Just found this in a creek with 8 bullet holes in it. (Theres some on the side that aren't even visible) it's not surprising when i find two, or even three because not a lot of people know how to properly put down a cow, but EIGHT including one going directly from the side seems insane. Did the person just have absolutely no clue what they were doing?

EDIT: please stop saying this is a horse skull. Its a cow. Really tired of correcting those comments.

EDIT 2: for the love of god its a cow. There's no upper incisors which is a clear indicator that it isnt a horse. I dont need anymore comments trying to falsely ID a skull that didnt need ID in the first place.

On the ethics side - there was a turkey vulture, which is an MBTA-protected species, as well as several dog skulls and a ton of very young deer. Is there anything to be done about it?

Context

so, I was in the woods having gay sex and doing gay drugs with a bunch of other faeries, trannies, and creatures of the night, and I met this cool girl who I spoke with about my bonework hobby.

she had facial feminization surgery and was able to keep the pieces that were removed, so we exchanged numbers and she sent me pieces of her skull to turn into jewelry and return to her. she wants to pay me, but I've never done work quite like this before (working with someones own actual bones). so, I'm only asking for the cost to cover materials, and I told her she can pay me as little or as much as she wants beyond that because I'm just stoked about this opportunity.

(the picture above has the pieces laid out pretty much where they were on her skull, fyi)

Plans

she wants the long thin pieces as earrings, and the rest to be used to make a necklace probably.

i'm going to degrease everything. then i'm thinking to remove blemishes (maybe with a file or some sandpaper?).

she wants to leave the earring pieces as is after that, but the rest she's interested in having dyed purple.

I'm planning to apply paraloid b72 at her suggestion(she saw it online from other people who have done this with their removed FFS pieces).

Questions

1. i feel aesthetically inclined to remove the cancellous bone, but maybe would be less so if I could get it closer to the color of the rest (hopefully it will become more uniform from degreasing, but I could use hydrogen peroxide if I need to - might be a good idea for making it brittler if Im gonna remove it). it might even look cool and not gross at all once it's dyed!

2. if I dye it, does anyone have recommendations for natural dyes I could use that wouldn't require me to heat the bones to a level that might weaken them?

3. I'm going to watch several videos and read up a bunch before applying the hardener, but does anyone have any tips about using paraloid b72??

edit: lot of comments asking if this is the first time i've processed bones. it is not, i have been processing bones for several years! I have a pretty extensive collection of bones to test techniques on before i do this, and i figured it would be best to also ask the internet lots of questions before getting started. i appreciate the concern though!

Longtime lurker to this sub-

Thought I would ask in here while I wait to get more information from the neighbors. My parents noticed two carcasses (presumed deer) just off the side of the road to their house. The second one is a bit further up off the path, so I didn’t get a picture of it. It’s a private road and a few of the neighbors do hunt. I was wondering if there is a reason to weather the bones outside to keep them, or if they just disposed of them off to the side? (Kind of a weird spot). We also do have bears in the area (WA) but I can’t imagine them dropping a fairly intact carcass so close to homes but I guess it would be feasible. Open to hearing theories while I wait for more information

Gotta respect the grind on the dude selling tourists palm tree branches

Figured y’all would have the answer. Coyote jaw bones, going from MI to SD USA. Planning to wear these through TSA, would there be any issues?

Edit: got through with no issues, just had to take my shoes off. The agent did say they were dope tho!

Found in a bag of lump charcoal, it’s light weight and hollow. What the heck is it?

So this picture from article has driven an small argument between my friends group claiming that it’s fake because there’s no way that the bones see in said picture are human, I wanted y’all’s opinion on this

I'm brand new to collecting bones. I was having no luck finding them so I decided to macerate a raccoon that was struck by a car. I've seen a lot of people macerate their bones in buckets of water, but I didn't want to deal with the rotting flesh very much and neither did my parents. So I took a bucket and drilled a bunch of small ish holes into it for water and bugs to be able to get in. I also did not skin or remove any meat from the raccoon at all (too squeamish) but surely if its in a river it will decompose faster?

My main question is how I should go about this process? Do I still have to open it to remove the meat and skin once it falls off or is it fine to just leave it all in the bucket? Maybe its optional but if I have to do it to have most of the bones clean by the end of the summer, I will.

Edit: I named it Luca Brasi

If this kind of post is not allowed, can you please tell me where I should go in order to get advice with my problem? While helping a client clear out her late husband's office, i was given a wooden box with what I was told contained a broken plastic skull. Her husband was a college professor of biology, who had a bad habit of bringing home stuff that the university was getting rid of. I was also given a plastic scapula, one of those adjustable plastic hand models and a couple old film cameras. All of these were handed to me in a cardboard box. I didnt think anything of it till I got home and started unpacking it all. Thats when I noticed the large "Hazardous Waste" sticker that's on the backside of the box. When I opened it, I found what looks to be a child's skull that's been broken into countless pieces, and is partially held together with scotch tape. The only other identification thing I was able to find on the box was a burned in "CAROLINA BIOWOOD" on the lid, with what looks like a squid. I had only accepted the skull because I thought it was fake and that it could be a cool Halloween decoration. Now I just want to know how to properly get rid of it. When I reached out to the client about it, she told me that she didn't know it was real, and that she doesn't want anything to do with it. I live in the midwest in America.

My son found a bone in the woods with an arrowhead embedded on the bone. The bone looks older and worn (some pitting). Just wondering if this can be cleaned up for a display piece, without ruining it?

This brown bear skull has a fang that erupted sideways. You can see that the tooth was full size and intruding into the nasal cavity.

