 | May 24, 2021 | Normally, when a squirrel is hit by a car, that's where its story ends. But not for this squirrel! Returning from errands and aware of my fledgeling hobby, my parents notified me of the freshly perished rodent. I quickly placed the squirrel in my brand new decomposition box, with a fine 1/16" mesh screen beneath the corpse so I won't lose any tiny bones through the bottom 1/4" mesh. |
 | May 26 | Flies arrived fairly quickly. It took a day and a half for the first larvae to hatch in the head, which was, by far, the largest injury caused by the car. |
 | May 27 | As the larvae ate, it became clear that the skull was in shambles. The entire cranial dome was in pieces. The upper jaw was mostly intact around the teeth, and the lower mandible escaped mostly unscathed. |
 | May 29 | Five days after time of death, most of the fur had sloughed off and the skin was black and turning translucent. I could just see the bones showing through the skin as the muscles liquified. It didn't smell all that bad, mostly a sort of vaguely sickly sweet musty smell that wasn't overpoweringly strong. |
 | June 3 | The bones were able to be seen clearly through the skin, a very nice, almost white gleam. |
 | June 6 | No picture with this one. The skin started to pull away at this point, especially at the hands. The skull fragments were free floating. |
 | June 13 | This weird yellow mold-fungus appeared. I don't know what it was, but it didn't last long. |
| June 18 | No picture with this one. The skin started to harden and tighten. |
 | June 21 | The larvae matured into flies and left. |
 | July 2 | More of the same. |
| July 29 | No picture with this one. Since most of the decomposition process was in its final stages and clearly slowing down, I left the body for the month. When I came back, I noticed that the tightening skin had pulled at some of the limbs. |
| August 7 | No picture with this one. The drying skin had cracked over the sharp spines of vertebrae and the ribs, exposing them to open air. |
| August 16 | No picture with this one. I saw an American Carrion Beetle, which was very late to the party. |
 | August 26 | I started to realize the fine leaf litter was going to prove problematic when puzzling leaf from bone. |
 | September 19 | I donned plastic gloves and grabbed an old cup and a pair of tweezers. It took about half an hour squatting over the box before I figured I had all the bones. I tossed the fine mesh in the trash and placed the bones in an old plastic measuring dish. I took 2 parts hydrogen peroxide 1 part water and covered the bones. They immediately started to sizzle. I covered it with cling wrap. |
| October 1 | No picture with this one. After a few days, when it stopped sizzling, I took an old toothbrush and scrubbed each individual bone free of residual flesh or tendon. I refreshed the water mix and left it for a while. Then, I drained the water mix and put the dish, with the wrap still on, in direct sunlight to bake in the UVs for a week. I then dumped the bones in a small aluminum baking tin and brought it inside. |
 | August 17, 2022 | Half a year after putting the squirrel in storage, I remembered this was a hobby I was doing now. I tried using a pair of tweezers still, but only for bones way too small for my fingers, which was pretty much all of them. Definitely need to invest in some third-hand stands. Anyway, I organized the skeleton on a piece of wood. The skull fragments I put in the tin's lid. |
 | August 21 | I printed out a reference picture of a squirrel skull from the internet and managed to glue the fragments together in approximately the right places. I know a few are missing, but I think it turned out pretty well. |
 | September 1 | I glued the vertebrae together, then attached them to the pelvis and tail. Only then did I realize a few spinal vertebrae were in the tail. Oops. |
 | September 3 | I glued on the limbs. The ribs proved difficult, since gravity kept making them droop. While those dried, I cut a fallen branch for the base. I glued the foot phalanges directly to the wood and positioned the body, then glued the legs to the tarsals. I kept the skeleton in place with a few props until the glue dried. After that, I took the entire ensemble outside and sealed it thoroughly with aerosol polyurethane.
And done! |