#bone identification

my cat left this little shrew out for me in august 2025, having been left unsupervised for a day.

i let it decompose outside by my usual method (patch of bare ground, plastic container with some holes on top, weighed down) and collected the bones before the first snow of the year.

i degreased & did an initial cleaning with dawn dish soap, then sanitized & minimally whitened with a hydrogen peroxide soak. i could have let them soak longer to get them whiter, but i was on a time crunch.

i considered trying to articulate, since i knew i had all the bones, but i cannot overstate how teeny-weeny these bones are. also, i don't have any of the proper glue, because i've never articulated before.

i ended up using this display case i had instead, sewing the bones down into the foam. i don't know if i quite got the ribs in the right order - i haven't done any study of anatomy since high school, and the internet isn't bursting with resources on short-tailed shrews.