Frilled lizard skeleton

[Vkvz]

Hey all,
Long time since I posted anything new, so here's a new specimen!  
It's a frilled lizard (Chlamydosaurus kingii) skeleton.

I went for their typical defensive/courtship posture, which is something like this:



It is missing the sclerotic rings, and the hyoid is not complete, but I still decided to mount most of it. It is also missing the cartilaginous structures around the lower jaw that helps support the frill, but those are really extremely delicate. Maybe I'll try to reconstruct them in the future (and with more references) but right now I'm pretty happy with it.
As Jean-Christophe pointed out, the wire I used to reconstruct the sternal cartilage is a bit too thick, I went with 0.8mm brasswire and should probably have used 0.6mm instead, I'll be more careful next time. It is also missing a couple of claws but it's a frequent problem with lizards (bad sheds, fights...).
And as usual, it is not a ligament mount and everything is glued together.
Hope you like it!  

[CA Trapper]

Awesome! Can you tell us the your methods?

[Voltrax]

You will read what you wanted to.
GREAT JOB!

[Jean-Christophe]

Good one ! I like the aggressive posture as well with legs well rooted in the ground and tail whipping the air... pics are good too.
So you didn't managed to change a bit the hyoid orientation forwards.

PS Yes, we like it !

[Vkvz]

Thanks!!
Jean-Christophe: Haha, actually I did place the hyoid a bit more forward than in the first pics I sent you, but maybe it doesn't show or I was just overcautious in doing so  
I'll try to bend it a bit more forward  

CA: time and patience!  
I macerate most of my stuff, but I also send some to a friend who can beetle clean them (but that was before Guus sent me some, now I just have to build a proper colony!). But even with beetle cleaned specimens, a lot of stuff tend to fall apart while degreasing/whitening because I usually do long soaks, and even if they don't, I usually take a lot of stuff appart to articulate them exactly as I want. I find it easier to control everything, the placement of every single bone this way. Of course it's more difficult and you can do more mistakes, but it's also more challenging and you gain way more anatomical/technical knowledge along the way.
Otherwise it's just superglue (still like it better than white glue), wire, and long nights  

[ravenswings1]

Gorgeous! Never realized they had bone in the "frill" part. Makes sense though. How do get such a nice black background by the way?

[SD Cowgirl]

Wow! That must take a ton of patience, those are some tiny bones! Good job!

[Guus]

Happy to see I guessed right!  Fantastic species to get to work on and you made a very nice skeleton! Impressive as always that you macerated it, what a job!

[Vkvz]

Thanks guys! And yep, you guessed right Guus! 
I'll reply to your email in a couple of days by the way 

Ravenswings: I just use a black shirt for the background, then play around a bit with contrast and exposure to get the result I want.

[RBlack]

That is very cool!

[Head Hunting Iowan]

I wish.......

[Guus]

Vkvz, I was wondering how large this specimen is? Do you have a picture with some size reference or do you have the length of it? Did you place it in a showcase? (or are you going to make a skeleton of a predator next to it that is annoying this defensive lizard?) 

[Vkvz]

It is not very big actually, body length is about 15 centimeters, and the tail is about 20 centimeters long. I'll send you a pic with something for size reference. And a friend of mine is currently making a showcase for it!
I didn't think of the predator idea, but it's pretty cool! But Australian predators might not be very easy to get! 
However I really have to do a predator/prey display sometimes, probably with a snake. 

[Wouter]

Vkvz, I join the others in praise of this skeleton, a great piece of art!

If you want to add an Australia predator you're right there aren't many of those available in Europe. However, there are two predatory birds that are native to both Europe ansd Australia: the black kite (Milvus migrans) and the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus). Maybe you can use one of those, especially the kite is rather common in France I believe.

Wouter

[Jean-Christophe]

The predator/prey display is a good idea. What about the red fox ? Not native from Australia but they are a pain there and I wouldn't be surprised if they prey this lizard. Fox are also much more common and easy to get than predatory birds.
(think of this because my mind is currently full of red foxes ! ).
Snake would be cool too.