Skeletal preparation

So at least one person has expressed an interest in learning more about how to prep a dead fish for at least its skull. As promised I am using this opportunity to show that member and the rest of you what I understand on this subject.

There are several different ways to render a fully fleshed animal down to bone but I will discuss two methods that I prefer.

Beetle Cleaning

Pro: fast, with caution will leave a skeleton fully articulated
Con: beetles will require care to ensure the colony is happy and healthy and may take months to get to the size you need for the job at hand.

What you will need...

-Dermestid beetles
-small tray to catch loose bones
-hydrogen peroxide

Those two things are pretty much the essentials of what you will need. Allow me to give you an example

So here we have a garter snake I found dead early last spring which I processed pretty much for the purpose of showing people how this works.
Keep in mind these pictures are over the course of a 17hour period.








You want to skin the animal because it means less work for the beetles and for you as sometimes they will hollow out an animal that has not been skinned and cause you a deal of grief getting the bones you were after.

It is preferable to ensure that the item being offered is of the apporpriate size for the colony and has been dried out to a jerky-like consistency. This is very important. You will notice in the above pictures that this snake was very "wet". That is only because the colony that cleaned it was large enough that I knew it wouldn't take them more than a day to do the job leaving no time for it to spoil. If there is one thing your family, friends, partner will not appreciate is the smell of a nasty beetle colony in the house. Anything that I believe might take several days to be cleaned is not offered until it looks and feels like jerky. I dry the meat with a standard desk lamp and a 75watt bulb.

Once you have your bones you may want to whiten them up or you may prefer to leave them looking naturalistic. I prefer to whiten and do this buy buying brown bottle (3%) hydrogen peroxide, the same stuff you can get at cvs or walmart. Submerge the bones in this for 1-2 days depending on how white you want them to be. Small thin bones may become clear but once they dry I assure you they will look normal.

Maceration (Bacterial Action)

Pro: bacteria get into the tiny nooks beetle larvae cannot and will never destroy thin bones
Con: this is the foulest smelling thing you will ever experience, everything will be disarticulated

What you will need...
-Bucket
-water
-fish tank heater
-lots of fresh air
-hydrogen peroxide

This is one of the simplest ways to clean up bones. It is by far the most effective way to remove all soft tissue, you never need to maintain a colony of bacteria all you do is add water, heat, and whatever you're cleaning. I will say again that anything not fused WILL BE DISARTICULATED.

Whatever you are cleaning, remove as much as you can to make this go faster. That means all soft tissue you can take off. Take off the skin, remove brains and other organs, cut out tongue, and cut off all the flesh you can get to. You may not like that idea but if you cannot bring yourself to remove a little soft tissue from a dead animal then you certainly should not be doing this because you're about to rot that animal into a soup of macerated flesh and stinky bones.

Once you've removed everything that you can fill a bucket with enough water to completely submerge the specimen and the heater. keep the temp between 80-90degrees and wait. To give you an idea on time frames, using a heater I completely cleaned a pine marten skull in 6 days but without a heater and leaving everything but the skin on, it took nearly a year and a half for me to finish cleaning the beaver skulls I'm finishing up right now.

Once a week change the water in the bucket. The reason you're doing this is because as the bacteria go to work they're going to use up all the oxygen in that water and it will stagnate. If this is allowed to happen the maceration process will come to a near standstill until you change out that water. Be very careful while doing water changes that you do not lose any small bones.

I should also add that with larger thick bones you can over time have staining as oils that were in the bones begin to rise to the surface. If you have any large bones you will want to degrease them. This involves using dawn dish detergent ni a container full of warm water. You need to keep it around 80degrees so you should pop a fish tank heater in there, otherwise the grease will not come out. This is a long process and can involve several weeks of soaking and regular water changes to remove all the grease depending on how thick and or greasy the bones are.

Again, after the degreasing process you use hydrogen peroxide to whiten the bones. In the end you will have nothing but clean smelling white bones.

Sealing and Glueing Bones

What you need...
-Elmers glue
-water

Now I'm not saying that you can only use elmers glue but it is the most forgiving product you can use for this. Because it is water soluable if you do make a mistake, just add water and try again tomorrow.

You can also use the glue to make a very simple seal to help strengthen the specimen and keep dirty hands from smudging up those pretty bones. I just make a 1:1 water:elmers glue mixture and either paint it on or dip the bones into it. letting the mixture be very runny helps to ensure that you will barely notice it on the bones when it is dry. You will also not chemically alter the bones with this glue because elmers glue is very neutral.

Never Ever...

DON'T EVER USE BLEACH ON BONES. Bleach will absolutely destroy bone. If you do not believe me on this I will not argue with you. I have been doing this for several years and have learned all I know from people that do this professionally at a public and academic level. If you need to whiten bones only use hydrogen peroxide.

NEVER BOIL BONES TO REMOVE FLESH. Boiling, even simmering will damage the bones significantly. You will crack, flake, and otherwise weaken the bones by doing this. It used to be a pretty standard practice by amature taxidermists but even the amatures don't do it this way anymore. It is simply too destructive. You will also never get all the meat. Try boiling the tissue out of the honeycomb looking nasal bones of a mammal. It would be like trying to blow jellow out of a sponge, it isn't going to happen and its going to start to smell and drip later. Do you really want to deal with that?