As the Life Gallery at Kelvingrove temporarily closes its doors, we take a peek behind the scenes at the new additions to the collection

In the coming weeks, the reptile will be thawed out to undergo the necessary preparations for his big debut. Buddy is among a colourful menagerie set to go on display in the Life Gallery at Kelvingrove next year.

This weekend marks the last opportunity to see old favourites such as Sir Roger the elephant up close for some time. The iconic Spitfire, which hangs in the popular space at Kelvingrove, will be lowered this month for a routine inspection, setting in motion one of the largest exhibit changes since the building re-opened in 2006.

A fundraising campaign, which aims to generate £10,000 towards the total cost of the redisplay, was launched in July. This will enable new animals, birds and other objects to be conserved and mounted. Following a public consultation these will include a leopard – formerly of Glasgow Zoo – a wandering albatross, pallas's cat, Arctic terns, and either a llama or alpaca.

Many of these will go on display during spring 2016, with a second phase to follow that winter. Overseeing proceedings is Richard Sutcliffe, research manager for natural sciences at the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre (GMRC) in Nitshill.

"The public consultation enabled us to find out what kind of things people would like us to put on display, although it depended on what we had available," he explains. "We have a big freezer at the resource centre with thousands of animals – some of which have been in there for 20 or 30 years.

"It is exciting because there is so much that we have in store that most of the public never sees. You can view things at Nitshill on one of our regular tours, so while some people will have seen these animals before the vast majority of the public won't."

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When it comes to the items which will feature in the revamped design for the Life Gallery some, says Sutcliffe, have been on show "a long time ago in the past, while others are sitting in store and have never been seen on public display before."

Themed around the concept of pole-to-pole, Sutcliffe coined the idea of curating the animals by "ecozone" as opposed to continent. "Ecozones are biogeographical areas where animals have evolved over a long period of time in relative isolation," he says. "These are separated by barriers such as deserts, oceans or mountains. Terrestrial animals are unable to move from one ecozone to another under normal circumstances.

"As this project has progressed we have realised we are not going to tell the complete story of each ecozone because we could devote the whole gallery to just one. So, within each ecozone, we are including one or two stories. We aren't going to emphasise the ecozone as such, it is simply the fact we are going to put the animals in the correct context.

"One of the things which came out of the public consultation was people asking: 'why have we got a kangaroo next to swan next to a cheetah?' They don't occur next to each other in life. They might in a zoo – but this isn't a zoo. A lot of people, particularly the children, said they wanted to see all of the things that live with the cheetah or kangaroo.

"We are going to have a story about the Serengeti migration in Africa, for example, which will feature the cheetah alongside zebra, Cape buffalo, wildebeest and various other things you would find there."

The other ecozones include Australasia which will showcase marsupials including a koala, numbat, wombat, wallabies and kangaroos as well as egg-laying mammals such as echidna and duck-billed platypus.

Antarctica will feature a brand new wandering albatross (the museum's existing specimen is in a sitting position, the new one will have its colossal wing span extended in flight). The Indo-Malay, meanwhile, will see Sam the tiger from the former Calderpark Zoo in Glasgow make his first return to the Life Gallery since the early 1980s.

Back in the natural history workshop at GMRC, Simmen is sprucing up a Mongoose lemur. Donning surgical gloves and a white lab coat, he gently dabs the nose with a cotton swab soaked in methylated spirit before giving the fur a deft brush with what looks like an old toothbrush. The creature's sharp claws are curled tightly around a branch and he gives them a careful clean too.

Almost every available work surface is taken up with beakers, scalpels, sponges and tools including a magnifying glass, tweezers and pliers. An impressive collection of saws hangs on the nearby wall, while an owl peers down from the top of a filing cabinet.

"This was filthy with around 80 years' worth of dust on it," says Simmen, gesturing to the lemur. "It was cleaned with compressed air and has come up well. Dust isn't always a bad thing, though – if it is thick enough it can create a protective layer and prevent an item from fading. The trick is that you need to avoid soaking the skin at all costs. It is a fine balance."

Next he moves onto a house martin, demonstrating how the eyes are inserted. Simmen has a whole cabinet devoted to taxidermy eyes in assorted shapes and sizes ranging from as small as a pinhead to a set as large as gobstoppers labelled: "red deer stag". There is also a selection of clear eyes to be painted as required ("usually Van Dyke Brown," says Simmen).

