I made an articulated lionfish skeleton for my university’s marine science department!

The finished project. I glued the dorsal spines, rays, and pterygiophores together, then hot glued pre-measured and pre-cut wire to one side. I wish I took a length measurement of the back of the animal and that I had a general "curve" to follow. This was the most difficult, frustrating part of the whole project. Once I was happy with how it looked, the length of the wire was glued to one side of the dorsal fin assemblage. The anterior end was glued into the sagittal crest, and the other end to the caudal peduncle. I kept my fin rays in anatomical position (superior - inferior for the dorsal/tail fin rays, and anterior - posterior for the others). Students who did not do this had to guess and their final product looked generally much sloppier, as fins are so characteristic of fish it was easy to tell what had been "fudged" into a best-guess. The frame is just a square of wood that I hot glued dowels onto. I glued another smaller dowel as a brace. Since the spine stayed together (yipee!) and was in a nice curve, I decided to make the skeleton as lifelike as possible. The premaxillae, suborbital stay, and operculum gill plates were hot glued in place. Out of facial structures, the braciostegal rays and pharyngeal jaws, as well as some gill arches, fell out while I was hanging the fish. I had to glue them to a sheet, and I lost some in the boiling water before I knew they were even relevant (or anatomically present...). In my effort to make the fish look "life-like", I glued a piece of wire in the notch between the head of the mandible and the coracoid process of the mandible. I ran the wire across where the fish equivalent of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) would be, so the jaw is open and can be opened/closed (if you're gentle). I glued the pectoral girdle (the ontogenetic and anatomic precursor to the sternum), complete with its pectoral and pelvic spines + rays, to the skeleton so the fins are splayed outwards. I ran wire between the eye sockets, twisted it around the dowel brace, and glued another piece of wire from the dowel brace to the caudal peduncle. Every bone was meticulously labeled. Despite my best efforts to clean, brush, and soak in H2O2, the skeleton had a funky smell. My roommates complained, and now it's in display in my lab. Supposedly, prospective marine science students love it during tours. Words of advice if you're going to do this: label label label, don't start with a venomous fish (if you can even acquire one), and label some more. An ammonia wash (like the household cleaner), followed by a rinse in fresh water, then by a long soak in H2O2, supposedly cleans the bones really well but I was short for time since I was trying to not get envenomated, and because I was a poor student at the time and didn't care much about how "white" the bones look. Look into protease detergents (proteases are enzymes which will break down protein, but leave behind the hydroxyapatite bone) which may be of use. Lipase detergents for oily fish (tuna, salmon, mackerel, etc) will probably break down the oils without leaving the bones brittle. I'll add and update as I remember!