Kid is gluing rat bones together and he's missing one. He asked me what color he should

[lonestarnot]

use for the clavicle. It is a rat, so my first reply was red! But we changed our minds. It's a rat that changed parties so he could join the party! He now has a blue clavicle. :P God I hope this week flies by! :hi: I can't take much more of this!

[rwheeler31]

1. Dad you are nuts .

It is a weak get a grip.

[TomInTib]

2. Dad is a Mom.

Ain't nobody like lonestarnot.

Was your spelling of 'weak' intentional?

Either way, it was hilarious.

[lonestarnot]

21. hmmmf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Kyi0WNg40

[QueenOfCalifornia]

25. weak?

as in Denny's coffee?

Lomestar is a mommy....

Just like me... - Go figure... People here think Gilligan is a guy. :) :P

[uppityperson]

3. What color of what did he use for the clavicle? Another bone or stick?

Curious as to his ratdomness.

[lonestarnot]

5. He was missing that bone, they came in a plastic back with all this yucky stuff, gross on the

kitchen counter! Rat juice, so he had to cut them out of construction paper. He's painting the rest with acrylic paint. He is quite the artist.

[lonestarnot]

19. Turns out I was wrong on that! Or the kid was. Rats don't have a clavicle.

The kid meant scapula. So the rat has a blue scapula. LOL OMG :rofl: We need Swampy to keep us straight on this rat stuff!

[uppityperson]

27. Interesting, like cats. That is, I believe, why you can pull front legs of

cats to tightly together. I wonder if it is an evolutionary thing in primates but not other still on 4 legs creatures?

[Wiley50]

4. Gross! n/t

[lonestarnot]

6. Ickey I know. But doesn't seem to bother him.

:puke:

[seemslikeadream]

9. I'm waiting for an answer

[Captiosus]

12. This is just because you said "Gross" and I feel a little snarky

:P



Edit:
Alas, I must return to cuteness.

[lonestarnot]

13. Cool!

I meant the gooey black junk that the bones came in, that I have no idea what it was.

[Captiosus]

16. No worries, the "gross" was directed towards Wiley50.

;)

I'm fairly humbled by the design of the rat's skeleton. Same with cats. Since they have no collarbone, their bones are designed to collapse to a point to let them get into narrow spaces.

The downside, of course, is that rats, especially males, are prone to chronic, debilitating arthritis as they get older. Towards the end of his life, the non skeleton rat above had severe arthritis that left him paralyzed from his midpoint all the way to the end of his tail.

Hmm, I may have totally hijacked the topic from the color...

[lonestarnot]

18. No! From your post I see I made a mistake or the kid did! I asked

him if he made the clavicle out of construction paper since it was missing. He said did I say clavicle? I said yes. He said I meant scapula! Shewee, I thought he was designing a new type of rat! Glad we got that straight. And I learned something new. Thanks. :hi:

[lonestarnot]

15. I showed the kid. He said that is a big rat! He wanted to know who you were and I told him you

were swamprat's brother. LOL

[Captiosus]

17. ROFL, well, I don't have an organized gallery, but

If you go from this link and just manually adjust the numbers from 001 to 028, you can see all of my former pet rats. Including newborns. Well, at least the pictures I still have. I warn you: 008.jpg is the epitome of cuteness. And 009.jpg are the same two as seen in 008.jpg, only two or so months later.


http://members.cox.net/wptech/rats/ 001.jpg

Edit: Ack, i forgot it will link, so I added a space. ROFL.

[lonestarnot]

20. It didn't work.

:(

[Captiosus]

22. Hmm, I can't link it because it's a big image

Try it this way. Go to:
http://members.cox.net/wptech/rats/ (no space between rats and /)

Then manually type in 001.jpg after the /.
From that point, just keep changing the number until 028.jpg. :)

Oh, and I present to you...
The Australian Swamp Rat (Rattus lutreolus)!

[lonestarnot]

23. Crikie! Way cool! I hope Swampie sees him!

:applause:

[Captiosus]

24. Mayhaps I like rats a little too much.

:shrug:

Rats 'n' Cats.
My house is a case study in the food chain gone awry.
My cat is terrified of rats.

[lonestarnot]

26. LOL, When I got up this morning and checked on the project, I found a rat skeleton who

must be a Johnny Depp relative! He has on a brown pirate hat and a paperclip for a spine. Very pirate looking. arg :donut: :evilgrin:

[puerco-bellies]

7. Years ago I was a docent at a paleontological interpretive center.

We had a "Bug Room" on site. My nephew needed a science project, and has luck would have it I found a newly deceased large gopher, skinned it and fed it to the bugs. We (me) reassembled the skeleton with a hot glue gun in a pretty cool (think standing, snarling bear) pose. Good times.

[lonestarnot]

8. That's what he's using a hot glue gun! I'll recommend the pose!

:rofl: :toast:

[Sal Minella]

10. Dermestid beetles, right?

[lonestarnot]

11. Icky are they carnivores?

[Sal Minella]

29. No, they're part of the clean-up crew -- like vultures and maggots, they feed only on dead flesh.

As my favorite naturalist tells the grade-school kids (always causing a whole room-full of widened eyes) -- We really need the decomposers, because if we didn't have them, we'd still have all these dead dinosaurs just lying around all over the place.....

Edit: I took "carnivore" to mean kill-and-eat, like robin//worm or wolf//rabbit. I would call them "carrion-eaters," not "meat-eaters," but I've been wrong about many terms before......and I hope someone will correct me if "carnivore" also describes "carrion-eater."

[puerco-bellies]

14. Yup, thems' the ones.

The "bug room" was really a storage container with shelving. we would keep the beetles in shredder newspaper. Our lead paleontologist would pickup any carcasses found by park or forest rangers, and we would keep the collection for comparative purposes. You haven't lived till you have skinned a very dead skunk for science.

[uppityperson]

28. Vegan friend took care of her college age kid's bugs one summer.

Said kid owed her big. I would like to get rid of the raccoon bits the kid left here 2 yrs ago and is still in a container outside my place.

Vertebra make cool jewelry though and the skulls are interesting also.

[TahitiNut]

30. Well, that's humerus. Thanks!

:rofl: