It’s been another fun week on Rum. The weather has provided us with glorious sunshine, rainbows and horizontal rain (all on one day). The skull measuring is going on at pace, we have made around 850 measurements so far and might even be finished earlier than we expected. At the moment we are measuring some of the stag skulls. These still have their antlers attached and are all stored at the top of the laundry on large beam across the ceiling. Getting these down involves Cirque de Solei like skills of balancing on a trestle table while trying to disentangle these huge antlered skulls. But it is going well and our current record for skull cranial capacity is 425ml for a stag called Cafuffel.
We have also been out with Martyn on an autopsy of a recently dead deer. This was pretty interesting, as we got to see what long-term data is collected: muscle tissue, fur, the liver is weighed etc. We also got to see where our skulls come from and how they are taken from the carcass. But I now feel very sorry for the deer, as they are full of parasites. We got to count the number of nasal maggots, liver flukes and lung worm. Fortunately this deer didn’t have any lung worm, a small mercy. But on our way to the autopsy we passed a deer that didn’t look to good. We mentioned this to Martyn on the way to the already dead deer and he said he would have a look on the way back. But when we got back this deer had already dropped dead. This was pretty sad but I suppose that means there is more food for surviving deer.
I forgot to attach some links to the researchers that we are working for:
http://pemberton.bio.ed.ac.uk/
http://corinalogan.com/
http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/directory/tim-clutton-brock
Well I have also been taking some night time photos, attached below.
We have also been out with Martyn on an autopsy of a recently dead deer. This was pretty interesting, as we got to see what long-term data is collected: muscle tissue, fur, the liver is weighed etc. We also got to see where our skulls come from and how they are taken from the carcass. But I now feel very sorry for the deer, as they are full of parasites. We got to count the number of nasal maggots, liver flukes and lung worm. Fortunately this deer didn’t have any lung worm, a small mercy. But on our way to the autopsy we passed a deer that didn’t look to good. We mentioned this to Martyn on the way to the already dead deer and he said he would have a look on the way back. But when we got back this deer had already dropped dead. This was pretty sad but I suppose that means there is more food for surviving deer.
I forgot to attach some links to the researchers that we are working for:
http://pemberton.bio.ed.ac.uk/
http://corinalogan.com/
http://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/directory/tim-clutton-brock
Well I have also been taking some night time photos, attached below.
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