The skull: Hippocampus abdominalis

The skull I have chosen to do is that of a pot-belly seahorse (Hippocampus abdominalis). I received a specimen to use from Fish Haven a local aquarium store. Pet stores often have seahorses die in transit or when they are introduced to new tanks.

 The specimen was dried before I got it so I will have to use a bug box to clean the flesh away. I have put lots of wet cotton buds in the container so the maggots I am using can move freely.

I decided not to remove any of the flesh before putting it into the box for fear of damaging the fine bone structure. I hope for the end result to look like the photo below. I hope to present the whole skeleton instead of just the skull.

The task: Prepare a Vertebrate skull

The major assessment of my Vertebrate Biology course at the University of South Australia is the preparation of a skull from any animal from the Sub-phylum Vertebrata. The goal of this blog is to cover the processes I have gone through in completing this assessment. The first step was to find a skull to prepare!