Dwarf Caiman (paleosuchus Palpebrosus) Project Maceration And Articulation

Hi everyone,

I am a bit of a beginner in taxidermy but I already macerated and articulated a few animals, they are ugly but hey, we learn by doing! I saved some lizards, chameleons, and other complex stuff for later, but I have to move out... So, I would like to start these fragile things to empty the freeze!

One of the biggest thing in this freezer is a dwarf caiman (1.5m long with tail). It's in several pieces already skinned and cleaned as much as possible with scalpel: head, each limb, and the vertebral column into 3 or 4 parts.

I will use maceration to clean the skeleton. But, as I have read so far, it's going to be a truuuuue mess. Everything will fall apart and so on...

1. I guess I can macerate the vertebrae of the tail, that's just vertebrae, right?
2. For the limbs, better separate the feet/hands than the long bones, macerate the long bones and scrap with scalpel feet/hands to avoid the mess with carpal/tarsal bones if macerated?
3. For the rib cage, sternal ribs are made of cartilage, so, if macerated, they will disappear, right? So scrapping will be the only way to clean these sternal ribs?
4. For the skull, what's the best way to do that? All the teeth will fall, and the skull itself will fall apart as well?
5. I don't know yet if I still have the gastralia, but I guess it's cartilage as well?

Thanks guys!

 

Thanks SW! Do you think I should scrap the carpal/tarsal/phalanges part? Or it's not that hard to find the right position for all the bones in these parts? I guess everything will fall in the bottom of the container...
I don't know what post you are talking about, I have seen a post with a closer look at carpal bones, the guy used beetles for his caiman. If you have suggestion, I would be glad to see the post you are thinking about!
So, for the cartilage, no maceration right?

 

Thank you so much, really helpful! I will try to start with this guy as soon as I have some free time then !

 

Hey!

After one week of maceration (37°C), teeth are still well attached to the upper/lower jaws! I can't remove them yet, will check again in a few days. However, the teeth became all black! I was wondering if you know why suck a coloration ? I will have to clean them in peroxyde or something? If so, that's probably gonna be a mess to clean them one by one to not to loose the position of each tooth...

 

Oh, interesting! I am wondering why on enamel and less on bones?
On your beaver post the black disappeared after the degreasing in ammania then? Not after peroxyde. The skull is ~ 20 cm long. Teeth are tiny and really similar, I have read some post and teeth are towards the sky.
How can you then do the following steps (deegreasing, whitening) on the teeth. If you glue them after maceration the chemicals of the following steps will take them out, no? So you have to degrease them all in separate containers?
Thank you so much for your help SW!

 

Hi!

I have some news! See the pictures below.

After 1.5 week of maceration, that's what I got.
I gently brushed the skull to remove the skins sticked to the bones, I used a garden hose to wash it a bit. The skull is still in one piece (with the exception of 3 small bones coming from both orbits and somewhere around the foramen magnum). BUT the lower jaw came into tons of pieces. I didn't expect that. I took out all the teeth but A LOT of replacement teeth just came out and I don't know their position, it's going to be a mess I guess.
In the jar, that's one "hand". Two days ago the ligaments were still there and I was going to take everything out to put the hand into ethanol and avoid that all the bones would be in the bottom of the jar. Too late. I will have to try to deal with carpals. I wasn't happy with the pectoral girdle and the vertebrae. There is a lot of cartilageous parts on these bones and I don't think I will keep them so I will leave them a bit more macerating.

Currently:
All the skull parts and hand are in a mix of ammonia/water. Outside the heated box.
Vertebrae and pectoral girdle are still in the maceration tank.
Teeth are just on the toilet paper waiting for your advices.

Next steps:

- I need to find uncolored dish soap and mix it with ammonia/water and put that in the 37°C tank?

- 3 more days and I take out the last parts macerating and put them in ammonia/soap/water

- Teeth need to be washed prior to put them in peroxyde or the solution will detach the bits of flesh + whiten the teeth?

- Waiting for some answers before macerating the rest of the body waiting in the freezer.

Do you guys keep cartilage for some parts, except the ribs?
What would you be your strategy to clean hands and feet?
For the rib cage, should I macerate the whole rib cage and once the flesh is partially removed I have to remove the cartilaginous part of the ribs to clean it by hand because maceration will eat everything? What's the best strategy?

Thanks!

 

Thank you so much! I'll keep you updated!

 

Averything is out of the maceration tank. And everything is now in a mix of Ammonia, Dish soap and water. Back in the insulated tank 37°C. Hope it's the good way?

After 3 days, the water/ammonia mix of the skull and hand was already full of fat, like a lot! Didn't expect it would be so greasy.

 

I didn't macerate the other 3 limbs, and thoracic cage, I was waiting to see if everything would go well with the first parts.

Thanks for the advices! I will start the maceration of the other parts then!

 

Hi guys!

I removed the parts being degreased and added the last parts in the maceration tank.

- How can you tell it's totally degreased? If I bleach them and see yellow spots I will have to degrease again and bleach again, right?

- Some cartilaginous joints are still present on some parts of the articulation. I should have macerated more to remove these parts as well?

- Still some darker areas under the bones on the snout of the skull, some replacement teeth blocked into the jaws. I guess the bleaching step will help out.

- Now I am gonna bleach using peroxyde 10%. How many days/hours you think I should leave these parts into the solution?

- Should I close the container to preserve the peroxyde for the next parts in a few weeks, or leave the container open? One of the 30% peroxyde bottle was closed and exploded in my garage, hopefully none was there!

- I will check the maceration tank in a few days, cut the cartilaginous parts, remove them and clean them by hand. Mainly ribs and sternum. Is that the right way? On the scapular girdle you can see on the picture that some cartilage remains on the bones, so not at all destructed by the maceration??? Why maceration will then dissolve the ribs and sternum?

Thanks!

 

Hi!

Yeah, I didn't really flesh the caiman myself. I took it like it was on the dissection table! So, no preservative, fresh one coming from the freezer. I should have fleshed more before maceration, but maceration will do my job, although it's gonna smell like hell! The skull was with the tongue and all the muscles as well...

 

Hi!

I just worked a bit on the maceration!
Still need a few more days before removing flesh on the limbs to get pictures of all the bones before everything fall appart. But I managed to remove all the cartilaginous parts.

- Cartilage is very fragile, I broke a couple of ribs... I didn't expect that. If I had macerated more, the cartilage would then be even more fragile and softer I guess? And that's why you shouldn't macerate cartilage?

- I tried to scratch with the scalpel but, that's not really efficient. The pieces are slippery and I am actually moving the flesh more than removing it. I did that with a scalpel and a new blade. Any tips, other tools,... to do that job? I can't get rid of the soft connective tissue on the sternum.

- Everything is now currently in a box, drying. Where should I put that? I have read about freeze/drying and working again on the cartilage I think. Is it easier if I freeze it and then try to scratch it again? Is the cartilage going to bend, shrink, or something?

Thanks!

Aurélien

PS. The G and R parts are most likely the gastralia, made of bones. I didn't know that before, it's why I cleaned them as cartilage!