Does anyone else have an interest in skulls?

I don't think I have any skulls in my collection but I collect fossils which in a way are like collecting dead animal part only a little older then what you find from this era.  Being a geology student for some time I collected everything from shark teeth to any kind of fossilized arthropod I found.  I was mostly interested in stuff from the Permian time like trilobites.  I just like to hold them and think about what this, now extinct, thing was like when it was alive.

I also like to collect bugs, I love entomology!  I have quite a few framed butterflies from around the world and some interesting beetles.

My dad has a real human skull. When he was in University he was in Bio Chem and there was a real skull. His Prof. let him take it at the end of the year.

Okay, that's just scary. I'd hate to have a real human skull around! [] 

Yeah pretty creep. My Aunt works on an Island and she is always bringing the kids skulls from raccoons. She brought us a 10 ft long snake skin all intact last year.

My room-mate is a biology major and she collects skulls...
 
She's going to pick up a coyote skull we found while out riding, but she wants it to be "clean' first (shudder).
 
I think she's got some birds, and maybe a couple of coons. Are you wanting to part with them?

I think if I had a human skull, I'd put a candle in it. That would be some conversation piece ...

Joyce

I don't know why but for some reason brains seem to freak me out.  I'm not the kind of person who get grossed out easly but brains are my week spot.  My boyfriend loves nero science and has plenty of brain books all with pic of brains on the cover.  He will suddenly out of no where talk about how in nero lab he cuts apart sheep brains.  He has yet to bring any brains or skulls home but I'm shure the day will come when he tells me "look what I have"[:'(]

ORIGINAL: thedoc617

My room-mate is a biology major and she collects skulls...

She's going to pick up a coyote skull we found while out riding, but she wants it to be "clean' first (shudder).

I think she's got some birds, and maybe a couple of coons. Are you wanting to part with them?

 
There are much faster ways of cleaning them if she doesn't mind nasty stuff []  When I found my dead fox I buried him and dug him up in 2 months and then at that point it was mostly bone.  Then you just boil the bones for a half hour and soak them in hydrogen peroxide for a few days to get them nice and white (don't do this method if you don't like brains though...[&:]).  I would never part with my skulls...they're way too precious to me []
 
Here's my fox skull:

 

The mouth area is stained green because some dumba** put fireworks in his mouth and set them off....it was all blackened when I found him.  I'm pretty sure it was done after he died, but it still pisses me off just thinking about it [:@]
 

 
I dunno what I'd do if I had a human skull...I think at first I would be pretty sketched out by it but then after a while I'd prolly just find it interesting.

I am not Sure i would want a human skull in my house...i knew a guy who had a grave stone in his room(from a family plot in back of his house,her was triing to fix it up)and he started hearing voices late at night..lol

Ok THAT is creepy.  [&:]

lol Yeah that is! I'm not very comfortable with anything like that, to tell you the truth, talking about anything inside of the body or things like that scares me! [:-] lol

Just be careful, even though it's dead, you might have to have a permit to collect wild animal specimans, live or dead.  I'm pretty sure that's the case but you might want to check on it in case you ever get caught "collecting".  I knew a wildlife biologist that would stop and check out dead animals if she thought she could use the skull or other body part.  However, she had a permit to do so, I believe.  It's been a while....

I skinned and stuffed a fancy hamster in college.  My roommate was totally freaked out by the thing in the freezer to kill any bugs on it.    I've had frozen rats in the freezer, so no, skulls don't bother me.

You did a nice job cleaning up your fox skull.  We see lots of dead animals when we are out hiking, and I never even thought of collecting the skulls. (I see lots of roadkill too, but I don't think I could handle touching and cleaning it.) You are right, it's an interesting way to study anatomy. There are several cow skulls in my art room. I think that the previous art teacher brought them in. Sometimes I have the students sketch them as part of still lifes, and a few of them freak out when I touch the skulls to move them. [&:]

Mirelle- Black Labrador Retriever (Future Service Dog!)

ORIGINAL: tashakota

Just be careful, even though it's dead, you might have to have a permit to collect wild animal specimans, live or dead.  I'm pretty sure that's the case but you might want to check on it in case you ever get caught "collecting".  I knew a wildlife biologist that would stop and check out dead animals if she thought she could use the skull or other body part.  However, she had a permit to do so, I believe.  It's been a while....

I skinned and stuffed a fancy hamster in college.  My roommate was totally freaked out by the thing in the freezer to kill any bugs on it.    I've had frozen rats in the freezer, so no, skulls don't bother me.

 
Hmm, you know, I've thought about that.  But you know what?  I've emailed the ACO in my town and asked if it would be possible to let me have some of the roadkill she picks up and she said she could let me know if she finds anything interesting...and didn't mention a darn thing about a permit or anything.  Just said she takes dead animals too and that she made a rug out of a deer, lol.  Sooo...I assume it's all right..?  She said she would let me know if she found anything interesting but I think she forgot because she never did.  She did however offer to give me an older Golden Retriever that she had in the roadkill freezer but there is NO WAY I would be able to have done that.  Absolutely no way.  Wild animals is one thing...but pets??  Ugh.  Too creepy even for me.
 
Anyway.  Here are some of my other critters.
 
My 'yote.  I didn't find him, someone bought this for me at a Native American powwow thing.  It makes me sortof sad because it looks like it's got a bullet hole in it and I don't really like supporting the killing of animals for this purpose...but then again I don't know that that's what it is. 

 
Here's my cat skull.  I found this out in the middle of the woods.  Somewhat suspicious because there was no trace of the body or anything, but both head and jaw were fully intact.  This was already pretty much clean when I found it so no nastiness really.  It had been sitting out all winter so there was a lot of staining I couldn't get out.

 

 
Here's a mouse we found in the basement in mummy form:

 
My raccoon which is pretty recent.  My brother found this on the side of a road in a ditch...pretty much just a skeleton with not much left on it.

 

 

 
And my robin, which I found in the dogs' potty area.  Not sure how it got there [&:]

 
Chipmunk, one of the cat kills:

 
And one of my favorites...my little brown bat.  Found by my brother at some camp area.  It's soo unbelievably tiny and itty bitty and it just looks like a small canine skull...the teeth are so pointy.

 

 

 
I'm really excited, I just found another brown bat, but the whole body, not just the skull.  So that's in the process of being completed.  And the skull is whole, not fragmented and distorted like the one shown above.