Maceration (bone)

Macerated skeletons of a Great Dane and a Chihuahua, on display at The Museum of Osteology, in Oklahoma City.

Maceration is a bone preparation technique whereby a clean skeleton is obtained from a vertebrate carcass by leaving it to decompose inside a closed container at near-constant temperature.[1] This may be done as part of a forensic investigation, as a recovered body is too badly decomposed for a meaningful autopsy, but with enough flesh or skin remaining as to obscure macroscopically visible evidence, such as cut-marks. In most cases, maceration is done on the carcass of an animal for educational purposes.

  1. ^ David, Charles N. (1973-12-01). "A quantitative method for maceration of hydra tissue". Wilhelm Roux' Archiv für Entwicklungsmechanik der Organismen. 171 (4): 259–268. doi:10.1007/BF00577724. ISSN 1432-041X. PMID 28304607. S2CID 9304676.