Now all cleaned, dried and sorted, I attempted to put this guy back together - this is called articulation. The next step was to find some anatomical diagrams of a cane toad skeleton. Unfortunately I couldn't find any books in my public libraries, and just couldn't wait for a book bought online. The diagrams I found online where not mainly of frogs, although they did help.
So I decided to wing it and see what I could piece together on my own.
This was the result.
I managed to get the top of the scull and entire vertebral column assembled and attached them with basic super glue. It was so fun finding which pieces fit together, it was just like a macabre jigsaw puzzle. Cane toads have great sculls, they're like mini dinosaur-dragons. There was a good 6 pieces to the top part alone (as you see below). After the vertebral column and urostyle (the stick-like end bone) things got tricky. The limb bones are all quite similar and the metacarpal and metatarsal (fingers and toes) bones are so frickin' small, it's damn near impossible to figure out what goes where. Guess that's why most taxidermists suggest tackling a larger skeleton (like a cat or dog) first. Thinking I may have to cut my losses on this one. But I'm super happy with what I managed to accomplish.
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