I occasionally watch a TV show called “Dirty Jobs”, which is about, well, dirty jobs. On one episode they talked about a company that prepares skeletons for museums and such. As I recall, they used a three-step process: a soak in a barrel filled with water, then flesh-eating beetles in a terrarium, then hydrogen peroxide. (I’m not sure about the order of the first two steps.) The soak in the barrel was horribly disgusting. I’m not traditionally a fan of insects, but even so I found the flesh-eating beetles fascinating rather than disgusting. The hydrogen peroxide bleached the bones beautifully.

Personally I would think that if you removed most of the skin and desiccated flesh, and then put the remains in a cage to keep out larger scavengers, and then put the cage in a damp sheltered spot outdoors, that the local insects would do the job without requiring that you learn about the customs intricacies of importing live insects.

I would think that these steps would leave you with a pile of disconnected bones. It might be tricky to figure out which bone connects to which. (I know, I know, “the hip bone connects to the leg bone…”) But then again you don’t seem to worry much about how to finish a project when you’re starting, you just seem to manage in the end, so have at it!

Best regards,
- Rob

Actually you should boil him up, and then reassemble the bones and make a moving skeleton model (like they have in med schools)

That would be cool.