Emily: Hi, Anna Goldman!

Anna: Hi, Emily! Hi, Brain Scoop! How's it going?

E: Um, what are we doing today?

A: Uh, we're gonna take Hosenose's clothes off. This anteater was born in Ecuador. Bob Tim, who was a curator in the mammal division here at the Field Museum, found Hosenose in a market for sale. He purchased Hosenose and was able to get him home. So Hosenose, uh, came back and then was eventually donated to the Fresno zoo in California where there was a contract that when Hosenose died, we would then get his body so we can prepare him for museum collection and send him back to Ecuador. 

So the process of this is: we're gonna take his skin off and we're going to basically make what's called a case skin. And so the skin comes off, we're gonna slice up the tail so that it kinda lays flat, kinda like a rug. And we're gonna salt the skin and fold it up while it dries. And then, the body is going to be dismembered and put through the flesh-eating beetles. The beetles have been hearing about this guy for a really long time, and they're like super excited.

E: Are they? Are they thrilled?

A: Yeah.

E: They're like, making signs?

A: They're like, "Where's Hosenose"?

E: "Anna, bring us the anteater!"

A: "No more possums!"

E: Are they tired of possums?

A: Ugh, they're always tired of possums. We will probably remove his guts and pickle his guts whole, just because specimens like this are incredibly rare, and we want to gather as much data from him as possible. Now you can see, he's got these huge forearms.

E: Yeah!

A: He's really strong.

E: He would use these giant claws to tear apart termite mounds.

A: Get in there and dig it out!

E: Yeah.

A: You can almost see it. And he walks on the outer edge of his hands so he's all calloused here, but he's all really soft up here.

E: So like right- right there. So I know at this point, probably everybody is horrified that I'm touching it with my bare hands. Anna, why would we not be wearing gloves right now?

A: My main question, whenever somebody asks, "why aren't you wearing gloves?" Well, why would we wear gloves? Well, we would wear gloves to prevent from getting sick. Well, we know what this guy died of, we know where he came from, we know that we're not gonna get sick from this specimen. Also, we don't use gloves because we can't grab onto it as easy. Gloves are just a barrier between you and the specimen. You actually end up cutting yourself more when you use gloves because your fingers slip all over the place.

E: Mhmm.

A: So it's nice to be able to grip and feel the difference between the skin, the fascia, and the muscle. And we also use sawdust so that it actually dries the surface out even more so that we can hold onto it and kind of create the tension that we need it to.

E: Just like, rub it all in there.

A: Yeah, it's like seasoning really.

E: Nice...
Yeah, I feel like I'm preparing a giant steak.

A: Yes.

E: So Anna, how did you get into this?

A: Oh jeez.

E: Not, like, not just into Hosenose, but like...

A: I always knew that I liked dead things. In third grade I brought a deer leg in for show and tell.

E: Nice! You just found a deer leg.

A: Found a deer leg, thought it was the coolest thing, convinced my mom to put it in a garbage bag, she was not happy,

E: No.

A: and then I snuck it out of the house and brought it to school.

E: That's awesome.

A: Yeah, the principle didn't think so.

E: Oh.

A: But luckily my mom knew I wasn't a serial killer.

E: So then, how did you end up at The Field Museum?

A: I was lucky enough to get an internship in college. So I was an intern, I was a research assistant. I did my senior project re-curating the ground beetle collection here.

E: How many beetles are in the ground beetle collection?

A: Oh god, a lot. I'm not very good with numbers.

E: Really?

A: We could dub that in later.

E: Yeah.

A: "17 million!"
So with most animals, you can kinda grab the skin and get a little bit more progress, but Hosenose's skin is really tight. It doesn't really- no- not- no movement there.

E: Do you want me to pull on it?

A: No, I don't think it's moving very much,

E: Okay.

A: so I think we're just gonna have to go slice by slice. A specimen the size of Hosenose could probably take upwards of maybe 6 hours.

E: Wow.

A: Just because of his size and, uh,

E: He's heavy!

A: Yeah. The difference in his feet as well, and since we don't skin giant anteaters all the time, we're not used to it, either. I think if we did more it would obviously take less time.

E: Mhmm.

A: Also if we weren't keeping the skin, it would take less time, but since we wanna be very careful, that's also costing us in minutes.

E: I'm not really in a hurry.

A: No?

E: No, I'm not.

A: No, I'm not either.

E: This is pretty fun.

A: Look at that tendon. Ooough.

E: Ooooh.

A: Yeah.

E: Oh, that's crazy! You can see it move.

A: Yeah. That's the good business right there.

E: That's so cool, you can watch it relax and tense.

