Raccoon

Cranial endocasts are cast made of the inside of a skull. A cast gives a basic structure and anatomy of the species belonging to the skull. Endocasts are traditionally made from resin or latex. I have developed a way to make cranial endocasts with aluminum. As far as I know I am the first person to do this. 

Sheep

Antelope

Cat

 Raccoon

Porcupine

Badger

Muskrat

Bobcat

I used to work in a lab where I had access to a scanning electron microscope.  I brought in a porcupine quill and some sea urchin spines to look at one day, here are the results. The pictures have been colorized.  The first two are of the sea urchin spines while the last two are of the porcupine quill.

 Sea Urchin Spine

Sea Urchin Spines

 Porcupine Quill

 Porcupine Quill

When sand is deposited, either by wind or water, a sedimentary structure called crossbedding is formed. The changes in layers are changes in depositional intensity and direction. These two specimens were collected from 70,000 year old wind blown sand deposits. Essentially, a cut was made into the deposit exposing a fresh surface and the cross section of the sand was transferred onto foam core board using a technique I created myself that involved spray glue and an oil based primer. I also built the frames from redwood and matted the pieces.