Froggie Went A' Courtin'

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I've done some really weird stuff for the nieces and nephews, but I never went so far as to petrify a critter. (could be cool tho... hmmm)

I used to keep tarantulas. When they grow, they periodically flip over on their backs, wriggle for an hour & molt their old skin and then expand to their new size. The cool thing is that the old skin looks EXACTLY like the spider itself- complete with colors and furry hair, shiny fangs, eye lense covers and everything! If you get the old limp discarded skin before it gets completely dry, you can steam it with a tea kettle so it will be pliable and then you can sort of pose it realistically, propping the parts up with match boxes and toothpicks. Then when it dries it stays in that position and you can remove the props.
I did this a couple of times, and made a scary pose with uplifted front legs and extended fangs of my really large Peruvian Pink-Toe (Morticia) and mounted it in a plexiglass box I made for it and gave it to my nephew years ago. I doubt if he has it anymore. Nobody could believe it was not the actual spider! It was so cool.
I had to give up my 2 beautiful tarantulas when I moved to a smaller place eventually, but I donated them to the entomology department of Cornell University, where my daughter was then getting her entomology degree (like a good mother, I taught her stuff firsthand about bugs and snakes and such from toddlerhood).

[Nanci]

I found a bat in the grill of my truck once...

[pooks]

I had to give up my 2 beautiful tarantulas when I moved to a smaller place

Holy cow -- how big were they?

We have a dried lizard on the shelf right now. Anole, maybe is what it actually is. Anyway my husband found it in the garage, showed it off to everybody, then put it on a shelf of the bookcase where it has resided since.

Pooks

[Bad JuJu]

This is such a weird and cool thread! I envy you those dried tarantula skins, Lisa! The nearest thing to that here is that we occasionally find a naturally-dried peeper (little frog) when cleaning behind heavy pieces of furniture.

When my eldest nephew was 8, I found some owl pellets (bits of fur and bone that owls regurgitate from their meals of small mammals) under a tree near my home. They were already pretty dry, so I packed them carefully and mailed them to him along with a little book about owls. He had a great time telling me about the bones and fur he found as he teased the pellets apart. Now he's 23 and doing his bachelor's degree in microbiology. I like to think it all started with Aunt Judy's owl pellets.

[Fredwina]

This reminds me of the time when I was out and a Squirrel decided to jump through my wheel. I heard a thunk, and the bike lurched, followed by what I took to squirrel cursing. I did Have Blood on the spokes when I got home (yes, they are bladed spokes.)

[Geonz]

Now that sounds like a Hallowe'en movie... Blood on the Spokes... ooooweeeeeee!!!

(back when I was a wildlife major, I had to stuff and mount critters with their little skulls beside them.. don't ask me what the grossest sounds were... my sister managed to get me some already-deceased lab rats...)

[CyclChyk]

Mushrooms grow out of my boxers poo when I get lazy and don't poop scoop my back yard.........

Don't know that you guys needed to know that but it seemed fitting for this thread.......