The several methods for cleaning specimens have been much discussed over the
years; my own collection was almost all prepared by defleshing and the
gentle boiling, followed by oxidation with Sodium perborate. This hasn't
come up in discussion. Is there a reason why? These crystals look like sugar
and a lot is scattered over a defleshed skeleton (say 1kg for a sheep). Very
hot water is then poured on, giving rise to strong release of oxygen (stand
well back!). When cool, the bones can be easily scrubbed clean of ligaments
and so on. Specimens that I prepared 30 years ago show no signs of
deterioration. On the other hand, a bull calcaneum left too long in a
biological detergent solution was very significantly eroded.
An alternative is burial, but make sure that this is in well aerated
conditions, either in an active compost heap or in a well drained garden
soil. Again, beware very acid sandy soils which can damage bone surprisingly
quickly. Burial tends to produce brown stained specimens, presumably from
degraded haemoglobin.
My best carrion story involves collecting feral pig skeletons in Australia,
from animals shot near to the NSW-Queensland border. The partially defleshed
carcasses were saved for about a week, then put into sacks, and tied onto
the outside of a Land Cruiser - not possible inside! The journey back to
Canberra was a drive of hundreds of miles, with only ONE set of traffic
lights on the way, these in the main street of a small town. Imagine, nice
warm Sunday evening, everyone out for a stroll along the main street, and
the traffic lights turned red.....if you don't believe me, ask Jim
O'Connell.
Best,
Tony Legge
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