perfidy

Apparently, there is a company that specializes in creating or...preparing...animal bits for musuem and classroom use.

Skulls Unlimited has a spiffy online catalog with photos and prices of all their wares, from aardvark to wombat; chimpan-A to chimpanzee. It's alot more interesting than you think, and not nearly as creepy as you, also, probably think. Well, unless you personally need a creature processed, and we then get into their tremendously detailed and helpful directions for Fedex-ing a head:

1. Raw heads need to be drained of excess moisture.
2. Freeze heads prior to shipping.
3. Wrap heads in newspapers to absorb excess moisture.
4. Tie heads in multiple plastic bags to prevent excess moisture seeping out and ruining shipping box.

Did we mention the excess moisture? Did you infer that that's bad? OK then. Just so you know. No excess moisture though, OK?

The site includes an online store for t-shirts, most of which I found surprisingly lame for such an astonishingly weird and cool line of business. Being the thrifty sort, I made a beeline for the slightly damaged wares, the factory seconds, if you will, of the boiled and dissolved-in-acid taxidermy world. I found pirhannas with broken fins and pigs with missing teeth at quite reasonable prices. Also saw a pig skull with a hole in its forehead; probably don't need CSI to solve that puzzle.

I was more interested though in the creatures with horns, as they make the most striking display. They have your steer, your ram, your wildebeest, and about a dozen other horned beasts I've never even heard of but that have just great skulls. For some reason I found the critter heads interesting, too- raccoons, cats and the like.

It's also a terrific place to shop for the upcoming holiday season, for the man who has everything. Buckethead's fantasy present below the fold:

Florida manatee skull. Note the outsized molars for crushing the bones of humans engaged in aquafrolic.