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Rabbit Skull (left) vs Hyrax Skull (right)

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You have to understand, this is the amount of books I thought I was getting

And I was like “yeah I can reasonably fit that on my bookshelf 😃”

Not complaining because I am absolutely thrilled that I now have all of this vintage taxidermy literature, however I was simply not prepared for the *amount* and my brain is short circuiting LMAO

So I drove an hour to pick up what I thought was a reasonably sized lot of vintage taxidermy books for $20… and guys. It’s,, it’s a lot of books

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Ok I need to seriously go through all the magazines a second time but here’s what I’m definitely not keeping, since I’m not huge into fish taxidermy:

If anyone might be interested in these please let me know!!

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Panicking at the realization that I’m drowning in taxidermy literature and I quite literally have nowhere to put it

But hey I got pins for days

So I drove an hour to pick up what I thought was a reasonably sized lot of vintage taxidermy books for $20… and guys. It’s,, it’s a lot of books

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So I drove an hour to pick up what I thought was a reasonably sized lot of vintage taxidermy books for $20… and guys. It’s,, it’s a lot of books

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Got the last of them done!

Keeping my cat away from my work table while I’m skinning r.abbit heads is proving difficult and mildly infuriating

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My package has arrived yippee

Original Leon Pray drawings <3 probably the most niche thing I collect. Pray was a taxidermist at the Field Museum for almost 45 years and made many guides for taxidermists, using his illustrations and knowledge he learned under famous taxidermist Carl Akeley. He also developed a bug proofing method for hides using Borax that replaced the previous toxic arsenic method. A lot of his mounts and paintings are still on display to this day at the Field Museum.

One of these days I’ll get around to scanning these and the other drawings of his that I have. Probably not many other people out there interested in him but I think his work should still be preserved.

And some more of his art I have in this post

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And we’re done for the night! Three down, four more to go. Kitty was locked away because he was being Too Evil.

Keeping my cat away from my work table while I’m skinning r.abbit heads is proving difficult and mildly infuriating

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Keeping my cat away from my work table while I’m skinning r.abbit heads is proving difficult and mildly infuriating

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hey y'all! i'm trying to clear out some listings from my oddities shop (especially those that have been up for a while) before i update with the finished animal masks in a couple of weeks.

please consider reblogging this even if you don't buy. i really need the money for groceries and other essentials as well as more materials to continue my work!

everything is ethically sourced as always and made with love + a good amount of my blood sweat & tears lol

https://canismortistaxidermy.etsy.com

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Last night I found my Asian forest scorpion dead in his enclosure :(

Not sure I’ve ever posted him on here but he was a cool little critter. Had him for about 3-4 years, first serious arachnid I ever owned (only ever had jumping spiders prior), which later led me to getting my first tarantula. I’m just hoping his death wasn’t my doing. It could have very well been of old age, I was his second home and his first owner bought him as an adult from a petsmart so hard to say. I just hope I did right by him.

I’d really like to preserve him, maybe make a little diorama for him. I’ve never pinned a scorpion before and I’d like do do it right, so any advice/tutorials that could be sent my way would be greatly appreciated!

RIP Kieth, you were a real one 💔

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Back in January I picked up this gorgeous c.oyote that was hit on a busy road. I initially wasn’t going to grab it but my brother egged me on to “at least check it out” and that’s how we ended up lugging a trash bag of frozen c.oyote into the back of my Kia soul at 3am 🙃

This gal was so big (I weighed it, I believe the scale read 45lbs?) that she didn’t really fit in my freezer so I literally piled snow on top of the bag it was in to keep it cool until I could work on it. Easily my biggest solo project to date. It was ROUGH y’all. Had no choice but do thaw and skin it in my basement since it was cool enough to work with but not 2 degrees like it was outside. In the last pic you can see my shitty setup (I sanitized the hell outta everything afterwards). It took about four hours to skin, although I did leave the legs and tail in because I needed to pick up the pace if I wanted to get it into the freezer before it started slipping.

Once I get the correct supplies, the next step is fleshing and tanning. But that’s a long way from now, seeing as I don’t have a good fleshing setup. If anyone has recs… please let me know lmao I’m hitting a wall with my projects over here since all I have to flesh with is a scalpel and I don’t think I can reasonably fit a wheel in my little “studio” (aka the corner of my living room).

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I think I made this exact post before but every few months on social media someone will be like “OMGGGGGG I FOUND BONES BURIED IN MY CELLAR. I JUST CALLED THE COPS.” and the bones are so visibly (weathered) butchered cow bones or small animal bones. Not a single time is it a ‘they could be human…’ incident. Totally not the poster’s fault because I doubt the majority of people know human skeletal anatomy. Were people 120 years ago burying the remains of their barbecue rib dinner in the dirt floor of the cellar to freak people out in the future or something? No, but like, it seems like packing your walls and floors with trash was so common until like 30 years ago.

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C.oyote maceration bucket just cracked and started leaking all over the backyard 💔

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Cool taxidermy n’ such I saw on my recent trip to Maine!

Oddities-wise, I ended up buying some barracuda vertebrae (pictured below) and a sealed jar of dried critters (I believe there’s a snake, baby snapping turtle, cicada and beetle of some sort) that I’ll crack open this weekend and I hope I remember to show y’all.

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An amazing Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) skull was added to the site thanks to collaborator j.k_wunderkammer!