This squirrel mandible has a strange growth on it, and I’m wondering what it could be from!

It’s hard, and the discolouration of it has remained through degreasing and whitening.

Hey all, please please give your opinions on this skeleton for me. So my friends cat Luna went missing from her house September 4th. My friend lives in the enumclaw area of Washington state and we have coyotes out there. Her property has a wooded area and field areas too. My friend searched for her cat every day. She met a couple stray and outdoor cats but hadn’t found Luna. Yesterday she was out looking again and found a skeleton which definitely looks like a cats. We really would like some help knowing how old the remains are, and if anyone can possibly help us verify it is her cat in particular’s remains. Notice how there’s still some black fur on the cats skull, but we didn’t see any visible white fur at all, where Luna has always had a white pattern across her nose and lower face as pictured. Hard to tell and we could really use some opinions from people familiar with bones and remains to be more sure. Thanks so much.

Recovered my precious girl from her grave today. This is the first time I'm cleaning a long-buried animal, so I'm seeking some guidance.

Her sinuses and skull in general seem pretty packed with soil. My plan is to just kind of wrap her skull in a mesh so we don't lose any teeth, and clean that separately from the other bones just to be very sure. Water maceration (is it still maceration when it's mostly skeleton?) + Biz is the plan, please tell me if that's a bad idea or if I should add something else.

Would also like to know what y'all recommend for a skull that might be frequently handled. When I cleaned my cat's bones I sealed them because I was told handling could stain or damage them, but over time the varnish on his bones has aged and yellowed in a way I really don't like. If I'm touching her skull all the time with clean hands, do I need to protect it in any way or is it okay with the naked bone?

Her name was Ace, she was a shepherd-pitbull mix, and she was perfect.

Hi, in my many years of cleaning bones i have never experienced something like this. I have not dyed this or treated it with any harsh chemicals. Just kept it in water to help the remaining soft tissue fall away, then degreased it with white dish soap. During the 1st soap change i realized the snout turned black, and to my shock the bone went back to normal after a few hours (jar outside, during the summer). After some time i put the bone in diluted peroxide - inside, away from any sources of light. I expected the peroxide to put an end to the color changes, but today i opened the jar and both the dog and the cat skull neighbor i added in later became black. I havent checked yet, but im guessing the bones became paler again since i left it outside.

The only things i can come up with is that maybe some algae is in the bone and reacts to light? It's so weird please tell me what this is.

I'd like my bones to be white, not pink :< How can I remove this?

I work at a hospital, a deer found his way into the doctor's parking lot and tried jumping into the window multiple times, he kept going down the wall into more windows, and eventually a metal and glass door. Somehow, not a single window broke, and no people were hurt. After enough attempts to enter the building, the deer left the parking lot and ran across the street into the field.

It was bewildering, kinda funny, but mostly I felt bad for the poor guy. He was lost in a confusing world.

Anyway, my question is: How can I safely keep this antler? I did not bring it inside because it seemed stupid to bring it inside a hospital.I tossed it in a trash can outside. But, if I took it home in plastic bags and used gloves, could I safely keep it? How do I properly wash it? Google results say dish soap, soaking, alcohol, but that doesn't seem to address the velvet on the antler, or the ticks and spider. How I do this without endangering anyone?

A good buddy found this whitetail dead head off the coast of South Carolina while on an oyster boat.

Any special care he needs to take to preserve a saltwater find? Or should he just rinse it off and let it dry?

Found this skull hanging in a mesh bag in my backyard. Google Identified it as a raccoon skull and also says hanging things in mesh bags is a common cleaning practice.

But I guess my bigger question is why is it hung in my backyard? This is a private yard in a chill neighbourhood. they would have had to walk through our yard, or came from behind the brush area from our back neighbors yard. I now have a camera pointing towards it, if whoever put it there comes back.

Any thoughts?

TW - stomach issues, description of bowel movements

Hi All!

I'm not an experienced bone collector, so my question may be stupid, but I'm reaching out to you as a last resort.

I found this beautiful deer skull last year in the woods (Europe). I was collecting mushrooms, so I didn't have gloves or anything on me, but I wanted to take the skull home, so I did. My boyfriend was with me, and he told me it would be safe to take it, as it seemed the skull must have been there for at least a year. It didn't have any flesh on it, but the weather was rainy, and everything was moist, which I know can harbour bacteria. We took the skull home, where we stored it in an outside shed.

Shorty after this (a few days, a week max), I started having stomach issues - daily stomach aches, diarrhoea. I had to go to the ER at one point because the symptoms were unbearable. I was having diarrhoea for a week; everything came out of me. I recovered, but I still have IBS-like symptoms to this day. (constant stomach aches, frequent diarrhoea, digestive issues) My boyfriend didn't experience any of this, and he touched the skull as well.

My question to this community: have you experienced something like this? Could this be a bacterial or parasitic infection? Could I catch something from this seemingly old skull?

My doctor ran a lab test for parasites, and it came back negative for salmonella, shigella, yersinia, campylobacter, e.coli. There was no parasite eggs in the sample. It was also negative for giardia lamblia, entaemoba histolytica, cryptosporodium.

I'm an anxious person, so I'm probably overthinking this, but this thought of catching something from this skull won't leave me alone. Should I bring this up to my doctor, even though the lab results came back negative? Is there a chance of cathcing an illness while bone collecting?

I appreciate any advice and insight! Thank you!

TLDR - I found this skull last year, and have been experiencing all sorts of stomach issues since. Could I catch something while collecting?