Fish anatomy!

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That is absolutely great work!
 
thanks guys, and maj1son what exactly are you talking about? Is it in anyway whatsoever related to the topic at hand? To answer some questions. First I deflesh as much as possible by hand(sometimes boiling is required), next i disarticulate(take apart) major groups of bones, I am carefull to leave the ribs and spin connected together with ligaments only, I then remove the remaining flesh with tweezers and other small tools such as dentist picks, and toothpicks. When I am satisfied with the defleshing I put the groups of bones in ammonia to remove grease from the bones(except for the fins on fish, they are extremely delicate bones, and need some grease as to not fall apart), after degreasing the bones I put them in a peroxide bath for 3 or 4 days to whiten(again the fins get less of this treatment), the whole time I am doing this I am taking pictures of everything so that I can remember exact positioning of each individual bone when articulating the skeleton/skull, when I am happy with whitening I remove the bones for drying. Usually some tendons are left attached still at this point and are weakend enough from exsposure to peroxide to remove them. I make jigs from pieces of cardboard or foam to shape the spine and fins exactly how I want them when they are dry. I place the sections of skeleton on the jigs and pin them down so that they will retain thier shape while drying. While the skeleton is drying I dry the bones of the skull seperate. Once the bones of the skull are dry I hand glue them with emers glue-all one by one into their correct anatomical positioning. I try to be carefull to get the same positioning as they would have in real life. I might have to use pieces of wire to get some of the bones that are free floating in the body into correct positioning. When all the pieces are dried and in the correct shape for the mount, I run a wire through the vertebrae shaped how I want the curvature of the spine. I glue all pieces together and put the fins on last. When this particular skeleton is complete I will put it on a wooden plaque with it's common name and scientific name burned into the wood, then stain the wood for a finished look. I will post pics next week when it is completely finished. Notice in the pic that the last set of fins still need to be attached. I must use wires for them because in real life they are only connected by muscle tissue to the intestinal cavity. Just for your info the catfish skeleton has about 400 individual bones and the trout skull has around 100 just in it's skull. If I can find it I have before pics of the trout skull before it was put back together. Hope this was slightly educational and not too quesy for everyone.
 
also maj1son look around other topics before you post questions in a thread that has nothing to do with what you want to know. Good luck and welcome to MFK.
 
This is great stuf. I have done the exact same thing to the head of a cod. I wraped the head in newspaper av had some wire around it prior to boilig. i boiled it for app. 40 minutes, then removed the paper and startet to remove muscels and al the soft tissue. then I left the bones (still with some tissue on them) in a box with some larvae that aet the remaining soft tissue. Then dried the bones after a rather quick dip in H2O2. i will try to take a picture of it and post.

cichla
 
Wow :clap That is absolutely amazing work! I would love to try that, but I would probably get too frustrated.
 
Here are a couple of pictures. There is one major misplacement of at least to bones. Can you identify them.





cichla
 
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