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Taxidermy Selous' zebra By: Chicago Natural History Museum From: The Empire of Equus 1974

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Dingo skull from the Northern Territory, AUS

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Smile like Smilodon, because it’s Fossil Friday! This saber-tooth cat roamed the Americas during the Pleistocene, and went extinct some 10,000 years ago. Scientists estimate that its signature teeth, which could reach lengths of 7 in (18 cm), grew at the rapid speed of .24 in (6 mm) per month—double the growth rate of an African lion’s teeth. To unsheath these knife-like canines, Smilodon could open its jaws twice as wide as today’s big cats. You can spot this fearsome predator in the Museum’s Hall of Primitive Mammals.  Photo: D. Finnin / © AMNH

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Baby guinea pig jaw with bad malocclusion. It's probably a mercy it didn't survive 💔

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Sorry about the lack of posts recently! I’ve been hauling tail trying to get as much done as I can before season!

Got a lot of mounts finished recently, stay tuned for more posts!

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MAMMAL MONDAY

Humboldt’s flying squirrel

Glaucomys oregonensis

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Humboldt’s flying squirrel was determined to be a separate species from the Northern flying squirrel through genetic analysis (Arbogast et al, 2017). They’re hard to differentiate from each other. I’m pretty sure I had a reason to think this was Humboldt’s but it could be a Northern (Glaucomys sabrinus).

I regret not trying to get a better wing spread. I didn’t initially realize that flying squirrels have a cartilaginous spur off their wrist that supports the patagium (membrane) of their wing. Ideally you pin that out. I attempted to rectify the mistake when the squirrel was already partially dried… so mixed success.

Flying squirrels also have incredibly soft but delicate fur like moles and shrews. You can see I lost a patch during prep on the back leg.

Flying squirrel with the styliform cartilage of the wrist to support the wings

Vintage plate showing the ideal wing spread (I still would’ve done one side to conserve space)

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My ever-growing baby teeth collection from my ponies! They're about 3 years old now and will continue losing teeth for a couple more years so I'm hopeful to find more. Usually they end up swallowing them so I'm surprised I've found so many of them!

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bobcat (kitten) - full pelt - M

this guy is so damn cute, and pretty spotty! He’s actually quite cool-colored for a bobcat, more gray than the others I’ve worked on. The tiny tail is absurdly cute.

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Skulls from a turkey (big) and a lovebird (smol).

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red fox (ranched, European, snow glow) - soft mount (semi poseable) - F

This lady’s head was mounted by a friend of mine over on instagram, I finished her face and mounted her body. She’s got a massive tail!

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Northern Flicker (red-shafted)

Colaptes auratus

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Big ol' opossum with one fang

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There now, at least his skull is finished. This is our Pretzels kitty, who passed away last year. I personally processed him after a few months of his passing, but I think I can safely say that I will likely never process another of my own pets. It was difficult to do, even though I’d given it time. Grief is a strange thing.

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Back in January I picked up this gorgeous c.oyote that was hit on a busy road. I initially wasn’t going to grab it but my brother egged me on to “at least check it out” and that’s how we ended up lugging a trash bag of frozen c.oyote into the back of my Kia soul at 3am 🙃

This gal was so big (I weighed it, I believe the scale read 45lbs?) that she didn’t really fit in my freezer so I literally piled snow on top of the bag it was in to keep it cool until I could work on it. Easily my biggest solo project to date. It was ROUGH y’all. Had no choice but do thaw and skin it in my basement since it was cool enough to work with but not 2 degrees like it was outside. In the last pic you can see my shitty setup (I sanitized the hell outta everything afterwards). It took about four hours to skin, although I did leave the legs and tail in because I needed to pick up the pace if I wanted to get it into the freezer before it started slipping.

Once I get the correct supplies, the next step is fleshing and tanning. But that’s a long way from now, seeing as I don’t have a good fleshing setup. If anyone has recs… please let me know lmao I’m hitting a wall with my projects over here since all I have to flesh with is a scalpel and I don’t think I can reasonably fit a wheel in my little “studio” (aka the corner of my living room).

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my family knows me so well