Bone Building Books, Volume 9: The Small Mammal Manual Manuscript A Step by Step Guide to Preparing and Articulating Small Mammal Skeletons

About this book

This manual is about the techniques for the articulation of mammals smaller than a wolf, using a lynx and a sea otter as primary examples, and details (especially of the feet) from other small mammals that commonly get articulated – including the raccoon, beaver, nutria, rabbit, and now opossum. A brief write-up about the oxidization of preparing a ligamentary skeleton is included.


Watch a short introduction to Lee Post's work below:

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Biography

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.