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  1. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    The cat from my colleague at work had dragged this in; a rose-ringed parakeet (a female, lacking the black collar of the male). So I collected it and turned the remains into this beautiful skull. url=https://postimg.cc/hJ60ggJZ][/url] Work under construction: a mole and a housecat...
  2. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    Found this during a weekend in the Solling area (central Germany) last month: half a fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra terrestris)...it was snapped in two by an unknown, but probably very stupid or naive predator. Fire salamanders are highly poisonous (see the yellow glands with black dots...
  3. Galemys

    Natural/Historic Artifacts

    Wonderful! I think your herring gull is not a herring gull, these might be tailfeathers from a curlew (see https://www.featherbase.info/nl/species/Numenius/arquata) or from something else. Cheers, Tom
  4. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    Latest addition: Chiffchaff, a traffic victim found on holiday in Spain. Cheers, Tom
  5. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    Great collection, keep them coming! Is that a fox(?) In the background & some boar tusks on the left? What species are the smaller bird skulls? Sparrow/finch? I really like the lego dodo! One of my favourite birds. Cheers, Tom
  6. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    As promised some more pics of the asp viper skull and its preparation. Not visible is that one of the lower jaw halfs disintegrated in to its 2 components that had to be glued together again. Both sides of the upper jaw contained 3 fangs. Cheers, Tom PS @JonathanD: thanks for...
  7. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    Thank's for the kind words Jonathan! Both sides of the skull had multiple fangs, some were hidden in the gum/cartilage and were only revealed in the late stages of the preparation process. I'll add some close ups later this week. @jonathan: could you tell by the initial pictures if this was a...
  8. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    After some 3D-puzzling with all the loose bony fragments, this is the finalised asp viper skull: Cheers, Tom
  9. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    A short holiday in the Auvergne region, France, delivered an unexpected present...a freshly killed asp viper (Vipera aspis)! It was presumably the victim of a cat because of the location (on top of stone wall) and the mortal wound (crushed neck). I cut off the head and took it with me back to...
  10. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    After rotting, cleaning & bleaching here's how the barn owl skull turned out: There's small bones connecting the lower jaw to the skull missing in the pictures (too much hassle to keep them in place for the pics). The beak is much longer than you would expect from seeing a live bird! The...
  11. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    As promised, some pics. End result will take some time... Cheers, Tom
  12. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    Upcoming project: a beautiful dead barn owl. No external damage, only some blood on the beak. It turned out to be a female (judged by the broad black bands on the primaries). It was underweight (222 grams, it should be around 300) and very skinny. I collected the head and skinned it to preserve...
  13. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    Please share your pics! I have found three stoat roadkills; all had a crushed skull as well... Badger, porpoise, raven, any bird of prey, crossbill & avocet are high on my wishlist... Cheers, Tom
  14. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    New addition, a razorbill, without and with its keratin bill sheaths: Cheers, Tom
  15. Galemys

    Antique South East Asian fire piston

    I found the brass parts in my fathers shed, I am wondering too what they are normally used for (my father doesn 't know either...) Cheers, Tom
  16. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    Common murre: The insertions above the eye are for specialized glands that secrete excess salt (it is a seabird). and great crested grebe: Cheers, Tom
  17. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    New additions: Woodcock, a window victim View from above Great cormorant, from a freshly beached specimen. The bony spike on the back of the head ('os nuchalis'), flexibly attached by a bit of cartilage, is a unique feature of cormorants & darters. It gives extra attachment for the beak...
  18. Galemys

    Antique South East Asian fire piston

    After buying the antique fire piston I wanted to try and make a bone fire piston myself and found a piece of cow metacarpal bone in the pet shop. The bone wall was not thick enough to make a piston out of but I made a bone rod to match a small brass piston. It took a lot of splitting, carving...
  19. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    The blue tit's skull: A common grasshopper warbler (Locustella naevia) I found dead last month (it must have flown some 4000 miles from its winter quarters in West-Africa just to die on a Dutch dune...life is hard): Compared to a black crow's skull: Failed project: A partial skeleton of a...
  20. Galemys

    A small collecton of skulls

    Here are some animal skulls I collected over the past two years. Blackheaded gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus): Black crow (Corvus corone), herring gull (Larus argentatus) & jackdaw (Corvus monedula): Grey heron (Ardea cinereus): Long-tongued bat (Glossophaga elongatus, a South American...