Unfortunate roadkill victim from the suburbs of the Top End.

Here I am! Big news!

I’ve been completely absent from Tumblr for so many months now. I apologise for the lack of updates (I have a few new little items in my collection which I have failed to announce on this blog) but there was a good reason for my silence. I had been incredibly busy trying to organise a great deal of things in my life, because I recently moved states! Nearly 2 weeks ago I left Western Australia and have moved to the Northern Territory (I’ll say temporarily, though my friends and family aren’t convinced) in order to study my favourite animal, the estuarine crocodile. 

I have been under a lot of stress these past few weeks. My financial state is an absolute roller coaster (I had $22 to my name just a month ago, the week after i had over $2000, the week after that $30 and now I’m slowly recovering my financial security). Like a crocodile, I have been eating a predominantly fish-based diet for the past week. Unlike a crocodile, this fish came in the form of 80c Coles canned tuna because that was all I could justify to spend on food as I tried to save money for rent. 85c bread loaves are pretty cool too.

Moving to a completely new area also had me in a constant state of anxiety- learning to trust the people, the place, understanding the culture... it is tiring and I originally avoided it by staying in my room for the majority of the day. But I’m starting to settle in now and I’m really loving it! The people here are incredibly friendly, the lightning storms are amazing, its always warm and there are so many new animals I’m discovering. The only catch is the humidity- something I’ll get used to eventually.

I am super busy between moving in, working on my crocodile project, organising financial resources, drawing artwork for others to get a bit of extra money, and finding time to just take a moment to enjoy the journey. I don’t know how often I’ll be able to provide updates, but if something particularly cool happens I’ll try post it here.

Travelling to Darwin has always been #1 on my bucket list. I never thought I’d make it this far, nor did I think I’d ever have the opportunity to study crocodiles, or even stay in the Territory for longer than a usual holiday-length period. This has all happened so fast and it’s everything I could have asked for- the project is perfect and fits my interests almost too well, my supervisor is a cool dude, and I get the chance to further develop my skills and independence (and handle crocodiles, which is the most exciting part of this all). That being said, I couldn’t have got here without the support of friends and family, who deserve a special mention because their generosity is the reason I have a place to stay right now. I am so grateful.

Haven't been very active lately because I've been super busy with uni... but guess who completed their final exam for their undergrad yesterday?!

@jdingo my thoughts exactly!

I bought something a bit unusual today! (Well, relatively so...)

This is a real spider in a glowing computer mouse! How cool!

Last night I went to a marsupial reserve to conduct some trapping and surveying! Unfortunately I am not allowed to photograph animals which are being handled or caught in traps and post these on social media due to welfare reasons, so these are the only photos I have from the night. We caught many quendas (southern brown bandicoots, pictured above) as well as a large possum with a joey on her back. The quendas were measured and tagged before being released and the possum family was simply recorded and released to minimise the stress on the mother and young. We also saw a number of kangaroos, as well as a goanna with its tail and hind limbs poking out from a burrow (also pictured above). I also was fortunate enough to receive a visit from a tiny fat slug! The quenda which I handled was incredibly active and quite aggressive at first, nearly tearing the handling bag off the cage as it tried to escape. It made taking measurements quite difficult, but when it came time to release him, he preferred to snuggle down in my lap and receive some strokes and back scratches. I named him Crash and it took some effort to get him back in the bush after this bandicoot with an attitude decided he liked the warmth of my arms and the darkness of the handling bag!

@thebonecollectorpony I definitely will! I'm already considering rearranging my entire room to make more space for more things...

In the past week I have had some major new additions to my collection! Thanks to my uncle, I now have a large cow skull (which has been cleaned since I've taken the photo shown above) and two full pheasant mounts, which are my first taxidermy mounts! I've had to rearrange my display wall as a result, so it looks a little crowded until I can switch things around.

Sorry for being inactive lately! Not much has happened relevant to this blog in the past few weeks, though I did complete the spine of my rabbit yesterday. Progress is slow, there's glue everywhere, and I'm sure there are loads of inaccuracies, but regardless I am pleased with how it is coming along.

Hi! Do you know how it's possible to tell the difference between a kangaroo and a wallaby skull apart from the size? Are there shape differences? Teeth? Bulkiness? Thank you in advance!! :-)

Hi there!

