strangest or rarest thing in your skull collection

I would love to get a human skull!! my all time goal I guess. I have an entire 4 day old aplaca skeleton cleaned and whitened..maybe someday will articulate. No pics on me and nort really rare but cool nonetheless.

 

Hi All,

I'm glad this thread came back. Very neat stuff. When it started, a few years ago, I started another thread asking y'all which skulls you were dying to have. I think we should continue that conversation on here too since the same people who are interested in reading about all of our coolest skulls are probably those that have skull fantasies themselves!

Putt, to answer your questions, getting all of the amazing skulls that I have has taken a TON of work. As a professor I can have, and have gotten, just about anything I want for free! Mammals from Alaska F&G, raptors from the state and feds. In fact, the more protected something is, the easier it is for me to get it because those species tend to pile up in freezers as they are confiscated by authorities. Once I express interest and have the proper papers, those guys are ecstatic to dump them on me!

I'm not sure why more professors don't do this. Frankly, I think it is because it takes so much work to organize and then most academics aren't set up to clean all of the specimens. But, I'm not complaining - that's just more opportunity for me!

Speaking of freebies, just last spring I was given an Amur leopard, another clouded leopard, sloth bear, giant river otter (if you don't know Pteronura, you should look them up - SO cool), and about a dozen monkeys including a full body Mandrill! At this point, I have too many amazing specimens to be able to work on. Anyone in central PA wanna help?

The worst part is: I have NO use for skins (I study muscles and bones) and have piles of them. I know that some taxidermists would love to work on them, but I don't have any money for them and can't bring myself to throw them out. I've had this problem for years. Any suggestions?

 

Thought you might like to see the Mandrill we were working on. No pics of the finished skeleton yet though.

(That's a sooty mangabey in the foreground)

 

You lucky SOB, I'm very jealous. Being a bachelor graduate in Conservation and Wildlife Management, I would love to work on them dead as much as I would love to work on them alive. As what to do with the skins, besides myself I'm sure my mammalogy professor at Delaware Valley College could put them to good use. I have been starting studying skins thanks to him. Wish I was at your school, I would love to be able to work on them. I have finished a skunk study skin and have a squirrel lined up next. They are both roadkills, because I'd hate to see them go to waste.

 

Come to my lab. Forget skunks. You can make study skins of tigers and clouded leopards!

 

I would kill to be able to work on a tiger. I would love to come to your lab, but knowing my luck your prob. all the way out west. And I am serious about the skins and my mammalogy teacher. He would go happy crazy to be able to work with them. However, he only does have a scientific salvage and collecting permits.

The irony with me and working around dead animals is that several years ago dead animals creeped me out, like roadkill, but after going to Delaware Valley, I'm able to comfortable work around them.

And I have an decent skull collection myself, most of which I found while exploring the woods that I have visited. I wanted to try and get a scientific salvage permit myself, but then I noticed on the forms that it is not for individuals, even thou I am wanting again to use my skulls to educate people, particularly the young generation.

I would have to say that the rarest skull that I have now is a gaboon viper. Of my skulls its my baby, lol. Of course I would die for a saltwater crocodile skull or a komodo dragon skull, those species are the coolest.

 

Great Skulls, as a smalltowner with zero connections I am indescribably jealous

 

My collection is mostly birds, those are my favorites. The rarest mammals I have are a Sumatran Tiger and a Spanish Wolf. My most special birds are:
Brown Kiwi, Wandering Albatross, Royal Albatross, Southern Giant Petrel, Snow Petrel, Dalmatian Pelican, Lesser Adjutant, Falkland Steamer Duck, Cinereous Vulture, Lappet-faced Vulture, Steller's Sea-eagle, Bonelli's Eagle, Andean Condor, Secretarybird, Great Bustard, Kori Bustard, Siberian Crane, Wattled Crane, White-naped Crane, Limpkin, Congo Peafowl, Great Argus, Helmeted Hornbill, Rhinoceros Hornbill, Hoatzin, Hyacinth Macaw, Socorro Dove, Wallcreeper, Rotschild's Mynah

Wouter

 

Wouter, you have some incredibly good specimens as well.

 

I dont have anything rare but continue to try adding to my collection.Some of what i have are a Large wolf,large mountain lion,javalina with long teeth,Vervet monkey,couple species of mongoose,ring-tail cat,ferret,sika deer,bat,Hornbill,few other african species and lots more of the american species.Takes me a little longer cleaning skulls for my collection because my little boy has me building him a skull collection at the same time,lol.

 

Great Skulls,
I'm located in Central PA and would love a chance to work on some of those skulls you have. If you ever need help doing some of them, let me know.

Thanks,
Steve

 

The two coolest I've had.

 

Honey Badger from a friend It is an animal that I admire, which makes it more special to me.

 

I'd love that honey badger. Weirdly, I've worked in South Africa for more than a decade, and I've never picked one up. Jealous.

What I'm still looking for: komodo dragon, thylacine, panda (giant, though I'd like a red one too), I could use a coati and a kinkajou too, dhole, maned wolf, Ethiopian wolf (okay, so these are probably harder to find than thylacines), tasmanian devil. I'm always looking for great primates too, especially a gelada (I need one for a research project I'm doing) and an indri. I know some of this seems really unreasonable, but for some reason, I've always been able to get hold of the species I'm really looking for, so I thought I'd throw them out there! If any of you have any of these, give me a holler!

 

I should mention, that if any of you have one of those, even if it is the pride of your collection (as it should be!), then I'd still like to know. Even if we can't legally make something work, it would still be nice to hear about.

 

not parting with it but since you insisted on knowing:

Dhole skull, died of old age in a park as you can see on the teeth. I was lucky to getting it and clean it




all else in your list is waaaaayyyyyy out of my reach... sadly

 

Nice thing to have regardless. Interesting and very different canid.

 

Truly jealous. Not too many of them in captivity! Hold on to it! But if you want to let it go... please remember me!

 

@ great-skulls: I'll remember if I happen to come across another one. No jealousy needed mate, in fact I ran out of cleenex reading what you get to work with on a daily basis. The drooling nearly dehydrated me ;D

@ sea-wolf: it is, it kinda looks like a mixture tween hyena and dog skull.

 

There are lots of rare things in my collections, but the coolest is probably the Balaeniceps rex, the shoebill for birds and the Crocodilus cataphractus, Slender-snouted crocodile for herps. There are about 17 skulls/skeletons of the shoebill listed on ORNIS, a perhaps about that many Crocs on HERPNET so they aren't that rare. My rarest two specimens are preserved as a fluid specimen and a study skin. I have a frog from Surinam that is known from only two specimens in existence, and a caprimulgid from French Guiana which is the only known specimen in the world. Technically, the skulls are still in them, so they would be the rarest I have - they just will never be prepared.

Rare things prepare the same a common things - not really that different. After you have prepared a snow leopard, tiger, giraffe, rhino, orangutan, chimpanzee, zebra, and gorilla etc., it isn't any different than a white-tailed deer, raccoon, woodchuck, great blue heron, gila monster, chameleon, or a hummingbird. A specimen is a specimen, they all skin the same.