Today, we’re setting out on an exciting adventure to find a bear skeleton in the woods. Our guide, Adam, is the groundskeeper who discovered a bear skull a while back. Now, we’re using GPS coordinates to locate the rest of the skeleton. Let’s see what we can find!
Adam found the bear skeleton on a hike a few months ago. He brought the skull back, and it turned out to be the oldest black bear skull we’d ever seen. With the GPS coordinates recorded, we’re now on a geocaching mission to find the rest of the bear.
On our way, we spot a bald eagle soaring high in the sky. It’s amazing to see such a large bird riding the air currents. We also have to cross a river, which reminds us of the old computer game, “The Oregon Trail.” It’s a fun throwback to when people had to make tough decisions while traveling across the country.
As we hike, we talk about how fascinating trees and plants are. Even though they can’t move like animals, they have incredible adaptations. For example, we see a plant called hound’s tongue, which is an invasive species that traveled from Eurasia. It spreads by attaching to animals, much like Velcro.
We also discuss how identifying bird nests can be tricky unless it’s a unique bird like a bowerbird or a woodpecker. Ravens, for instance, can be identified by their shiny nests.
After a bit of searching, we finally find the bear skeleton. It’s like a treasure hunt! We spot various bones, including the scapula, humerus, and vertebrae. It’s fascinating to see how the bones fit together and learn about the bear’s life.
We even find a bone that might be the hyoid or part of the sternum. These bones show signs of aging, like scarring from muscle attachments. We also discover an ulna, which is part of the bear’s arm.
Back at the lab, it’s time to clean the bones. We won’t use the dermestid beetles this time because there’s not much flesh left. Instead, we’ll scrub the bones and soak them in hydrogen peroxide to whiten them and remove any smells.
While cleaning, we notice signs of arthritis on the bones. This overgrowth of bone is a common sign of aging. It’s interesting to see how the bear’s bones changed over time.
We carefully place the bones in a container filled with hydrogen peroxide. This solution is strong, so we have to be cautious. The peroxide helps clean and whiten the bones, making them ready for display.
After soaking, we drain the peroxide and inspect the bones. Some bones have pits, indicating arthritis, which shows the bear was quite old. We also find calcified cartilage, which has turned into bone over time.
In the end, we have most of the bear’s skeleton, including the hyoid, vertebrae, ribs, scapula, humeri, ulna, and more. It’s incredible to see how all these pieces fit together to form a bear.
This adventure taught us a lot about nature, animal anatomy, and the process of preserving bones. It’s amazing what you can discover when you explore the great outdoors!
Grab a GPS device or a smartphone with GPS capabilities and embark on a geocaching adventure in your local area. Use coordinates to locate hidden “treasures” and learn how to navigate using GPS technology. This activity will help you understand how Adam used GPS to find the bear skeleton.
Create a puzzle using images of a bear skeleton. Cut out the bones and challenge yourself to piece them together correctly. This hands-on activity will help you learn about the different bones in a bear’s body and how they fit together.
Take a walk in a nearby park or nature reserve and observe the plants and animals you encounter. Try to identify any invasive species or unique bird nests. This activity will enhance your understanding of the natural world and its fascinating adaptations.
Simulate the bone cleaning process by using chicken bones. Clean them with a toothbrush and soak them in a mild hydrogen peroxide solution. Observe how the bones change and learn about the preservation process used in the lab.
Write a short story from the perspective of the bear whose skeleton was found. Imagine its life in the woods, its encounters with other animals, and how it might have ended up where it was discovered. This creative activity will help you connect with the bear’s story and the adventure of discovery.
Here’s a sanitized version of the provided YouTube transcript:
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We’re going to find a bear skeleton in the woods. We’re here with Adam, the groundskeeper, who brought in the bear skull during one of the first weeks we had the show. It’s finally nice enough today to go into the woods and find the rest of it, so we’re taking a hike. I don’t know where we’re going; I just have the GPS.
– He’s got the GPS. Basically, we’re 1.55 miles from where the bear is. Adam came up here a couple of months ago on a hike and found a black bear skeleton on the side of the road. He collected the skull, brought it in to me, and it was the oldest black bear skull I’d ever seen. He recorded the GPS coordinates, and now we’re going to follow them and go geocaching for a bear.
Look, a bald eagle!
