October - As the weather cools down and the holiday season warms up, gatherings with friends and family brighten our outlook and warm our spirit, and, if there’s a fireplace, our toes too!

As usual, we’ve been busy. In addition to fulfilling orders and extending our product lines, we’ve prepared two new catalogs for 2017: Zoological Anatomy and Human Anatomy & Anthropology. You can expect to see our freshly printed Zoological Anatomy catalog in your mailbox. If you haven’t already ordered it, and would like receive either of our printed catalogs, you can place an order for it on our website. Prices listed on our website remain in effect until December 31, 2016. Prices listed in our catalog will take effect January 1, 2017. (An online flipbook version of the Zoology Catalog can be found here.)

New - Cassowary Skull

BC-338 Southern cassowary (Casuarius casuarius). An impressive skull featuring the cassowary’s iconic ‘crest’ or casque. This large, flightless bird is native to lowland rainforests in the southern hemisphere, and plays a critical part of its local ecosystem. The large helmet-like casque on its head is composed of modified cranial bones made of trabecular bone and cartilage, and varies in size and shape from bird to bird. There is debate as to what the function of the casques may be, but it has been suggested that it is used in communication as an amplifier of the low-frequency vocalizations they make. This gorgeous cast of an adult male cassowary would be an excellent addition to any biology, ecology or comparative avian anatomy course.

New - Gorilla Infant Skull

We have added a (1:1 scale) 6 month old infant Gorilla skull to our line of great apes and other primates. This would make a great complement to our adult Male and Female Western Lowland Gorilla skulls. These specimens would be a useful addition to comparative primatology and zoological comparative anatomy courses.

New - 8x oversized & life sized Cave Myotis Bat

We are excited to offer overscale versions of products that, in their original form are too small to easily discern detail. The newest addition to our scale series: TSBC-334 8x overscale Cave Myotis bat (Myotis velifer). The 1:1 full scale cast of the original BC-334 is also available.

This enlarged bat skull is beautiful in its own right, and clearly shows the bat’s unusual dentition, and, a classifying feature, its incomplete upper palate. We think the full scale version of this medium sized bat makes an interesting contrast in size.

Bird Skulls - now with sclerotic rings

The sclerotic ring is a circle of single or multiple bony plate segments which surrounds the eye and holds it rigid. Found in several groups of vertebrate animals, except mammals and crocodilians.

We have obtained and cast sclerotic rings for most of our bird skulls, and take great care in placing them. We think they bring the bird skulls “to life.” This addition makes these casts more osteologically accurate, plus they look really cool. Whenever possible, our bird skulls include these interesting structures. Although making and assembling bird skulls with sclerotic rings takes more time and materials than without, we have not raised prices on these skulls.

Here’s a before and after example of one of our birds without, then with, the sclerotic rings.