Thursday, October 26, 2017

The Osteology of Decorative Plastic Halloween Skeletons, Part 3: Assorted Mammals


Next in our series, we have what first inspired me to write the series.


There is the cat skeleton, available for for $25.59 at Amazon (and eligible for Amazon Prime).  



There is the dog skeleton, available for $15 from Target.



And there is even the rat skeleton, available for $8.99 from Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores.  



And there are many more examples of plastic skeletons for each of these mammals, and I could probably find other types of mammals with the same problem if I looked.  

In case you haven’t noticed, I will point out that all of these skeletal animals have external ears. And the external ears are shown as bony elements projecting from the skull.  External ears are cartilaginous.  They are not part of the bony structure of the skull.  

(Perhaps the designers think that the skeletons would be unidentifiable to the general public without an appropriate set of ears.  Years ago I volunteered at a museum that had a horse skeleton mounted in the center of the main exhibit area.  Visitors frequently assumed that it was a dinosaur.) 

I guess that I should be glad that external ears aren’t added to human Halloween skeletons (as far as I’ve seen).  




1 comment:

  1. Odd they'd include ears. I do like posing the rat in a fearsome pose. Unless it was rabid it would probably run away.

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