sunday morning

I woke from a late Sunday morning slumber to find this creature on my living room floor. It may have been erotic asphyxia, but I'm thinking that my cat Bueller may have had a lot to do with it, since there were feathers covering 30% of the living room floor. Placement in the bugs was preceded by a classic rendition of the Lord's Prayer. I was thankful for the bird's intention to go far, flourish and be its best.

my insides

An MRI of my right hand.

chameleon

micah's most recent restoration project was a five year old chameleon. the end result for the client will be a mounted skeleton in a shadow box and the skin tanned and preserved like a bear skin rug.

it took 30 minutes to cut the underbelly. every scale had to be cut individually in order to stay exactly down the center of the white stripe.

the tail was difficult because the only way to hold onto the small amount of skin was to use tweezers.

it took about 3 hours to skin the entire lizard because the skin was so delicate and thin. she didn't take out the innards because the collapsable ribs covered too much of the abdomen.

the dermisted beetles shockingly devoured the flesh and innards in less than 24 hours.

intentions

cats are great hunters, but their original intention seems more playful and less homicidal.

untouched

there is a hantavirus scare in new mexico, so i think i'll leave this one alone.

specimen

sheeps ear in specimen jar. the carcass had baked for a while in the southwestern sun, so no preservation methods were taken. 

groundhog

the new set of dermisted beetles are happy. this month, they have feasted on a baby bird and a groundhog. this pic is after having the groundhog in for a few days. i think they had some help from some maggots.