Thank you everyone for your responses.
I attend a college in California. I guess an important piece of information I forgot to mention is that the skull was soaked in formaldehyde or phenolphthalene. We have 3 skulls to work with. I have not yet actually seen the skull that i will be using, but i think one of them has actually started to dry out. Since the tissues were soaked in a chemical, will the procedures mentioned in the posting still work? We are using adult skulls and this work will begin in january when the semester starts again. I'm doing the research and preparation now. And, Yes we do want every skull and facial bone to be separated. And yes, everything is legal and has been approved by the department
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I forgot to respond to a question by PA. The sutures I'm referring to are indeed the sagittal, squamous, lamdoidal sutures, etc. To my understanding, there is some connective tissues, i think collagen fibers or something, that line the sutures. I do not believe that the sutures are completely fused, the are tight, but not completely fused. Thank you for all the responses
First off, Phenolphthaline is an indication used in titration with a changeover of clear to pink over a pH of 7. Phenol, or a similar chemical used to be added in the preserved specimen to cut down on vapors or to mask them. I don"t know if your skull has it as an additive but formaldehye was undoubtedly used.
As I anticipated in the earlier that if it was a legit post, the skull most likely was from a cadaver. Because of the techniques in preparation of the body, there is no way to effectively use any living biological agent to clean the meat off - that is to say, dermestids, crayfish, isopods, ants, shrimp, meal worms, moths, or any other living thing, will not survive the residual effects of the fixation. I have tried numerous times to soak pickled material in ammonia, water, various ětastyî fats, etc. with no success at making the material palatable. Bacterial maceration also is severely compromised, so that even this is not a successful alternative without many many many changes if water over a long period to wash out the remaining formalin. Boiling, or more accurately, simmering, also is not the premier method, though with concerted effort and much physical effort. the tissue can be scraped off. Unfortunately the formalin truly attaches the muscle tissue to the bone and it must be pried off.
From what I understand then, without seeing the exact situation of the specimen, your best bet would be with some sort of chemical/enzymatic maceration. I would suggest you first attempt one of the enzymatic maceration techniques. Between now and January though, before Winter semester begins, I would skin out the head thoroughly, and attempt to use a spatula as you may find in a Chemistry lab to remove all the brain material. The formalin would have hardened the brain considerably and it will be quite stiff. Be careful not to damage bones that protrude into the braincase forming the base the cerebellum sits on. Then soak the potential skull in ammonia, only the concentration that you can purchase in a grocery store. Purchase a couple gallons and make a soak for a week with the first gallon, decant, then just before winter break, pour in the second gallon in the lidded bucket.
Beginning in January then, soak the skull overnight a day or two, then try any of the various enzymes available to you:
Fischer, C. and G. McInness. 1981. An enzymatic technique for the rapid preparation of osteological specimens. Biological Curator"s Group Newsletter 2(9):409-410
Harris, R. H. 1959. Small vertebrate skeletons. Museums Journal 58:223-224,
Luther, P. G. 1949. Enzymatic maceration of skeletons. Proceedings of the Linnean Society, London 161:146-147
Trypsin is another enzyme quite suitable for enzymatic maceration, though I know of no publication using it, other than the standard references on clearing and staining specimens where it is routinely used and does not harm the bone material at all.
If none of these enzymatic methods work, you then must resort to more ědangerousî methods of cleaning off the bone material - Chemical maceration. The literature is replete with numerous chemicals used to combat formalin prepared or difficult to clean skeletal material. I will only point you to one using antiformin, similar to Harris above.
Green, H. L. H. H. 1934. A rapid method of preparing clean bone specimens from fresh or fixed material. Anatomical record, 61:1-3.
Potassium Hydroxide, Sodium Hydroxide, Ammonium Hydroxide, Various acids, Sodium Carbonate, Sodium Hydrochlorite, Sodium Perborate, and many other chemicals can be utilized also, but extreme care must be used to prepare perfect specimens. as bone material is easily damaged.
As far as disarticulation. If the Papain, as mentioned by Harris does not work for complete diarticulation, there is only one other paper I have ever found to disarticulate a skull.
Wiles, I. A. 1932. A method for the disarticulation of skull bones. Science, 75:516-517.
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Collagen is present in the connective tissue between individual bones but is also in the bone itself. All of the bone material has collagen in it and by breaking it down, you weaken the bone itself. The interlocking of the sutures often involves a meandering pathway such that the pieces are interlocked like a puzzle.
Despite your best efforts of cleaning, and ultimate whitening with hydrogen peroxide (I would only recommend the soaking in the 3% solution purchased in grocery stores overnight - after total disarticulation and removal of teeth) the ending product will never be as good as one prepared from a fresh specimen. Good luck though!
You're a GENIUS!
I have never felt so stupid. It's always nice getting info from a PhD. THANK YOU very much for all the references and the information.
Taxidermologist, you certainly add positively to the overall image of taxidermists! Applause! Applause!
Interesting reading, too! I join with Anatomy Student in extending thanks!
I can't stop wowing. Wow wow wow wow wow..... what an article.
I am a physical anthropology grad student in Buffalo, and have spent more hours than I care to admit macerating macaques. We use a combination of detergent/protease along with "gentle" simmering on our animals, all of which have been preserved with a fairly standard embalming solution(formalin, ethanol, phenol, buffers...)and they come quite clean...but never apart. Beauchene "exploded" skulls are generally prepared, in stark contrast to cadavers, from younger individuals. As we age our sutures not only fuse, but obliterate.
As for the brain, it will come out on its own, and I'd be wary of peeling the dura mater anyway. One option is to have the anatomy lab section the skulls, and then macerate from there. You could also try to use ultrasound to loosen the joints(I'm guessing here).
Best of luck, and if you find something that works please let me know...I'd love to explode a monkey or two!
-Chris