skull

[Steve Halford]

On Mon, 15 Mar 1999, Ed Pirog wrote:

> Can someone recommend a means of cleaning and preparing a skull without the
> use of any kind of insects.
> Ed.
>

The standard methods are hot water maceration, cold water maceration and
enzyme (usually trypsin) digests.  Each has it's plusses and minuses, and
all will tend to loosen teeth and disarticulate skulls.

Details on these techniques are given in most general museum manuals eg:

        Anderson, R.M. 1965 Methods of collecting and preserving
        vertebrate animals.

        Mahoney, R. 1973 Laboratory techniques in zoology.

        Knudsen, J.W. 1972 Collecting and preserving plants and animals.

If you don't have access to one of these (or something similar), let me
know and I'll e-mail you a synopsis.

HTH

Steve (halford at sfu.ca)
Museum Technician
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada