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Apr. 3rd, 2013 07:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickBeaver disassembly, so
I am a big believer in telling you the contents of the post so that I don't have to listen to people whine about what I'm talking about. "Eewww! I can't BE-LIEVE you would talk about blah! That's effing disgusting, it is!" Yeah, you and your delicate sensibilities go elsewhere because today I'm talking about progress made taking apart the beaver. You know, the dead one that appeared in the previous post. That beaver.
When last we saw the beaver (I am not posting pictures, they're kind of gross and also managing a camera when playing-with-dead-things is not my idea of fun because I do not want ick on my camera and I ain't taking off the (yellow, rubber) gloves until I'm done with that day's beaver disassembly), I had gutted him (or her, I didn't really look and anyway am not familiar with beaver genitalia to start with) and looked into removal of meat bits before giving up for the day.
It may seem that I am not particularly motivated, what with how little gets done in any one outing but there are some salient bits of information you may be missing.
1. I am doing this outside in my yard. I mentioned this last time, but perhaps you live where there are daffodils and robins and other signs of Spring (tm). Ambient temp at my house is 32F and it's going down to 22F tonight. The daffodils here are about three inches tall and they rather look like they're re-thinking their decision to emerge this early in the year. Even with rubber gloves on, there is a limit to how much time I can spend in freezing temps in pursuit of a sedentary activity that has MY HANDS HOLDING AMBIENT TEMPERATURE WET FLESH THAT CONDUCTS COLD EXTREMELY WELL. Or, alternatively, holding a metal utility knife that also conducts cold extremely well. This evening I spent about an hour with the beaver and that was plenty, even with a large bucket of warm water to dip my hands into as I went to keep 'em from freezing.
2. I have no idea what I am doing. Beavers do not come with a disassembly manual. Insofar as I have any idea what I am doing, it comes from basic knowledge of anatomy acquired via on-the-job learning. For example: "Joints are mostly held together with stringy silverish things connecting bone to bone or bone to muscle. These stringy silverish things (which I know are called either "ligaments" or "tendons") are difficult to slice through, but if you can find and slice them, the joint will usually come apart nicely." Also for example: "Sometimes it is difficult to find which stringy silverish things need to be cut. Try wiggling the joint around in the appropriate directions and flipping your critter over to look at the joint from another angle -- sometimes that helps locate the parts you need to cut."
3. I am paying a certain amount of attention to interesting things so that I can report back here with said interesting things. I know that you all are exceedingly interested in the sorts of things I am learning about beavers (and probably a bunch of it is generalizable to other mammals as well). So, it's not just Rawr! Destroy! over here... I'm trying to do a nice job so that my friend can have an un-botched skeleton to reassemble and so that it doesn't look like hell when I'm done.
4. I only have a limited amount of patience/time/enthusiasm for this project on any given day. So, what gets done is what I am willing to get done. I typically have goals in mind for every beaver playdate. Last time the goal was "remove and discard guts and other innards". It had a high gross factor and thus was pretty much the only goal I felt like putting out there. This time, the goals were (1) remove at least two cups of meat from beaver carcass, including eyes (they are creepy) and (2) take legs and head off of main body part. I got goal 1 accomplished. Goal 2... I got the legs done but could not figure out the remaining ligaments for the head. I've got *most* of a pair of neck-ish vertebrae divided, can see the (severed) spinal cord, but can't find out where else I need to cut because there's meat in the way. And, my hands were getting cold at that point so I gave up and came inside to warm up.
Today I learned the following interesting things about beavers (and mammals):
About eyeballs. Eyeballs are quite sturdy and do not explode if you grip them firmly. They are also VERY WELL ATTACHED to the skull (If I were trying to show off, I'd have said orbital sockets there instead of 'skull'.) I did manage to de-eye the beaver, but it took some effort and was gross, if surprisingly reassuring to discover the relative sturdiness of eyeballs.
About the windpipe and bronchial tubes. (This is your airway, comes down as a single tube from your throat and then branches into a left and a right tube for your lungs.) It is a corrugate tube, rather like the hose on a shop vac. I expect that this (the corrugation) keeps it from collapsing accidentally. It stays corrugated after the split into two tubes.
About legs, front and back. On beavers, the legs have one big bone near the body (between the shoulder/hip joint and the elbow/knee joint) and then two skinnier bones together, more distal from the body, spanning the space from the elbow/knee joint to the wrist/ankle joint. People are made this way, too. So are cats and dogs. I gotta say, not a whole lot of originality going on with these designs. It's like the GM isn't even really trying, just copying shit that worked before.
About beaver skulls. They have freaking huge teeth. No, seriously. And also massive cheek muscles (for the chewing). Hopefully, later, we will be able to see the points-of-attachment for the stringy silverish things that bind the cheek muscles to the skull.
About range of motion. Once your dead animal is skinned out and not-stiff-anymore, you can move the foot or leg or whatever by hand and see the various stringy bits and muscles come into play. It's kind of neat, how the levers and stuff all work. Also, if you pay attention to where all the silvery stringy things *attach*, it's clear that there is some attention being paid to mechanical advantage and whatnot. Finally, all the neat skeletal motions you can make with your dead animal or your own body are done with various and sundry combinations of straight up "contract" actions by assorted muscle groups. We are fucking marvels of transforming linear movement into fluid and graceful arcs by way of levers.
