Photography dump

Napoli

Yesterday during my hike I stumbled across this beautiful little guy.

I have been SO excited, I’ve never found anything like it before! This is my first full body specimen that i’ve discovered completely on my own. I wasn’t able to take it with me in the moment, but I did drag it down quite a bit before hiding it in a tree and covering the area with rocks and bark to prevent anything else from getting to it.

Today I was finally able to go back up and get it, obviously prepared this time. He’s currently sitting in my backyard, I plan to macerate him for a month and retrieve the bones afterwards.

⌖ On the left are the bones that have been degreasing, and on the right are the newest ones i’ve retrieved :)

It’s been about two weeks since i’ve started degreasing the first batch of bones. Yesterday, while changing out the water in my maceration bucket, I was able to fish out some more. Some of them weren’t quite ready yet (particularly the paws and some of the spine) but i’m impatient. I spent some time outside removing what flesh and tissue I could from the bone before tossing them into the degreasing pot.

As for maceration, i’m almost completely finished. I estimate that by April i’ll have the full thing degreasing. There’s virtually no fur left – it’s all tissue. (Which i’m very thankful for! It’s a little annoying, having to sift through the fur looking for smaller bones that may have been caught in it.)