yall we got the COOLEST donation at the nature center today - a TON of random vintage taxidermy from a university’s old collection! (the nature center has the proper permits to cover these as long as they don’t leave the premises.) they’re all study skins so i’ll have to do some research on whether they’re safe to handle and keep (some old taxidermy can contain dangerous chemicals such as arsenic) and if it’s possible to try to restore them to any extent.
This Barn Owl is actually in pretty good shape, and absolutely beautiful in my opinion!
I was impressed by how vibrant this Meadowlark and Baltimore Oriole still are - they must have been kept in a drawer.
This Woodcock is still in great shape, too!
I GEEKED OUT over this toucan! Not only the specimen, but the detailed tag! I love the drawing to document the colors (I assume they didn’t have a color camera?)
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hey guys whats up I've been working on taxidermy in one of my classes and I thought I'd document the process here!
a fair warning I will be showing images of a dead animal and the pelt of said animal it isn't too gory (at least by my standards) but please proceed with caution if you are sensitive to these topics
my specimen is a female fox squirrel I don't know how she passed away but her pelt will be used in my college's zoological museum as a mount to teach other students about their physiology.
(photos under read more- final warning)
left: me holding the fox squirrel's upper half in my hands for comparison
right: same photo but zoomed out you can see the skinned carcus in the bottom right corner
you'll also notice there are bloody tissues and a bag of snarge behind me (snarge is basically the guts/remains of an animal that's the actual term for it I didn't make it up I promise)
(side note: her head on top is not supposed to be that flat her skull was unfortunately crushed and shattered into quite a few pieces)
so when skinning an animal first you make a ventral cut from the midpoint of the stomach to the genitalia
I am really bad at this part.
I accidentally cut into the muscle lining holding together all the guts and innards this isn't a huge deal as you can just sorta pull them out and set them aside since I didn't need the carcus for future specimen mounting. So that's what I did I took the snarge out and set it aside so I didn't have large intestine sticking to my fingers
the problem that occurs when you do this though is you open up bleeders the body cavity will start to fill with blood as the specimen thaws (they are kept in a freezer until skinning NOT formadahyde or other embalming chemicals) and there's really nothing you can do about it so that's why there are bloody tissues I basically re-stuffed the squirrel with paper towels so I didn't get blood all over the pelt
ok so on to skinning I have done this one other time with my lovely little mouse corn dog (I'll explain)
after you make a cut and DONT fuck up the guts like I did you can start skinning which is honestly way easier on a squirrel than it is on a mouse (who would have thought)
you start with the hind legs and you pull the meat out all the way to the ankle joint and then we cut right at that joint to keep the foot bones intact connected to the skin some people will take these bones out but we don't just to make it easier on us once you have both legs out you pull all the bones out from the tail (you basically deglove it it's kinda cool to look at after) and then you pull the rest of the skin off like a jacket until you get to the arms (follow the same steps as the hind legs) and the head
the head in complicated once you get to this part you have a lot of things to keep in mind- the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth and you must keep as much skin as possible in the eyelids and lips while keeping the ears completly attached
it's very difficult... also TW for gore in the next photo
so corn dog
(jumpscare lol)
Corn dog is a little different thus mouse was prepared the same way as I just described however we mounted her to become a study skin
once she was skinned we made basically a tube of cotton to stuff up in there and sewed her up she looked like a corn dog- hence the name
this post is getting a bit long so I'll break it into two and traumatize you some more later
When you stroll down Bird Hall at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, most of the birds you will see in the cases are sitting on branches or faux ground surfaces, seemingly alive but frozen in time.
But the roughly 190,000 birds in the museum’s collection are preserved and stored in a variety of ways for different purposes that include display and scientific study.
As seen in the photo above, stored specimens can be taxidermy mounts (preserved as they would have been seen in life), specimen skins (which are seen lying on their backs), skeletons, dried spread wings, and eggs. A select few birds, like this Collared Aracari (Pteroglossus torquatus), are even stored in 70% ethanol alcohol.
