Update

Been a while since I posted anything on this blog, mainly because I finally started my own company with my girlfriend who happens to be a fossil preparator. You can find our website over here: Kraniata
As a result most of our work in progress is now featured on facebook rather than on this blog. You'll also find links to our instagram and (soon) flickr page directly on the website.

So this blog will be put on hold for now, but I may post new stuff in the future, we'll see. In the meantime, here's a picture of a complete school shark (Galeus galeorhinus) skeleton that is now on display at the Bourges Museum of Natural History, in France. Enjoy!

Galeus galeorhinus skeleton

Paper

I don't normally feature my own academic research on this blog, but since this is directly related to my interests in preparation, I thought I would mention the following paper:

A complete protocol for the preparation of chondrichthyan skeletal specimens. S. Enault, C. Auclair, S. Adnet and M. Debiais-Thibaud. 

that was published a couple of months ago in the Journal of Applied Ichthyology. Of course, my own methods are more or less continually evolving as I like to refine my own protocols and experiment with new things, but given the scarcity of literature dealing with this subject, I think it might be of interest to some people.

Current projects

Been a while since I posted anything here.
Still busy with our upcoming website, but in the meantime we have been working on a couple of really interesting projects, which are almost completed now, but I'll just post some early pictures for now.

We have been asked to clean a full shark and skate skeletons for a french natural history museum. This is a really exciting opportunity, and they look fantastic so far. The species are a school shark (Galeorhinus galeus) and undulate ray (Raja undulata). Both are male specimens caught off the coast of Brittany in France. The plan is to have them displayed next to their taxidermied versions, which were recently completed by Bernard Bourles, an excellent ichthyotaxidermist (his website can be found here: http://www.poissons.net/).

Galeorhinus galeus. This specimen is a male around 1.20 m long.

Dissection of the gills, this part needs to be done very carefully as not to damage the delicate branchial rays and extrabranchials, which are visible on top of the gills here.

Raja undulata, male specimen as well. This is the largest skate I've been working on so far.

As with most skate, many parts of the body are covered with various kind of spines and thorns. These are located on the pectoral fins and make handling such a specimen a bit tricky as they are extremely sharp.

The tail is also covered with them.

Massive jaw musculature.

A couple of other projects we're currently working on is another full shark skeleton for a british aquaria, which should be completed very soon, and a few other critters as well, of which the most impressive is certainly this bowmouth guitarfish.

It's a small specimen that died in captivity. It's in good condition overall despite several issues with the skeleton, and shows some truly incredible morphological features.

Detail of the dentition. While many species have funky teeth, this species has always striked me as one of the most incredible chondrichthyan dentition.

Top view of the neurocranium during preparation. The cartilage was a bit damaged in the rostral area, but once again, really impressive thing. It's massive, and really looks like some bizarre hammerhead shark.

That's it for now, pictures of the finished specimens will follow soon!

New stuff

Been a while since I posted anything due to other imperatives, but I was recently able to get back to the freezer to work on some really, really cool specimens. Will post more as I go, but here are a few of the highlights.

Leopard shark (Triakis semifasciata)

This specimen is incredibly beautiful. The colors and patterns were amazing. I kept the head to prepare the skull and we skinned it. Part of the skin and a few vertebrae will go back to the aquarium that gave the specimen and will be used for educative purposes.

Soup of the day!

Plenty of cool specimens: batfish, pineapplefish, porcupinefish, trumpetfish, stonefish, dentex head and more.

Pelagic stingray (Pteroplatytrygon violacea), Mediterranean moray (Muraena helena) and a tetraodontiform

We actually processed several stingrays as I recently got a batch of them from a local fisherman recently. Some specimens will go to other researchers.

 Pineapplefish (Cleidopus gloriamaris)

These fish are incredible. I'm planning to keep the entire dermal skeleton and it was not easy to gut them without damaging the fish or removing the scales.

Mediterranean moray head

Mediterranean moray head (dissected)

It's incredible how small the skull actually is once all the fat and muscle is removed. These fish also have an incredible anatomy, and of course we saved the pharyngeal jaws (check this out: http://www.wired.com/2014/04/absurd-creature-of-the-week-this-eel-fires-extra-alien-jaws-out-of-its-throat/)

Estuarine stonefish (Synanceia horrida)

Now this is one of the coolest specimens we had. I love scorpaeniforms so it was fantastic to work on a stonefish. Amazingly, the bones of this specimen had a very noticeable blue/green color (not unlike some needlefish), not sure if the complete skeleton is like that though, we'll see.

Mako shark skull

Here's the recently completed skull of a shortfin mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus). It's not very big, but I am very happy with how it turned out. I kept warping to a minimum and it whitened really well.
It's the first lamniform I work on, and the rostrum is very impressive in these sharks.

Profile view. The sclerotic capsule is strongly mineralized in this species.

Side view.

Dorsal view.

Looking forward to work on some other interesting species I have in the freezer now, but that may not be before a while due to a rather busy schedule.

Portuguese fish!

A few weeks ago I attended the 4th IAFSB (Interdisciplinary Approaches in Fish Skeletal Biology) meeting in Tavira, Portugal. I had a fantastic time there with great science and great people, and it came as a very nice surprise to see so many shark people there.

A few of us also took the opportunity to go to the local fish market see if we could find some cool fish to take home, which was really funny because for once I was not the only weirdo looking for heads or strange species. We saw loads of black and silver scabbardfishes and really wish I had gotten some of these, but I was already loaded with the cartilaginous stuff. Here's a few pictures of the specimens I brought back.

Torpedo sp. and Mustelus mustelus (? could be M. asterias, not quite sure on this one).

The torpedo skull on the left is very damaged: the fishermen cut through the jaws, one hyomandibular, and they also damaged the nose area (the antorbital cartilages are entirely missing). I still took it since it's the first time I come across torpedoes and it should still be useful as a practice specimen since I'm not very familiar with their skeletal anatomy.

 Couple of skates. The big one on the left is Raja microocelata and still have to ID the two smaller ones, probably Leucoraja something.

 

Unidentified torpedo head (T. marmorata or T. torpedo) and whole T. torpedo. 

The head is either from T. marmorata or T. torpedo. The first specimen had already been skinned and cut in pieces so ID is difficult, and they had both species at the market. The atlantic torpedo (Tetronarce nobiliana) is also present in the area, but this species is much bigger and usually found at greater depths. The complete specimen should make a very cool skeleton, unfortunately the pelvic fins are a little damaged.

Dissection time!

Photo: Callie Crawford

Since none of us planned to be working on fresh specimens we had to improvise a bit. I had to buy several kilos of salt to prep them for the return trip. The other guys used some kind of cheap vodka and big plastic jars for their stuff. Wish I had a picture of this since it was quite funny. But the best part was trying to dissect fish using a table knife and nail clipper. Not the easiest way to do it!

Busted torpedo skull close up.

Photo: Callie Crawford

Everything is now safely stored in the freezer. I'll post WIP pictures here as I get around working on them.

Blacktip update

Quick update on a couple of fishy bits. The blacktip shark skull is now finished, and waiting for the rest of the skeleton. As I'm currently quite busy with other stuff it might be a while before I get the time to finish it, but most of it is now completely clean, and just needs to be dried properly.

Carcharhinus melanopterus skull, finished.

Partial angelfish skeleton (probably Pomacanthus sp.). The pins are holding the fins in place while they dry.

Mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus) drying. The basihyal is missing on the picture.

Couple of chondrichthyan parts: Raja asterias pelvic fins, Carcharhinus melanopterus hyoid arch, and Squalus acanthias skull and vertebrae.