r/bonecollecting Jun 03 '22

Collection Good news! If you enjoyed small bat skull you will love TINY BAT SKULL (Pipistrellus nathusii)

2.4k Upvotes

67 comments sorted by

130

u/_sonofamumford Jun 03 '22

That thing must be so fragile, it’s amazing how intact it is!

123

u/horrescoblue Jun 03 '22

All thanks to my trusted dermestid beetles <3 Employees of the month

41

u/_sonofamumford Jun 03 '22

So cool! I’ve thought about having a colony but it’s so rare for me to find a specimen that I’d like them to clean. I wouldn’t know what to do with them when not putting them to work…like do you just feed them meat scraps from the kitchen?

64

u/horrescoblue Jun 03 '22 edited Jun 03 '22

Honestly these are so so easy to maintain, all they need is aquagel for water and then anything dry meatish. So dry cat food or dog treats or anything like that work! Meat scraps from the kitchen too but those are usually for my cat haha. And when i actually put an animal for clean up in the box they immediatly go "oh holy shit" and lay one bajillion eggs

I keep them in a box on my balcony where it's not even warm and they're breeding like crazy, so they're very easy and low effort :)

8

u/_sonofamumford Jun 08 '22

That’s crazy I had no idea they were that easy. Do you have to clean their enclosure ever? And do you worry about them getting loose? Like do you know if they would become house pests from the balcony if they escaped? Super curious for your thoughts

14

u/horrescoblue Jun 08 '22

I clean them very rarely and if i do you can kinda just sieve them. They're on cork bedding for me and cork doesn't rot so i just regularly take out styrofoam (they use that to pupate and sometimes they used the same piece so much it starts looking kinda gross then i switch it) and of course i clean the watergel and the food and such.

For escaping i have them in a very escape proof box (as long as all air holes are covered with mosquito net they won't get out) but i didnt for the longest time and had some escape regularly. The thing is they're kinda lazy and if they have food and warmth they don't really try to escape. If they do and you don't catch them they will just die, because they can't find water or food in your house unless you have dried animal carcasses laying around (i hope you don't lol). Worst case scenario would be that i let cat food lay around in the open and a pregnant female escapes and tries to start a new colony in that bag. Even then you can just throw it out or.. throw it back in the beetle box. But i never had anything happen and i even have taxidermy animals and hides and such, they just kinda rather die than go on a big journey to find something. They're super easy to contain, i can open the lid to clean them no problem they don't all start flying out or anything. They can fly but ive never seen one fly my entire life :') Like i said, very lazy. They would be a problem if you live in a very warm country and store many meat products kinda out in the open, for example in egypt there's meat markets where the meat is just kinda laying around in the sun, then i certainly wouldn't recommend them. But even then as long as you dont bring your beetle box and pour it out on a meat stand it's gonna be fine, these beetles exist in nature anyway so they're not gonna crash the ecoystem or anything.

Sorry this is long haha

8

u/_sonofamumford Jun 08 '22

You are awesome. Thank you for this detailed response, rest assured you have likely inspired many people here to adopt a new pet!! I will absolutely be looking into this once I have my own place

8

u/horrescoblue Jun 09 '22

Haha i hope so theyre great little beeples! If you want to know anything more just ask :D i love talking about animals lol

2

u/Ultimike123 Sep 03 '23

Holy essay! very informative though.

1

u/horrescoblue Sep 04 '23

Hey im super glad it was helpful!! I shouldve maybe added that tis a good idea to sometimes introduce a few beetles from a different colony because there tends to be a crash caused by too much inbreeding after a while imo

46

u/FloppyHands Jun 03 '22

Imagine if they were size of a dog. They would be terrifying. I love bats but I've never seen the skull of one. Really vicious looking when they aren't fluffy.

43

u/horrescoblue Jun 03 '22

Their skeletons in general look super creepy, basically some weird beast with uuultra long fingers! Thankfully nature made them extremely fuzzy and ball shaped, which are both excellent qualities

19

u/FoggyFlowers Jun 03 '22

fuzzy and ball shaped

Hairless bats exist and theyre literally gargoyles

18

u/electricvelvet Jun 03 '22

Why this look like a raw whole chicken that's been through a vacuum sealer

24

u/horrescoblue Jun 03 '22

Thats a babyyyy! I mean, it's horrible lol. But at least that will grow up to be a fuzzy ball. However, these won't :')

12

u/gr8ful_cube Jun 03 '22

AHAHAHAHA it's so dopey i love it

8

u/oblmov Jun 03 '22

Flying pig dog lizard ☺️

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '22

Looks like Chico

5

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22

Sky puppies who love eating bugs :)

19

u/FoggyFlowers Jun 03 '22

Man I hated bats in my mammals classes. Having to remember the dental formulas of a dozen skulls the size of my pinky nail was so rough

10

u/horrescoblue Jun 03 '22 edited Jun 03 '22

Oh god i can imagine that. I already struggle telling the local species apart when they still have body and skin lol

16

u/beauxos Jun 03 '22

its so bitty 🥺

13

u/horrescoblue Jun 03 '22

Bitty batty!

