what is the best way?
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Is it a large turtle or a small turtle? Young turtle or old turtle?
Maceration cleans bones more thoroughly, but also digests cartilige, so young skulls will readily fall apart. If they are small as well - this can make pieceing them back together a bit of a headache. For these specimens dermestid beetles are recommended. If however your skull is from an older animal whose skull is more tightly fused, or from a larger specimen wherein the pieces can be fit back together without much difficulty, maceration is a slightly longer process, but will produce superior results.
Don't boil, simmer, use sal soda or enzymes... all these things are bad for bone, the reasons why can be researched in the archives.
Hope that helps =)
yeah, it was a 25 pounder, i had dermestid doin the work, but they werent interested in the tight skin on head
Sometimes bputting a piece of rag on skin like that then keeping it damp with amoonia orwater for a couple days to really soften it up does the trick. They don't seem to like skin as much as meat, so this is where a scalpel comes in handy. When preppring skulls for bug use, remove all skin, eyes and as much meat as possible before offering it to them. If you don't mind the gooey stinky mess, leaving the brain in is a high source of fat and protein and often will yield you more baby bugs in the end. If the stink bothers you though, don't hesitate to remove it as well.
You can also invert the skull and put it in a small amount of water to macerate just that layer. A small plastic container like a margarine tub should work.. with just a half inch of water in it. This will keep all the palette elements from falling apart. Bind it with string or put a plastic zip tie around it before placing in water and you can likely even keep the larger cranial elements intact.
Hope that helps =)