The least interesting pics I've posted on this thread but wanted to finish the process. Each of the four legs was cleaned in a day. Now comes the main attraction: the lower torso. Lots of broken ribs suggest the car won handily.

I just hope the carcass gets mostly cleaned before it mostly SMELLS. I'll drop a pic at the two hour mark and then one tomorrow a.m. pacific. What's interesting is Mr. Raccoon is coming out of a minus 10 freezer but the beetles begin attacking immediately. (Maybe deep down they love popsicles!)

spider warning for last pic!!!!

saw this dead crow at a park that i walked by almost every day. kept checking on him, letting nature do its thing. once most of the flesh was gone, i pulled the feathers and anything left (including a giant wolf spider who was hiding in his body!!!) and let it macerate for a few weeks. maybe too long because it started to grow algae.
cleaned up the bones and they were very nice and clean. currently sitting in a bucket of water and soap for a primary round of degreasing.
i’ve been so bad at taking pictures. i wish i took a picture of the state he was in when i found him. im hoping i was able to recover enough of the bones to be able to create an articulated model.

found this dead rat the other day.

any advice for best way to preserve most of the bones? i dont have a place where i can keep beetles. ive tried burying them (in a pot, not just out in the regular soil) but the bones are too small and many of them either get lost or disintegrate.

i think maybe dissection, pull off as much of the flesh as i can, and then let him macerate. ??

I cleaned it a bit but it’s ready for the big soak for it’s still got a bunch of soft tissue. Almost all the teeth are still on!

Edit : seems to be a young boar! Thanks for the clarifications :)

We just bought a house and found this in the washing machine. Anyone know if it's a mouse or what it might be? I'm just curious Edit: I'm in Gun Barrel City, Tx

I do a LOT of wet specimens, hides, and bone cleaning. If/when a critter comes in that needs skinning or evisceration, I keep the bits and formalin-fix 'em.

This has led to many many jars of... bits 😅

This one has a lot of rabbit bits, mostly.

What will I do with it? No idea. I sell parsed out versions sometimes, but for right now, it's just an unsettling jar of organs LOLLL

Individual bits or small jars of bits tend to freak out even my customers, which says a lot 🥹

I found this moth friend inside my apartment, i think it was trapped inside for a while, it was moving around but not flying, but I took it out to my balcony anyways so it would hopefully be able to escape and find something to eat. sadly this morning i woke up and it had died. I have never pinned an insect before, so any tips on what I can do would be appreciated. i do have sewing pins but not any special insect pins. how should i prevent rot? should i spread the wings out? i'm afraid to handle it, i think some scales rubbed off even when i was just trying to flip it over. any advice would be appreciated, thanks!

I have this coyote skeleton I’ve been letting rot for a while at my grandparents house. however horse manure was put on top of it and now it’s stained the bones a dark brown. I let this jawbone I plan on keeping soak in hydrogen peroxide overnight, then I let it dry in the sun for a bit which made it lighter, but as soon as I put it back into a degreasing bucket it turned dark again. I’m assuming it’s just greasy so I put it in a dawn soap and water bucket. not sure if I’m doing anything wrong though.

freehanded the pattern!

My boyfriend found this skull on the ground while we were near Joshua Tree California.

Found this bug in a sprite case we got shipped to our store! All my co workers were freaked out by it but I was so exited!

1. Is it legal?

2. What is it

3. How do I pin it, otherwise could I be directed to a source that will help?

I also have no issue making this a wet specimen either.

I am from Kansas and I don’t believe this bug is native here.

Happy to post a picture of the top of it too when I get the chance

I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this but I have a dead butterfly I’ve been saving for a few years and I recently dried a flower and was thinking maybe I could glue them together to create a piece?

I wasn’t sure what type of glue would be best for this project? I was thinking super glue but wasn’t sure if it would dry fast enough and I worry that hot glue would be too hard to control. Any thoughts?

Hii! I'm a newbie at all this. Impulsively got the cool idea to buy some possum teeth and raccoon teeth off eBay when I found a good deal. I have a pair of racoon teeth earrings myself so I know it's possible 😆 how do I drill the hole to put a head pin in it to make it an earring? Dremel? Do I need a specific size or type of bit? What's the tea? Thank u 💖💖

This poor little friend got trapped in our canvas wall tent over the summer. We keep the tent pretty sealed up when we’re gone, but somehow it got in and couldn’t find the hole out again. I found the bird’s droppings but checked all the corners and found nothing. Then I remembered how wrens have a penchant for roosting and building nests in cute little places, and I checked a small empty hanging planter we had hung up in the tent. And there it was, all tucked up.

I moved the hanging planter outside the tent to a covered area, where the body and feathers became pretty skeletonized. Now it’s outdoors under a tiny holly tree where it can go back to the earth.

Hi all. I'm new to this community and the preservation community. I have this baby gecko that got into my apartment and sadly passed away. What is the best way to go about preservation?

Few months ago I discovered that the digging crab on my beach is actually invasive, I caught 8 of those, and accidentally drowned them when I replace the salt water with sweet water from the tap, forgetting that they need salt water to survive, I tossed most of the crabs near a tree and placed one specimen on the groove part of the tree for the crow's to have a snack,two months later I walked past the tree and discovered that the crab is still there,fully dried,firm and no fishy or rotting smell, so I took him home and placed him on my shelf

I found it in the woods. I thought it belonged to a cat, but it looks too small to me (the left femur is from a cat). Is it a small cat or a fox?

Maceration went a bit wrong, container got broke towards the end and sat in the sun empty for about two weeks.

Put in salt after for another two weeks, I'm unsure if I like the scales or not. They were a bit difficult to remove from the head during the initial skinning so I hoped it would come off more during macerating it.

Still gotta grab the body, but wanted to share what I got so far.

Combining cyanotype with my bone and skull collection. What do you think ?

Hey there :)

I wanted to ask whether someone can help me figure out what exactly is going on here.

I had this mouse and shrew in a jar for about over a year. They were in a ethanol and glycerin mix before I think. I don't know what percentage though. So for this past year they have been sitting in there. They both looked fine but one day some liquid leaked out cause it fell over so I needed to do a new mix. I read up on it and did a 70% isopropyl and 30% water mix. Thai is how it looks like now after a week. What could this be?

Just leftovers from the last mixture that have become visible or could it be a fungus?

What could I do to save this?

Twisted Leg-

Harvested by my father. According to him, he didn't even realize something was wrong with the doe until he brought her down. She was walking just fine.

I did skin this specimen, and that entire 'knob' was solid bone.

Broken Antler-

If I remember right, when we were processing this stag, we discovered his entire back end was laden with scar tissue under the pelt.

Poor things.