So in our last video we talked about the
history of wolves and coyotes in the
United States and how our understanding
about them changes with new science and
research. We went into a lot of detail
and it's super exciting stuff so if you
haven't seen that video yet make sure
you go watch it now. But if you're still
here we're about to get into some pretty
graphic material. That's right electrical
supplies but, no seriously if blood and
skinning isn't your thing now is time to
click away. You met Tom Gnoske in our
other video he's an assistant
Collections Manager and taxidermist here
at the Field Museum and a few months ago
he invited me to help him skin both a
coyote and a wolf so I would be able to
see the similarities and differences
between the two up close. We'll switch
between them in the video so watch for
the little coyote and wolf icons. These
specimens legally came to us from a
State Wildlife Management Agency so no
we did not kill them. We're preparing
them to be housed in our research
collection. We don't use gloves during
the prep process because it's easier to
get a handle on the material and feel
what you're doing and with gloves it's
pretty slippery and the risk of cutting
yourself is actually greater. The sawdust
is just for soaking up blood and we
needed an extra set of hands so we
enlisted to help of Kaylie Kufner she's a
collections assistant and works in the
bird division and is also a super skill
taxidermist. So let's start with the
coyote and you can see that interface of
the fascia and because you're putting
pressure on it it just peels off and
then when you get down to the toes we're
gonna go down to this last digit and and
then from the inside we're going to cut
through the cartilage there so that this
through that last finger bone.
I don't think people think about
that a lot like how our fingernails are
attached on our last digit here so when
you want a declawed cat or an animal
you're cutting that off and so you're
kind of leaving them with shortened
fingers. Yeah, little nubs. On your side
okay in and then on Kaylee's side maybe I
can actually help with that while she's
you know think about all of these
connections you know it's all just like
pulley and lever systems made out of
squishy biological material. Yeah.
That's, WHOA, there you go.
You guys I see these little bones that
I was talking about? They're like
they're embedded within the tissue
they're not really articulated with
anything but they fit on top of the
ridges of the digit bones and it's
really well lubricated and it helps with
that efficiency or they go boo boo.
That's a scientific sound effect.
We're on our way to the butt! You don't need to
keep the butthole intact? This is a
serious question it is a diagnostic
feature for anything? I don't I
don't... I can't answer that. I don't know
but. I don't think anyone's specifically studying butts. But, well I
was I was thinking okay like like anal
glands, you know, yeah, I guess other ways
that animals communicate in anal gland
by secretions is a big part of that and
so maybe somebody would need to know the
circumference of the butthole
I'm just not ruling anything out here
keeping an open mind yeah I am a good
every question is a good question.
Back in Montana when we skinned that wolf
we didn't really know what we were going
to use the pelt for but we knew we
wanted to keep the pelt and this is
different because you're not making any
kind of direct cut it's not like you're
bisecting it or splitting in half but
instead we're able to make a few more
minor cuts on the outside like along the
back of the legs into the back of the
tail and then essentially invert it like
pull it off of the rest of the body
without having to make a split down the
midline or down the back and the reason
that I'm doing the face while tom is
working on the legs is because by the
time you would get all of the skin off
down towards the face the face has so
many particular delicate details that
you really want to keep intact like the
eyelids and the tear ducts and the ears
and the lips
and if all of that skin is just hanging
down and you're essentially looking up
into an inverted skin of a mammal you're
not able to see what you're doing and
it's actually a lot easier and it's more
efficient so when we were in Montana it
took us the better part of eight hours
to skin a single wolf. Tom is it safe to
say you could do this kind of process
with most large predators like large a
big cat or a lion or a tiger or
something like that or hyena anything
kind of of that size with that sort of
head it doesn't have antlers or horns
you could just do a case skin in a
similar way? Absolutely okay whoopsies
bleedin I need a bucket and it is ok if
it bleeds on the floor ok as long as it
doesn't get all over your shoes you go
there's times on the train I'm going
home at night well they've done wolves
all day oh yeah and if you smell like my
dog smell yeah you can tell people are
looking around like like what is that
that's going to be me today on the train
on the way home blood on my shoes and
probably like crusty bloody hands or
something so I'm going to something I
think I murdered somebody. You can see
here exactly where lips are connected to
the jawbone. You can even see where that
blood vessels coming through out of
what's a foramen right here which
is a little hole in the bone cut that
off you have to go really slow along the
face because there's not a lot of margin
of error there is no there's not a lot
of muscle between the bone and the skin
and so you want to make sure that you
cut just parallel to the bone in order
to remove all of that skin. This is
pretty crazy visual yes that's
am I doing this right. Okay yes now you
could just wow!
I'm always surprised and amazed by how
intuitive it seems you know it's it's
almost like it just the anatomy gives
you a roadmap for where to go it also be
that it's genetically hardwired into
your genome so ya know this because at
some point everybody every one of your
ancestors at some point we're doing this
right and I think that's what I what I
like about doing this on the brain scoop
is that it is so counterintuitive to to
what people think I mean it's something
that it is a novelty now it is something
that happens only in the confines of
museums and research institutions and
for hunters and that type of thing
I like I don't even think about the fact
that I'm practically kissing this thing
right here it's like oh hello what a
visual and then just headspace comes out
I made that special effect very soon it
didn't actually it doesn't sound like
that but that is wild you can just see
how everything lines up and then the
layers beneath that looks diabolical
yeah and you can even feel the back of
the skull right here that sagittal crest
where all of these muscles are attaching
to it skin you can feel it on the back
of but you don't have one I can feel it
on your dog's head because when I first
started doing this I remember being so
fascinated by the process and removing
the skin and seeing what's underneath
and I remember I went home that day and
didn't want to talk about it because I
thought if I did I'd sound crazy like I
thought if I was seen as enjoying uh
this kind of natural exploration of
anatomy or whatever that, that it would
be seen really negatively or like
indicative of like what a serial kill
would enjoy something and then I
realized I just liked Natural History
there's yeah there's nothing
demonic about it right we're going to
string this rope through the back of its
Achilles tendons and then we're going to
hang it up in order to take advantage of
gravity in pulling down the rest of the
skin since we've already got it started
on this back end and then it's just
going to be going around and around
we're moving its skin that good perfect
okay Wow got it to test these in my face
Wow you guys smell that jeez! what is
that just it's Musk or.. yeah it smells
like it smells skunky like but, but
almost like with a urine smell yeah and
like I don't know it's got a spicy sort
of aroma oh my god it's not going to be
easy okay I should have taken a ship
class every time I should have been a
boy scouts [cross-talk]
yeah it's fine. Is that gonna be OK
yeah oh wow good oh I need to do some
upper body wow this is a great view so
we're gonna just cut you're gonna cut
around this here
oh I got you okay look at underneath the
baculum yeah which our viewers know is
the penis bone oh they're really ah
he's free
[Music]
seems like a really weird game show
competition who can skin the cane in the
fastest well I've got like 70 of them I
think that's a great idea we should oh
yeah a few already
yeah come on out people break the record
time with it look at this gaping cavity
sorry
do you see that whoa that's just a
massive hole whoops okay I'm sorry
so here we have it we have our coyote
and we have our timber wolf and what I
really like about this is that we don't
know we don't know how they're going to
be used we don't know if coyotes and
wolves will be extricated from the
United States we don't know what the
populations are going to look like 50 or
100 years from now but they'll have this
information future scientists to learn
about what they were doing now
today at this point in time thanks Museums
[Music]
It has brains on it.