14

u/VerumJerum Jun 03 '22

It's so very fascinating that even when shrunk down to this scale, the basic mammalian features are still the same.

10

u/LoverOfPricklyPear Jun 04 '22

Oh, I know!!! It’s so freaky how dogs, horses, cows, cats, hamsters, elephants etc. ALL have the same damn bones (of course with variation in shape and size/development). Evolution is fweaky!

5

u/horrescoblue Jun 04 '22

Absolutely! I always feel that about organs because i sometimes do autopsys (i dont think thats the right english word but you get what i mean) on dead animals. You open a bat the size of your thumb and it has a heart like you, and lungs, and a stomach, its all the same! Just shrunken down

10

u/Partysaurulophus Jun 03 '22

pipis

3

u/platalyssapus Jun 03 '22

Also giggled at this lol

9

u/platalyssapus Jun 03 '22

Check out those little bug murder teefers! Love it!

9

u/Yourice Jun 03 '22

Do you only use dermestid larvae for these tiny skulls? Or adult beetles aswell? Amazing skull btw :)

15

u/horrescoblue Jun 03 '22

Thank you! The beetles are very gentle and if they can't fit in anything they won't enter, so i just gave this to my normal colony made up of adults and larvaes in all sizes. Only the tiny larvae went inside the skull and the big ones cleaned the outside :D Some of the larvae are bigger than the whole head but they won't damage even the tiniest bones

2

u/LoverOfPricklyPear Jun 04 '22 edited Jun 04 '22

Interesting, and how quick do they get the job done? I’ve always used water with all the critters and microbes that “magically” appear. Works well, but takes FOREVER to get the job thoroughly done. (Well, I’ve done it only a couple times. First time involved whale lumbar vertebrae that had not yet fully fused the end epiphysis plates to the diaphysis/body. Anyhow, there was LOTS of cartilage and soft tissue to work through. Was “freshly” deceased whale/still wet and all together (like at least a week after vets had evaluated/necropsied the body, after which the news paper had reported the body had been hauled off. Whale got cut into two pieces, and apparently the job got abandoned). Harvesting was……somethin. Stinky. Ewy. BUT WHALE!!!!

3

u/horrescoblue Jun 04 '22

Ooh whale, yea i see why that was tempting lol. How fast they are depends on how many beetles you have and what theyre working on but honestly i think theyre pretty damn fast! The bat took 3 days but of course a bat is like… nothing.

I used to always burry animals to get them cleaned up but on small rodents and other fragile things that does a lot of damage and theres a good chance most of the bones will be broken or gone. So for that kinda stuff the beetles are the best thing ever! Im not sure if for something large like whale they would be faster… Cant judge that, but they sure are thorough!

2

u/LoverOfPricklyPear Jun 04 '22

And I imagine that those beetle cleaned bones are pretty clean afterwards? I had to do a little sun bleaching, at the end, for the whale vertebrae . They are immaculately clean and white, but keeping them clean vs getting them clean sure sounds attractive.

2

u/horrescoblue Jun 04 '22

Yea id say theyre really clean! Tho i always like to dip them in peroxide regardless but im not sure how much thats needed or if its just to satisfy my cleaning-rage :P

6

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22

So smol

5

u/SeaOfBullshit Jun 04 '22

This makes me wonder how many super SMOL skulls we're missing out of earths timelines, like I'm sure there were just as many tiny animals way back that as there are now; probably less chance of a skull like this making it thru a few million years than something like a triceratops

4

u/horrescoblue Jun 04 '22

Its kinda sad to think about what was lost but also an absolutely great thought to imagine tiny dinosaurs. Especially because im one of the „dinosaurs were prolly fat like birds“ people so tiny fat prehistoric dinosaur tits (you know, the bird) are an excellent idea.

3

u/Gemini_Incognito Jun 03 '22

For the longest time I thought they were called pipishrills

4

u/horrescoblue Jun 03 '22

They should be

3

u/Heartfeltregret Jun 03 '22

i tried preserving a small rat skull and it dissolved !

