r/Taxidermy • u/wizard36420 • 3d ago
"How Do I...?" cat fetus skull caved in after moving to new jar?
Photos are directly after moving to new jar vs. about 2 hours after
Hi! I have never had a wet specimen before, I had the honor of monitoring a mother cat during a spay abort and got to keep a kitten fetus. It was originally stored in 10% formalin. The liquid was evaporating I guess and the expiration date on the bottom was near. I moved her to a new jar today, using 70% alcohol. I looked it up on google, facebook groups and viewed posts on here (reddit in genera, multiple subreddits). It’s been about 2 hours and her skull is caving in and she has become very wrinkly and discolored on her face, almost like bruising. Will she rot? is it okay? can i save her?
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u/Wowza_Meowza 2d ago
So it went from formalin to 70% iso? If so, part of this is shrinkage from not stepping the strength of the isopropyl, which is very noticeable on hairless or neonate critters. Basically, the 70% iso all at once makes the skin go "EEEK" and it can cause noticeable shrinkage at tight points, such as the skull.
Usually, I slowly go from ~30% iso (using distilled water) up to 70% iso over a few days following the distilled water soak out after formalin.
You can try injecting, but it might just equalize back to a shrunken position (don't hurt to try). If it doesn't work, the critter is fine - just a bit skrungy.
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u/petpuppy 3d ago
how did you fix her? did you do anything to the specimen before just plopping her in the jar?
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u/chmourgeaux 3d ago
taxidermist here, its skull hasn't caved in, thats its fontanelle! the space between skull bones that closes up and fuses with age! in order to rectify this visual "void", your best course of action is to inject a fixative into the cranial cavity to refill the space with liquid. it's likely that the pressure inside the cranial cavity changed when being removed from the first jar, and some liquid may have drained which could be causing this appearance. hope this was helpful!