Here is a quick labelled picture with some cleaned parts. The fins are dried between clear acrylic sheets to keep them flat.
I still have to clean most of the fins, the jaws, and of course the branchial apparatus which is the most delicate and fragile part of this kind of skeleton. Will post updates on this later.
Also completed a couple of skate (Raja asterias here) skulls for some friends. Just shipped these three to the Netherlands.
Two female and one male skulls of R. asterias. Note that the specimen on the right is missing the labial cartilages, which is due to the way the specimen was handled at the fish shop.
Currently working with a lot of small chondrichtyan, so I'll probably make a post about cartilaginous skull cleaning sometimes soon.
Other things include a recently cleaned european hake (Merluccius merluccius). This is just to show how a macerated (and degreased and whitened) fish skull looks like. These are pretty straightforward to reconstruct, and should look like this when finished:
European hake skull (M. merluccius) macerated (top) and reconstructed (bottom). Note that I made a mistake with the upper jaw, which should be positioned higher, in direct continuity of the tip of the neurocranium.
And finally, on my regular visit to a nearby fish shop, I was extremely excited to find this fish:
Fresh (and tasty!) atlantic stargazer (Uranoscopus scaber).
It's a stargazer, named after its upward looking eyes. This is a really cool fish for several reasons: they are venomous (they sport a couple of nasty spines in the opercular region, one is visible in the picture, just above the right pectoral fin), and are capable of bioelectrogenesis (ie is capable of generating electricity, just like the electric eel and the electric ray). They also possess an incredibly armored skull, just like on this picture:
U. scaber skull. This skull is in my collection, but was not cleaned by me. The venomous spines are clearly visible.
And on top of that, they taste really nice. Also got a black scorpionfish (Scorpaena porcus), greater weever (Trachinus draco) and a sea robin (still have to look up the proper ID for this one) along with the stargazer, and they should all make great specimens once cleaned.