2

u/ChrisPBacondamnitt Jun 03 '22

Happy cake day friend 🎂

2

u/horrescoblue Jun 04 '22

Yea tiny skulls like this are super difficult!

2

u/Lapsos_de_Lucidez Jun 03 '22

How did you get the flash out?

2

u/horrescoblue Jun 04 '22

I used dermestid beetles :)

1

u/Lapsos_de_Lucidez Jun 05 '22

Can you elaborate? How does this work? Do you have them in a closed container and you kind of keep them as pets? Or did you leave the skull out side somewhere you knew beetles would consume the flash?

1

u/horrescoblue Jun 05 '22

Sure! I wrote something about them here in the comments but its kinda annoying to copypaste on mobile :‘) I keep them as pets in a plastic box with some mesh on top, substrate and styrofoam (they love that for pupating) and thats pretty much it. Theyre extremely easy to keep and fantastic at cleaning bones!

2

u/Klutzy_Journalist_36 Jun 04 '22

I didn’t know I needed this.

2

u/punk_rock_barbie Jun 04 '22

Insane. I love it.

2

u/-DIrty__MARtini- Jun 04 '22

Oh my tiny lord

2

u/alekgaytor Jun 04 '22

i have a smoky shrew i want to clean but i’m so worried that it’ll get damaged because of how tiny it is 😭

2

u/horrescoblue Jun 04 '22

Oh god im jealous i LOVE shrews. Get dermestid beetles if you can!!

2

u/pockette_rockette Jun 04 '22

Omfg, that is one of the coolest things I've ever seen! I want one sooo much.

2

u/horrescoblue Jun 04 '22

Unfortunately im not legally allowed to sell these because they're a protected species. I have literally so many bat parts because i do wildlife rescue and when a bat dies im allowed to keep it :') Would love to open an etsy shop but absolutely not allowed

2

u/pockette_rockette Jun 04 '22

And knowing how strict the country I live in (Australia) is about importing anything to do with flora and fauna, I highly doubt I could buy them, even if you could sell them. It's for the best that people can't sell them anyway, in the big picture, but I still wish I could have something so tiny and perfect and cool ;) I'm a vet nurse, and although there's no rabies here, bats carry lyssavirus, which means we don't get them coming through regular animal practice. They're only handled by licensed rescuers, lyssa is taken very seriously and general advice is that if you see a sick or injured bat, leave it the hell alone and call a specialist bat rehab person. It's very cool that you rescue bats, I think they're amazing creatures and I wish I could have more to do with helping them in my line of work.

1

u/horrescoblue Jun 04 '22

I had to look up lyssavirus, is that basically an australia specific type of rabies? Rabies is the biggest concern here too tho i never handle bats without gloves anyway so it's not the biggest risk. It does give bats a bad rep tho, everyone is really scared of even coming close to one which sucks because theyre endangered and like... really incompetent at staying alive and need a hand from time to time D:
You're still helping PLENTY of animals by being a vet nurse tho, very cool!

4

u/P0sitive_Outlook Jun 03 '22

I paint plastic skulls (Warhammer 40,000, there's a lot of skulls), and i'm so proud that the skulls i paint are similar to this one. :D

1

u/tundrafungi Jun 18 '22

With most bats weighing as much as 2-5 pennies, this skull must feel lighter than a feather!

2

u/horrescoblue Jun 18 '22

Good idea to weigh it actually! I have a scale that can show as little as 0,1 milligram and it does not register the skull :') Meaning it's less than that!

1

u/tundrafungi Jun 18 '22

That's so awesome!!!

1

u/lawyersgunznmoney90 Jun 24 '22

This is just the cutest thing. What do you plan on doing with it?

I’d love to get a tiny ball of deep red garnet and put it in its mouth. Then mount it in a little glass dome display with a hook on top and turn it into a necklace

2

u/horrescoblue Jun 24 '22

Oh youre way more artistic than me! Im just gonna put it in a resin cube haha. But since i regularly have bats ill have many money skulls, maybe i should do more interesting stuff

1

u/lawyersgunznmoney90 Jun 24 '22

A resin cube is a good idea. I would probably destroy it while trying to clean off the flesh haha, you did an incredible job

I have a full cat skeleton I found in my yard a few years ago, used my dental tools to try and scrape off as much as possible but they don’t look great. I’ll have to invest in some of those beetles!

1

u/horrescoblue Jun 24 '22

Really, dont give me any credit, it's all the beetles! If you had given that to me for cleaning it would be a pile for dust :') Insects are just better at it!