– Oh, there we go! It’s really big, riding the thermals.
We had to cross the river.
– I was going to say, it’s like the Oregon Trail, but I’m not sure if you guys remember the Oregon Trail.
– Oh, definitely!
– How old are you, Emily? You’re young!
– I’m 23.
– 23? You don’t know about the Oregon Trail?
– Yeah, I do! I played that on my Windows 95. My favorite part of the Oregon Trail was leaving, and my profession was always the doctor because they made the most money. I would stock up on bullets and leave with no other provisions.
– Just shooting everything.
– Exactly! And then I would name my characters things like God and Satan, and it would be like, “Satan has died of dysentery.”
See, people don’t think trees are as cool as animals.
– No, not really. Trees are fascinating; animals are all lame.
– Oh, don’t even!
– Well, they can move around for their environment; a tree’s stuck!
– I know! Look at the adaptation of plants compared to animals; animals are lame.
– I like animal behavior. Look at this!
– That’s what interests me. Hound’s tongue. One of the most…
– It just looks amazing!
– It looks like animal food. But it’s an invasive species. Think about how it crossed all the way from Eurasia to this country.
– Through the poop of other animals.
– Exactly! It grabs on and develops little hooks, like Velcro.
– Pooping is the answer to all of this. Bird nest identification is really difficult unless it’s a specialized bird, like a bowerbird, who hoards fancy things, or weavers, or woodpeckers…
– What about ravens, though? You could probably identify them by their shine.
– Yeah, by size. Eagles and hawks make poop walls and stuff.
– Smells like…
– Like air? Like angels singing. Smells like… quiet. As the crow flies, it’s now a third of a mile. I saw a fox earlier down there. What’s the genus and species of fox?
– Vulpes vulpes.
– Why the double names?
– Emphasis. There’s extra vulpe-y? Should be right up here! So, look around here. It’s around here?
– I thought it was right… should be right here.
– In the middle of the road? It’s right here somewhere.
– Could it be, uh, right here?
– There it is, yep, that’s it. Found it! It’s like Easter Sunday! There should be more somewhere right around here. There’s a bit of bone right here. That’s awesome.
– Here’s more. I feel pretty awesome that we found it so quickly; it’s literally in the middle of the road. Well, I said, imagine, I was standing right there, and I was taking a layer off, and I was like: “Oh, that’s a bear skull.” We might need that shovel.
– Yup. ‘Cause it’s still kind of… frozen on top. This looks like the scapula right here; it’s been broken; this is going to be the humerus, and then this looks like the cervical vertebrae, but it might also be the os coccyx. Hard to tell at this point. Finding all the ribs over here. Is this all you expected, Emily?
– Yeah, this is great! I mean, I thought it was almost… I mean, when I came out here, it was like the rib cage was all one piece, the skull was right by the rib cage, on top, and then there was an arm, and then there were the legs; they were sort of attached…
– Alright Emily, what is that? This bone?
– Yeah. Looks like the hyoid bone.
– Yeah, it kind of does. The hyoid, or it might also be part of the sternum, but some of those bones tend to be a little fatter. It’s got a ton of scarring on it from muscle attachments, and it’s another kind of aging indicator. All this additional growth around the edges, around the tubercles and that kind of thing. This is an ulna right here, which is part of one of the arm bones. It’s where the claw fits right over there. It attaches in there. Pretty neat.
We came to find some bones. We found some bones. And now I feel like Santa Claus going down the mountain with a bag full of goodies. Instead of sliding down a chimney with them, I’m going to take them to my lab and clean them up.
Good evening. Welcome to my lab, where I clean the bones of bears. I have a trash bag full of dirty bones. You might be wondering if we’re going to put them in the dermestid colony, and we’re not going to do that because, as you can tell, there’s really not a lot of flesh left on these. So, I’ll be scrubbing them clean and then we’ll be putting them in a bath of hydrogen peroxide, where they will sit for the next 24 hours or so. This will help get rid of some of the smell and whiten the bones, making them nice and pretty for the collection. I’m not trying to scrub each one of these bones spotlessly; I’m just trying to remove the majority of dirt, mud, and grass, so I’m doing a quick scrub.
