This mole skeleton (approximately 145mm long), was hanging suspended by string from a loop of stiff wire with its ends inserted into a rough wooden block. It needed to be removed from this, cleaned and remounted on a small wooden plinth, supported appropriately from underneath.
The skeleton was cleaned with a small soft brush and tweezers. The blue tissue inside the skull mixed with glue in the past could not be removed without breaking the skull to which it was glued, but where possible it was painted out with artists acrylic paints to match the bone. The excess wire sticking out of the head was trimmed as short as possible. A small piece of MDF was cut to size, sanded down and painted. Two small wires were cut to size and bent into appropriate shapes to hold the skeleton at the front and at the rear. Holes were drilled into the plinth at appropriate points in the midline and the rods placed into position, with a dab of Paraloid B72 glue applied to the top of the rear wire. The skeleton was gently removed from the original rod and the string was carefully cut away from it, then the skeleton was placed into position on the rods in the MDF where it sat comfortably.


Above left: the specimen before remounting. Above middle: the excess wire sticking out of the head and the blue tissue inside the skull. Above right: the specimen cleaned, conserved and remounted

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