Skeletons

Wonderfully done. Thanks for sharing. Those fine, thin bones on the murre are amazing. On the end of the nose of the mole .. is that an extra bone from the end of the nose?

 

Are you trying to be the best bird guy in the world? ;D
Fantastic skeletons as usual, and it's really great to see a mole with the prenasal in place at least!
I usually prefer sober bases, but that lovebird is amazing. Did you take the pictures yourself by the way?

 

As always you did a perfect work
I remember a couple years before, you said you were not happy with few area of your birds, did it changed now ? Hope so, they look flawless to me
The duck is the more impressive to me here but I know the murre is the more difficult because of all those long thin ribs.
Did you finished the ram army ?

Yes moles, boars and few other mammals (I don't remember which at the moment) have a bone in the nose.

 

Guus, they are great as always.
I presume we will meet in Salzburg in 2018?

Sebastien? Jean Christophe? What about you guys?

 

I love your mole!

 

Hi Robert, I keep doing some bones, almost finished to clean my ball python skeleton, did a couple more fish skulls.
For the next 2 months, I'm going to dissect wild boars in the our Natural History Museum (happy of this !).
Hard to project myself otherwise...

 

Some very nice skeletons Guus.

However, I don't believe a duck can bend its' wings in that manner. The primaiers are essentially locked into position and the secondaries follow to a certain degree. If you were to place feathers on your finished skeleton, I don't think you could find a photograph of a duck in that wing position. If you google Duck wings and images, you can see many pictures of wing outstretched ducks, and you can never find one with backward facing primaries as your skeleton would suggest. I always interpret the correctness of a skeleton mount based on what wing position would look like if feathers were placed on it. Some latitude can be given, but in my opinion I think you should re-position the down the wing in this particular mount.

 

I've never seen a mole skeleton before! Do they have a different clavicle than most mammals? It seems that front part of the chest would be very strong

 

The entire forelimb of a mole is highly specialized for digging. The clavicle is very short, and has broad articulations with the humerus, scapula, and sternum. It serves as a strong fulcrum for the rest of the forelimb. The manubrum of the sternum is elongated, with a strong keel for the attachment of muscles. The scapula is likewise very long and narrow. The humerus is very strange-looking, with large ridges and spurs for the attachment of muscles. The foot has an extra "toe" called the falciform. It's formed from the radial sesamoid bone and adds to the width of the foot. It's analogous to a panda's "thumb".

 

That's amazing! I never would have thought about the adaptations a mole would need for such a specialized lifestyle! Thank you for breaking that down for me