Abstract

Do you like skeletons? One of the more interesting jobs at a natural history museum is the creation and care of the skeletons and bones. How do the curators clean and put together the skeletons? Many curators use the carrion beetle, Dermestes vulpinus, to quickly clean off the dead animal tissue from a corpse to reveal the skeleton. These insects do such a good job that sometimes the skeleton remains intact! Another method is to slow cook the carcass until the meat falls off. You can use a crock pot to slow cook the meat off of bones from a chicken, quail, duck or goose. You can also find a rabbit or frog at some meat counters. After slow cooking the carcass, you can carefully separate the bones from the meat (which might be tasty). Then you can clean the bones by soaking in full strength household bleach or full strength drugstore grade hydrogen peroxide. Allow the bones to dry thoroughly for several days. Now you are ready to put together one dandy of a jigsaw puzzle! You can use wood glue to put the pieces back together. Good luck, if you finish you can have a very cool skeleton collection!