After the Great Chipmunk Adventure, I have apparently become that friend who collects roadkill. I had a message on the phone yesterday from Paula telling me she’d found a dead squirrel in great condition and had it in her trunk for me!
This is not to mention PisecoSis, who is in the process of preserving a bat hide for me and has a swallow in her freezer.
But of course - I’m thrilled. We don’t have a borrowed collection to rival Theresa’s, but we are slowly amassing our own nature study collection!
To preserve the stomach of anyone who may be coming across this post while munching on a midnight snack… I’m putting our pictures behind the cut.
WARNING! THIS POST IS NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH!
Here is the squirrel in his tray this afternoon.
JediBoy was eager to get started dissecting, but we discovered that the cheap dollar store tools we had weren’t going to do the trick. He had to be satisfied with some up close inspecting of the outside of the squirrel.
BabyGirl was also interested in the “earl” but seemed to remember from this summer that critters lying in a dish are to be waved at, talked to, but not touched.
I spent a few minutes taking some pictures of the paws and tail.
What made the squirrel more interesting than the chipmunk was that it was intact. The chipmunk had, we think, been hit by a car or bike and was in pretty ripped up condition. The squirrel merited actual dissection, at least to the best of our low ability! On the way to karate, we swung by the university book store to pick up a student’s dissection kit, and we did take our time this evening opening him up.
JediBoy was so interested in what we were revealing, and helped out and held most of the interesting bits to examine them more closely. Tonight he held, in his six-year-old hand,
intestines,
the stomach,
a kidney just the size and shape of a kidney bean,
a rib cage,
and a tiny but perfect heart.
Our dissection was eventually called due to darkness. JediBoy is eager to continue tomorrow. He would really like me to be able to tan the hide all as one piece so we could perhaps stuff it and sew it back up. So far, I’ve been able to follow his wishes but I’m not sure that I’ll be able to finesse the head and limbs. Wish me luck!
Categories:
