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Though few people are likely to have access to a sperm whale skeleton, this is a printed manual that documents the engineering used to assemble such a big animal. It is based on the engineering done to assemble and suspend a 41-foot sperm whale in the Homer High School (Homer, Alaska) as a collaborative project between the Pratt Museum and the Homer High. Included are student illustrations of the bones and copies of the finest illustrations of sperm whale bones ever done. It now has details of several gray whales the authors has done since this sperm whale.
Watch a short introduction to Lee Post's work below:
A thirty-year veteran of bone-building, Lee Post's interest in building skeletons started when The Pratt Museum in the Alaskan town of Homer acquired a 17-foot beaked whale that the staff had collected and cleaned. This led to fifteen years of building up the osteology collection at the museum by salvaging, preparing, and often articulating animal skeletons.
In the mid-'90s, came a three-year high school/museum collaborative project in which Post worked with high school students on first articulating a 41-foot Sperm Whale skeleton they had collected and cleaned, then half a dozen other skeletons. Since that project, his focus has been working mostly with schools and students and creating written manuals that can help others who might want to do similar projects.