I am a big believer in telling you the contents of the post so that I don't have to listen to people whine about what I'm talking about. "Eewww! I can't BE-LIEVE you would talk about blah! That's effing disgusting, it is!" Yeah, you and your delicate sensibilities go elsewhere because today I'm talking about progress made taking apart the beaver. You know, the dead one that appeared in the previous post. That beaver.
When last we saw the beaver (I am not posting pictures, they're kind of gross and also managing a camera when playing-with-dead-things is not my idea of fun because I do not want ick on my camera and I ain't taking off the (yellow, rubber) gloves until I'm done with that day's beaver disassembly), I had gutted him (or her, I didn't really look and anyway am not familiar with beaver genitalia to start with) and looked into removal of meat bits before giving up for the day.
It may seem that I am not particularly motivated, what with how little gets done in any one outing but there are some salient bits of information you may be missing.
1. I am doing this outside in my yard. I mentioned this last time, but perhaps you live where there are daffodils and robins and other signs of Spring (tm). Ambient temp at my house is 32F and it's going down to 22F tonight. The daffodils here are about three inches tall and they rather look like they're re-thinking their decision to emerge this early in the year. Even with rubber gloves on, there is a limit to how much time I can spend in freezing temps in pursuit of a sedentary activity that has MY HANDS HOLDING AMBIENT TEMPERATURE WET FLESH THAT CONDUCTS COLD EXTREMELY WELL. Or, alternatively, holding a metal utility knife that also conducts cold extremely well. This evening I spent about an hour with the beaver and that was plenty, even with a large bucket of warm water to dip my hands into as I went to keep 'em from freezing.
2. I have no idea what I am doing. Beavers do not come with a disassembly manual. Insofar as I have any idea what I am doing, it comes from basic knowledge of anatomy acquired via on-the-job learning. For example: "Joints are mostly held together with stringy silverish things connecting bone to bone or bone to muscle. These stringy silverish things (which I know are called either "ligaments" or "tendons") are difficult to slice through, but if you can find and slice them, the joint will usually come apart nicely." Also for example: "Sometimes it is difficult to find which stringy silverish things need to be cut. Try wiggling the joint around in the appropriate directions and flipping your critter over to look at the joint from another angle -- sometimes that helps locate the parts you need to cut."
3. I am paying a certain amount of attention to interesting things so that I can report back here with said interesting things. I know that you all are exceedingly interested in the sorts of things I am learning about beavers (and probably a bunch of it is generalizable to other mammals as well). So, it's not just Rawr! Destroy! over here... I'm trying to do a nice job so that my friend can have an un-botched skeleton to reassemble and so that it doesn't look like hell when I'm done.
4. I only have a limited amount of patience/time/enthusiasm for this project on any given day. So, what gets done is what I am willing to get done. I typically have goals in mind for every beaver playdate. Last time the goal was "remove and discard guts and other innards". It had a high gross factor and thus was pretty much the only goal I felt like putting out there. This time, the goals were (1) remove at least two cups of meat from beaver carcass, including eyes (they are creepy) and (2) take legs and head off of main body part. I got goal 1 accomplished. Goal 2... I got the legs done but could not figure out the remaining ligaments for the head. I've got *most* of a pair of neck-ish vertebrae divided, can see the (severed) spinal cord, but can't find out where else I need to cut because there's meat in the way. And, my hands were getting cold at that point so I gave up and came inside to warm up.
Today I learned the following interesting things about beavers (and mammals):
About eyeballs. Eyeballs are quite sturdy and do not explode if you grip them firmly. They are also VERY WELL ATTACHED to the skull (If I were trying to show off, I'd have said orbital sockets there instead of 'skull'.) I did manage to de-eye the beaver, but it took some effort and was gross, if surprisingly reassuring to discover the relative sturdiness of eyeballs.
About the windpipe and bronchial tubes. (This is your airway, comes down as a single tube from your throat and then branches into a left and a right tube for your lungs.) It is a corrugate tube, rather like the hose on a shop vac. I expect that this (the corrugation) keeps it from collapsing accidentally. It stays corrugated after the split into two tubes.
About legs, front and back. On beavers, the legs have one big bone near the body (between the shoulder/hip joint and the elbow/knee joint) and then two skinnier bones together, more distal from the body, spanning the space from the elbow/knee joint to the wrist/ankle joint. People are made this way, too. So are cats and dogs. I gotta say, not a whole lot of originality going on with these designs. It's like the GM isn't even really trying, just copying shit that worked before.
About beaver skulls. They have freaking huge teeth. No, seriously. And also massive cheek muscles (for the chewing). Hopefully, later, we will be able to see the points-of-attachment for the stringy silverish things that bind the cheek muscles to the skull.
About range of motion. Once your dead animal is skinned out and not-stiff-anymore, you can move the foot or leg or whatever by hand and see the various stringy bits and muscles come into play. It's kind of neat, how the levers and stuff all work. Also, if you pay attention to where all the silvery stringy things *attach*, it's clear that there is some attention being paid to mechanical advantage and whatnot. Finally, all the neat skeletal motions you can make with your dead animal or your own body are done with various and sundry combinations of straight up "contract" actions by assorted muscle groups. We are fucking marvels of transforming linear movement into fluid and graceful arcs by way of levers.