Each type of preparation has a purpose. Taxidermy mounts are for education and display. Skeleton preparations allow study of bones, which is helpful in understanding evolution, especially since often that is what is left in fossils found by vertebrate paleontologists.
Eggs document breeding localities and can even show changes in size and number through time as a method of climate change. Fluid specimens can be used for dissection in study of anatomy (muscles, brains, stomach contents, etc.) and recently have been used in CT scanning methods that even outline muscles and organ systems without dissection. Spread wings can show molt patterns and color patterns, which are often important in mating.
Finally, the study skin is the most common preparation type as it, as well as other preps, document the exact location, time, and condition of the bird when collected or salvaged. The feathers often indicate the age class of the bird, and it can serve in other more modern ways. DNA can be obtained from tissue and stable isotope data can be obtained from feathers allowing study of shifts in breeding ranges through time.
I turned around this morning and was struck with how wonderful my studio is. I’ve worked to make it into a place of inspiration and wonder for the natural world...even when it’s kinda messy, like it is right now haha.
The first two photos are candid shots from this morning. I have books, specimens, and art supplies strewn about right now, and could certainly use some straightening up.
The second photo is an artsy arrangement from when I got my nautilus shell from @tylerthrasherart. What a stunning work of art, thank you so much. The hummingbird is an antique study (or cabinet) skin of a sapphire vented puffleg hummingbird. The skeleton sketch is of a pacific moonfish from digimorph.org.
Final shot is from last week as I worked on drawing birds and dinosaurs, which turned into a hybrid creature for an assignment. I’ll post that and more art soon, I’m so behind!! The study skin is a magnificent bird of paradise, not in the best shape, but not bad for being almost 150 years old!
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Spread wings and study skins can both be incredibly useful, and they both allow different angles for measurements. Those spread wings make measuring flight feathers and wing bones very easy, without as much worry about harming the specimen when moving little pieces. We can also easily see the color of the wings’ undersides. Study skins can allow for many of the same measurements, but the stiffness and fragility of some of the older skins make it harder to measure certain angles as well. However, the study skins do allow us to see the bird as a whole, as some people prefer.
Ash has been trying more specimen prep, and I am super impressed by these beautiful skins. This female American Robin (Turdus migratorius) has become an excellent study skin, and the organ removal process seems to have gone splendidly (slightly more graphic photos below). When the skin is pulled away from the keel, the bird’s specialized chest bone, you can see that the feathers have a layered effect in their coloring. The stomach feathers are white on the outside, but further down the rachis or shaft or the feather, they are black. We only see the white area because of the layering of feather over feathers!
Photo credit: Ash Boudrie
Look at this bird’s tiny little joints! The color layers is also much more obvious in this photo.
So it's good to occasionally push your boundaries, push and see where you are. Yesterday I made three bird study skins. On the downside, it took my 8 hours, so I was tired and making dumb mistakes by the end. That said, they all came out okay, which is really something, especially considering the yellow-bellied sapsucker was from 2007, and the warbler was from 2011 and were badly freezer burned. I forgot to take a picture of the immature European starling I also did, he was from 2013 and no problem. Both problem birds were partially mummified, and also super fat, which can make the feathers ugly and greasy. Because of these complications, both birds got soaked in Dawn dish soap and water, so I ended up with nearly transparent sopping wet bird skins. I had to be super careful and dry them enough that I could stuff them and get a nice body form, but not let them dry too much and tear. I tore both birds anyway (meh) but was able to do an okay repair job by the end. The tears are on their backs by their shoulders, so you can't see any evidence in the photos. After I got everything stitched up, I used a blow drier on them until they became fluffy again. Very reminisce of those before - and - after photos of fluffy white dogs getting baths. It was all a lot of practice in repair and salvage, so while these aren't the most beautiful specimens I've done, I'm actually pretty proud.
