting a butterfly because of all the gutting and hollowing out, but that’s what keeps it from rotting and helps it hold its shape.

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824 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA
94110

Opening Hours

Monday 11am - 7pm
Wednesday 11am - 7pm
Thursday 11am - 7pm
Friday 11am - 7pm
Saturday 11am - 7pm
Sunday 11am - 7pm

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