Bones

Hi Sea Fans!

It's been a strange week, no bones about it!  Actually, there WERE bones involved, we found a whale bone on the beach a few days ago and I've just finished building a seal skeleton for display.  Bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones...

 

This is how we first found the whale bone - not so easy to spot what it is from a distance.  A day later, 

 it had washed up higher onto the beach and we could get a better look at it.  It's amazing what you can find just walking on the beach.  Next time you take your dog for a walk on the beach, why not see if you can find something unusual and send it to me at abby@telkomsa.net and I'll post it on the blog.

 Seal skeleton, you ask?  Well, it came about because we wanted to make a display and there were bones available (don't worry, nothing happened to our seals) so we jumped at the chance.  What a big job!  I knew there were lots of bones, but I didn't realize how long it would take to figure out exactly which bones matched with which - not quite like a puzzle with numbers or colours!!  Anyway, this is how it grew to become a seal:


The bones laid out ready to start assembling.

Spine - almost complete.

...and I'll show you the finished product on display another time. : )

Weird, I know, but I've found that bones can actually be quite interesting, they can tell you how big an animal is, what it eats (by looking at the teeth), whether it swims or walks on land, how old it is,how  the muscles attach and a whole lot more.  Next time you see a seal, have a look at its flipper and know this: there are LOTS of little bones that make up that flipper, it's not just one solid paddle like the oar you use on a boat.

I hope this hasn't grossed you out Sea Fans.
Have a great weekend.

Cheers!
Abby
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