Clearing and staining skeletons of small vertebrates

The preparation of osteological material has always been a source of annoyance to anatomists. With any of the smaller forms, from fishes to mammals, satisfactory results demand an expenditure of time out of proportion to the results obtained. A delicate skeleton, no matter how carefully handled, inevitably suffers more or less damage from continued use. Furthermore, with most small fishes and many amphibians and reptiles, even an expert finds it next to impossible to produce really satisfactory results. The abundant cartilage found in many forms, which dries into an extremely friable and almost shapeless mass, further complicates matters. In addition, since warping and distortion of slender or thin bones and calcified cartilage may make the exact form and relation of parts almost as much a matter of conjecture as of observation, work on the smaller vertebrates has been so impeded that the extremely interesting comparative osteology of these animals is still almost unknown.