Day Twenty-Six

Today was a quiet day.  It was just me and The Doc's boss (I think that's what he is considered). I did my bee fly thing.  It was fun until I had to pull more vials.  I could see that they were mostly pthiriine/usiinine, and I didn't want to go through them, they're  annoying to do. Phthiria is the major genus most of the time in the vials, but I can't just throw them in vial and say they're all phthirians.  That would be too easy. There is another fly that is usiinae/phthirinae that is fairly common, geron looks a lot like phthiria (but they don't have the M2 vein) tend to hide in there, and usually some metacosmus which are pretty small and hard to see unless to you through the whole vial.  I tried to select vials that I knew weren't pthiriine/usiinine, but they were few and far between.  I really wanted to start Africa, but I wasn't sure if The Doc wanted me to or not.  So I stuck with South America, which I like a lot.    I also had a fun conversation with The Doc's boss today.  He seems like a pretty cool guy, and I'm going to try talking to him more.  He's a mammals guy, and so I asked him a mammal question.  I wanted to make sure mammals couldn't be brood parasites.  The thought came to me after I finished reading "The Nesting Season" where the last chapters were dedicated to brood parasitism.  I thought no because mammals identify their young by their unique scent/sounds.  And he confirmed my thoughts.  He also said he'd introduce me to the study skin and skeleton preppers after I mentioned I prepare study skins at school.    I'm so excited, I hope I can learn something from them and bring it at school.



 And just for sh*ts and giggles, I'm going to post all the skins I did last semester.

The first bird I did, a juvenille white throated sparrow.  I rushed it and it came out poorly.  I managed to take off a leg and the tail, not to mentioned there were some hole in the sides.  Luckily the wings can cover the holes.

My second bird, an ovenbird.  It came out much better, that only thing I didn't like about it was I placed the  dowel in weird so it kind of shows under the skin.  Other than that everything is intact.

After doing my two birds, I decided to try my hand at mammals.  For some reason, I decided to start naming everything.  This is Christopher Columbus the star nosed mole.  I name him  Christopher Columbus because moles are explorers of the world underground.  I lucked out with him, it turned out he really was a male (I saw the testes after I cut him open).  He has a few bald spots but other than that, he looks good.

This is Horatio, but I call him Ho-Ho because he is a big studly male pigeon.  The only reason I know he's a he is because of his size and the colors on his neck (they're bold and bright).  I put him next to our other pigeon and she was significantly smaller.  By doing Ho-Ho I realized I preferred stuffing big birds.  

Say hello to Big Bertha!  She is a broad wing hawk and the second  predatory bird in the collection.   She was a little scary to do because she liked bleeding out of her mouth and nose periodically.  She was really cool because she had a mouse in her esophagus!!  I pulled it out in pieces and it was wicked cool.  

This is Esmeralda, the red squirrel.  I decided Christopher Columbus needed a friend.  I enjoyed stuffing Esmeralda more than Christopher Columbus because she of her skeletal structure.   She had a more defined neck, head, fore/hind limbs, and tail, while Christopher Columbus did not.  She also wanted to be everyone's friend.  Isn't that sweet? 

This, this is was my crowning achievement, Lord Byron Quincy Adams the Third, the male ring necked pheasant.  I saw him in the freezer and KNEW I had to do him.  He was tricky, due to his size and amount of feathers but I loved doing him.  I botched his wings a little bit, I wasn't sure if I had to remove muscle from them or what, and the guide we had didn't tell us how to do it.  I tried my best, but when I left him, he needed a rubber band to keep the wings next to his body.  He looks amazing in person though.

Here is a family portrait, from left to right: Christopher Columbus, botched white throated sparrow, Big Bertha, Lord Byron Quincy Adams the Third, Horatio, the ovenbird, and Esmeralda.  My babies <3