Simmen has worked closely with Sutcliffe on the redisplay project for the Life Gallery (indeed the pair have been colleagues since joining as trainees a fortnight apart in 1979) and he provided an assessment of the proposed specimens for inclusion.

"There was 15 that were a no in the end simply because they weren't of a good enough standard or condition," he says. "In natural history it is quite tricky. When you have a 17th-century Peruvian pot in pieces, given its age and what it was used for, it is acceptable for it to look like that.

"But if you have got David Attenborough out with his camera, sticking the lens right up against a giraffe's nose, ours from the 1880s have got to compete with that. No one wants to see a threadbare or moth-eaten animal on display. We do have some good items in the collection, however, because a lot of the Victorian taxidermy was done to a really high standard.

"It is exciting to show items that many people won't have seen before. There are some crazy things up in the [storage] pods. They are not all necessarily of display standard. The collection does include the weird and wacky: there is, for example, a hare drinking a cup of tea and wearing a straw hat."

Stuck to the top of the freezer is a list of contents. It includes squirrels (both red and grey), a woodpecker, otter, mink and toad. It is here that Buddy – the chameleon – is stored.

He will form part of a new display which relates to highlighting wildlife conservation. "People often think that conservation issues are something which relate to foreign countries," explains Sutcliffe, who has joined us."The message we are trying to bring home to people is that it matters here too.

"Buddy comes from Paisley – hence his name – and we are looking at alien species that occur in Kelvingrove Park such as grey squirrels, Japanese knotweed and, in the case of Buddy, the pet trade and what effect that has on wildlife around the world.

"Another item which will be part of the redisplay is a baboon skull that was confiscated by customs and excise at Glasgow Airport."

Sutcliffe also cites the example of a red-eared terrapin. "People get them as pets when they are only two or three inches long, but then they grow and their owners discard or release them into local parks where they become a problem," he says. "We have a red-eared terrapin we are going to put on display talking about the conservation issues, so there will be a message behind that.

"Interestingly, there is a relative of the red-eared terrapin in the pond at Kelvingrove Park so that ties in perfectly with the story we are trying to tell. I've seen it myself – it is about a foot long. The terrapins aren't native to that environment so they do prey on fish and other small amphibians."

Having spent an enjoyable hour with Sutcliffe and Simmen in the workshop, they offer a tour of one of the storage pods upstairs which houses a glorious cornucopia of creatures that are part of the Glasgow Museums collection.

The door swings open and I peer inside. Ahead lies row after row of packed shelves. It is like stepping aboard Noah's ark – except rather than simply two of everything there is five, 10, 20 or more. Rounding the corner I give a little gasp of surprise as I see a polar bear. Nearby is a walrus the size of a small car. There are tigers, a leopard seal, an emu, zebras and penguins.

Sutcliffe is sanguine when asked how they all came to be in the collection. "Some of the animals were shot specifically for the museum – but we are going back 100 years," he says. "That is a totally different ball game. None of the specimens we have got recently has been deliberately killed for putting on display. We wouldn't do that these days. It is unethical and a complete no-no."

Over the coming months, Sutcliffe, Simmen and the rest of the GMRC team will continue to work on the Life Gallery project, putting the finishing touches to the items among the redisplay.
Sutcliffe admits for some areas they have been spoiled for choice, while others have proved trickier.

"There are things simply no longer fit to display because they are either faded or damaged which, when they are 100 years old, isn't surprising," he says.

"They won't be thrown away and can continue to be viewed at Nitshill. People often want to see a particular species or take DNA samples, so they are still scientifically important."

Nor will the beloved Sir Roger the elephant, who has been at Kelvingrove since 1902, be packing up his trunk. "We will be telling his story again – but in a slightly different way," says Sutcliffe with a cryptic smile. "I think people will be surprised at some of the objects going on display and generally not too disappointed about those leaving as there will still be plenty of old favourites."

The Life Gallery at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum will close to the public at 5pm on Sunday, October 4 and re-open in spring 2016. Donations to the redesign can be made via designated donation boxes located at the West Court, online at glasgowlife.org.uk/support-us or by texting WEST COURT to 70300 to give £3. These can be made until January 29, 2016.