Bone mandalas! I talked to the creator and he said he finds them and his friends who have farms let him collect there. I asked if he wanted credit or a link when I posted the pictures I was taking, and he said something like "just say they were made by some crazy old hermit in Granite, Wyoming."
A Curated List Of My Favorite Skeletons (and Skulls!)
We shall start, of course, with the obvious: Stringray!
Followed neatly by pufferfish!
gila monster skull (shh they are sleeping)
moving on to flamingos bc they have so little to work with but they stretch it so far
veiled chameleon skull (plus art by Elena Barbieri so you comprehend the importance of the sclerotic ring bone!) (bc some eyes have bones! some eyes have bones and that is so so valid)
love us a good old-fashioned mole
the tucan, always a fun classic
in conclusion, a few dainty gibbon skeletons to calm you soul, bc why the heck not <3
(yes the last one is a real vintage postcard sold in real Natural History Museum gift shops, before for some reason they reconsidered this marketing decision)
TW animal death, human death, missing person, suicide
Some notes based on the comments I’ve received on TikTok:
Killing horses isn’t inherently illegal. You also don’t need a vet to kill your own livestock, but I thought I’d mention the vet for those who were saying he might have been days away from a vet out in the country. Rumor is he got these horses from word of mouth that he’d take the old horses you don’t want anymore. There are wild horses around.
The only things I could tell from the bones were that most of the shots were in the face, not the brain, but I don’t know for sure if it was a captive bolt or gun. Bolt seems more logical except for the one big hole. Also, I guess those holes could have been made after death.
At least one horse had arthritis. I didn’t see anything wrong with their hooves. One hadn’t yet grown in its adult teeth.
I also found two cattle, one coyote, and two deer with their antlers sawed off in the field.
Some members of Petry’s family maintains his innocence, but they don’t want to speak on the record.