Sadly I haven’t had a change to work with many kangaroo or wallaby skulls but I do have one of each that might help show a few ways to tell them apart. My skulls are from an adolescent Red Kangaroo and an unknown but most likely Bennett’s aka Red-Necked Wallaby so I will focus on comparing those two species here.

Wallabies have a slightly more elongated shape than kangaroos. Their eye sockets are ever so slight more oval-shaped while kangaroos have more rounded eye sockets and also sometimes a higher, more pronounced brow when viewed in profile. Their snouts also present a different profile. Wallabies have a slighter curve and kangaroos have a more swooping dish.

Kangaroos have a shorter and thicker squamosal arm of the zygomatic arch than wallabies, which are again a little more elongated. And I’m not sure how accurate a tell this is but every Bennett’s wallaby skull I’ve seen has a small area of slightly porous bone around the upper edge of the squamosal arm of the zygomatic arch while all of the Red Kangaroo skulls I’ve seen do not. So that might be helpful too! 

Here it is on the wallaby skull.

And here’s the kangaroo, all smooth bone.

Also, kangaroos and wallabies can have anywhere from 22 to 50 teeth so count how many teeth your skull has (and take into consideration any unerupted teeth if it is a skull from a juvenile animal; my kangaroo there still has all of his rear molars yet to come in) and do a little research to see how many teeth certain species have to help narrow your ID down.

Hopefully those pics will help out a bit! Feel free to ask if you have any other questions and I’ll do my best to answer them!

I've only just finished gluing the neck of the rabbit skeleton and I've already learned an important anatomy lesson: the motion of turning your head to the side largely originates from the joints at the base of your skull, not the collective neck vertebrae. I now have a partial rabbit with its head oddly tilting to the skies... I'm not sure if I should leave it or try and wash the glue off and start again, but now is the time to make a decision before I get too far. It looks a little silly but it's taken me so long to get just ten vertebrae in.

Reconstruction in progress!!

Work-in-progress photo of my bag! I decided to go through with using the cross fox pelt for this project, though I did make some adjustments to it: I actually removed his tail. It was too large and fluffy for the purpose, and I felt it made the bag feel way too bulky. Instead, I attached my grey fox tail, which was originally a sort of keychain, to the pelt (I also repurposed TK’s tail as a keychain, so I essentially just swapped them over). I’m very happy with my decision because I felt the grey fox tail was too thin and scruffy for the way I was displaying it, and this way I get to take the fur from both foxes outside and on adventures! Also, TK’s tail looks great on my display shelf and I’m glad I won’t risk ruining it outside.

For a heavily suburban area, I get some pretty good finds by my place. Today as I left for the shops, I stumbled across a rather large bone. I took it home with me on the way back and it's currently in a hydrogen peroxide bath to clean it. It's relatively big, though cut lengthwise, leading me to believe it is the humerus of a pig or something similar (obviously used as a dog's chew bone). Before I put it in the whitening solution, I tried to peel some dried flesh from it, but all I achieved was breaking the bone across on of the crevices... Whoops. I'll be glueing it back together once it's cleaned. It may just be a leftover chew bone, but I couldn't help but keep it because of its size! Also, being flat on one edge means I may be able to craft some sort of decoration from it. I'll post a photo of it after the weekend, when hopefully it will be half-whitened.

TK arrived today! Here he is (the cross fox, second from the left) displayed with all my other pelts (except the red fox, whose place he borrowed for the photo). Also featuring a bright orange and very out-of-place m&m bucket currently holding miscellaneous bones which are in the process of cleaning. I'm still debating whether or not to turn this pelt into a bag. If it's not this pelt, it will be my Australian fox, though I did buy TK with the intention of crafting a satchel from him. If I do use TK as planned, I will have to cut the pelt down the middle of the belly which is a shame as I do prefer the 'case' style pelts. However, he is a softer tan than the red fox and I think I'd prefer to use his pelt for a number of other reasons. I also have very little room to display all pelts, so I will have to choose one to display and one to craft with. I'm currently soaking TK's face to be reshaped so there is no rush in making a decision. If anyone else would like to provide their opinion, feel free to do so! For comparison, my red fox is listed under the tag 'Roger'.