There’s a really good sign of arthritis right here. These are the thoracic vertebrae, and you can see at the bottom right here that there’s additional bone growth that curves upward, which you don’t see on the other side. That overgrowth of bone is a sign of arthritis. Here’s another really good one. This one is super obvious. You can see where the bone just started growing all the way around. It looks like an epiphysis, which is the end of a bone that fuses to the rest of the bone when an animal is growing. You can see on the side here, it’s pitted, and it looks like cheese a little bit, and it was growing around and attempting to fuse with the other vertebrae.
Bath time for the bear! Let’s see if we can fit the entire bear in here. Making sure everything is under the level of where the water and peroxide will be. We try to cram as many bones as possible into a container, mostly to save on peroxide, as it’s kind of expensive. This is 30%, so we need to use extra caution because this is ten times as potent as the stuff you can get in the drugstore. If you spill this 30% on your hand, you’ll probably burn your hand. So, we’re going to try not to burn our hands today.
And this is the fun part! Oh, this is reactive. You can see all the gas coming off of it; that’s kind of fun. Now we play the waiting game.
And we’re back! Ready to dump some stink water. The smell? It’s like when you have to clean the drain in your bathroom. I had a roommate, and I love her to death, but she had really long hair, and about once every other month, I’d get the joy of taking a coat hanger and fishing out what could only be described as a new species of mammal from the drain itself; it smells like that. It smells like a lot of rotten soap scum hair.
One time when I was doing this, I wasn’t wearing a face guard, and I had two bighorn sheep skulls that were soaking overnight in a big tub. One was wet, and I grabbed it by the horn and was letting the peroxide water drain off of it, and it slipped out of my hand. I was leaning right over the sink, and I got a huge splash of nasty peroxide water in my face, and that was the day I figured out how to use the eyewash station.
Looking at these little pits, we call it pitting on a bone; it’s more evidence of arthritis. This one, especially, has little holes in it. It looks like Swiss cheese. You don’t want your bones to look like this; it’s an indication of loss of density and it’s painful. This was an old bear.
Look at this. That’s really bad. This is calcified cartilage. There’s cartilage that connects the ends of the ribs to the sternal bones, so you have these sternal bones, and this is all supposed to be cartilage, but it’s hardened over time and turned into bone. So it looks like little cheese sticks that you get at a fancy Italian restaurant.
Okay, we have 1 hyoid, 1 axis, 1 atlas, 25 other assorted vertebrae, 13 right ribs, 14 left ribs, 2 scapula, 2 humeri, 2 ulna, 2 radii, 1 left femur, 1 left tibia, 1 left fibula, 1 calcaneus, and a bunch of other paw bones and assorted random things.
We have most of a bear!
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This version removes any inappropriate language and maintains a focus on the educational content of the transcript.
Bear – A large mammal with thick fur and a short tail, found in forests and mountains, known for its ability to hibernate during winter. – Bears are important to the ecosystem because they help spread seeds and nutrients through their droppings.
Skeleton – The internal framework of bones that supports and shapes the body of an organism. – The human skeleton is made up of 206 bones that provide structure and protection for our organs.
Bones – Hard, rigid structures that make up the skeleton and provide support and protection for the body. – Bones are essential for movement, as they work with muscles to help us walk and run.
Nature – The natural world, including plants, animals, and landscapes, not altered by human activity. – Studying nature helps us understand the complex interactions between different species and their environments.
Plants – Living organisms that typically grow in soil, have leaves, stems, and roots, and use sunlight to make their own food through photosynthesis. – Plants are crucial for life on Earth as they produce oxygen and provide food for many organisms.
Adaptations – Changes in physical structure, function, or behavior that allow an organism to survive and reproduce in its environment. – The thick fur of polar bears is an adaptation that helps them stay warm in icy habitats.
Invasive – Referring to a species that is not native to an ecosystem and causes harm to the environment, economy, or human health. – Invasive plants can outcompete native species, leading to a loss of biodiversity.
Species – A group of similar organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. – Scientists discovered a new species of frog in the rainforest that has unique coloring and calls.
Anatomy – The study of the structure of living organisms, including their systems, organs, and tissues. – In biology class, we learned about the anatomy of a frog by examining its organs and body structure.
Arthritis – A condition that causes inflammation and pain in the joints, often affecting older individuals. – Arthritis can make it difficult for people to move their joints, but exercise and a healthy diet can help manage the symptoms.
