Catfish anatomy
- Thread starter necrocanis
- Start date
very cool man i would never have the patience to do that great way to keep a dead pet i like that alot better then keeping a frozen fish in the back of my freezer plus great way to expand your knowledge let us know what species your looking for
I want to try. What do you use to get the remaining bits of flesh off? I'd imagine bleaching may damage the small fragments. Do you use some sort of glue to put it back together? Please do tell.
Thanks for all the interest and replies to this thread. I'll be taking some more pics for it tonight or tomorrow. Sorry I can't post on here when I am at work for five days or I would answer sooner. The skeletons are definitely not easy to do. I take as much off by hand as possible using medical tweezers, and scalpuls. I use very hot water straight from the faucet to loosen the meat. Works great most of the time. I also take tons of pics while doing all of this so that I can see exactly how everything fit together in real life. After all the flesh is removed I dry the bones for a few days. Then they go into the ammonia for degreasing of the bone. After several weeks of degreasing they go into some peroxide after drying again. They stay in the peroxide for several weeks until they are as white as I like them. I leave some select tendons in tact to keep bones on the spinal column together. The skulls are completly dismantled catalogued by camera, and then I re articulate them by hand. I use elmers wood glue as it seems to soak into the bone, and dries clear but not glossy, as I hate glossy looking bones. They look so fake. I try to position the bones as if the animal were still alive. I have some cool ones to work on like my jau, a planiceps, and some smaller catfish. Looking for any larger species of catfish to work on. I find that doing skeletons eases my urge to get more catfish as it takes several months to do just one skeleton. Please think of me when your beloved pet passes. I promise to do my best to make it a beautiful work of art, and science.
here's a few more pics. Callicthys calicthys, goedeilla eques(spelling), rtc, platydoras costatus, agymaxis pectinfrons, ect.