A: Yeah.

E: So squishy when you...

A: Wooowww.

E: That is massive!

A: It's real pretty.

E: Yeah it is.

A: And so this little tightness right here is where the wrist is. 

E: Yeah.

A: So it was all banked up in there and closed up. That's where it attaches to the muscle. So the muscle's all up there.

E: That's so cool. I keep going back to this muscle here. One of his arm muscles is connected all the way, uh, to the bottom of his ribs, like his sternum ends right there,and if you go over, this is where this muscle attaches for his arm. It's huge! And he has like really floppy biceps. Like they're... they're just... unreal.

A: How big is your forearm? Let's see your forearm.

E: My forearm? Like... that big.

A: Yeah, this guy's just a little bigger. 

E: Ooh. And I've been going to the gym, too.

A: Yeah. Mine...

E: He's so heavy. Other- th- like, he's very- he's very dense. So it's kind of hard to navigate around him. Plus his legs don't want to move. He's got this, uh, tendon that connects right back here so his leg can't extend fully. Um, you see where there's all this like tissue, his kneecap is all the way up here. Um, and he's got these funny little club feet, that are so cute. We'll just get this- this great view of his gaping butt-hole, right in my face. Not something you hear at work every day. I got feces back here.

A: Uh oh!

E: Yeah.

Michael: Oh, I better get some of that!

E: Wanna get some feces? Get some poop shots right here? Green poopy shots? Yeah, ooh, he's, uh, he's got something leaking out of whatever this end is. Whatever this thing is, some blood out of his urethra. Should probably get that checked out. He's got the weirdest poop. It's just super green. Michael, how do you feel?

M: Hungry.

A: An anteater eats ants and termites. His mouth is not big enough for anything else.

E: They don't have teeth, do they?

A: Nope. Just a real long tongue.

E: I cut through the, uh, urethra. There's the hole, right there. Right there. Where the urine comes out. And, uh, there's the other side of it. And he's kind of got this inflated, uh, outer area. And, uh, that's the anus, and what's coming out of there is green poop. Green poop. I- For whatever reason I wouldn't have though it would be green.

A: That's the best kind of poop.

E: Green poop?

A: Green poop.

M: What's the worst kind of poop?

A: Orange poop. Orange poop.

E: Orange poop, it just runs. When I first walked in here today, there was an intern dissecting a beaver and, uh, she had some paper towels on the floor and she, uh, apparently the beaver peed all over the floor. It died with a full bladder and then, eh- it leaked.

A: That is also a good lesson to take home as well: pee does not disappear when you die.

E: Yeah!

A: There's always pee.

E: There's always pee. You gotta watch out for the pee.

A: Yeah, let that be a motto for your life.

E: You always gotta watch out for the pee.
That looks traumatized.

A: This I- These I think are his lymph nodes.

E: Oh cool!

A: Yeah, so I think these are lymph nodes. This little cluster of gooey things, right around his neck. Makes good sense. Slicing the tail up the middle, but the skin is slipping.

E: You'd normally just cut around the anus and then you can kind of grab the base of the tail and grab, uh, the skin and be able to just pull it off, kinda like pulling off a sock off your foot inside out. Um, but his tail's too long and too bushy and too thick.

A: These little tendons don't wanna let go of this tail.

E: No, there's so many tiny little tendons, too.

A: Yeah, they're like, "Don't go! We've been together for so long!"

E: How old was he when he died?

A: Thirty.

E: Thirty?!

A: Yeah.

E: Really? That seems pretty old for an anteater.

A: You grab onto it and what you're trying to do is basically pull the tail out of the skin. You're not trying to pull the skin off.

E: Yeah.

A: And once you get that position with your hands you can actually feel the tail let go in the sheath of the tail and it just like, it just pulls out. So you pull more with one hand than the other. But something like this obviously isn't gonna...

E: It's not- It doesn't wanna give.

A: Yeah, it's not gonna slip out like rodents' do.

E: Their skin is really thick, too. Don't they, uh, they use their really bushy tails- they're so long because they wrap them over their heads and help keep 'em, uh, cool.

A: Yeah.

E: It's like having a built-in fan. Built-in shade.

A: Well that's why... they're so wiry, too, because they, uh, they live in really hot humid environments and they wanna- they need their fur to be able to breathe. It sucks, 'cause I think I have the fur, but I just have the fur and the skin is slipping, and... You wanna hold it?

E: Yeah.

A: Okay, wait wait wait. I don't want that little tip to break off.

E: Yeah.

A: 'Cause it looks like he broke his tail.

E: Yeah!

A: It goes to a little...

E: A little nub.

A: Yeah.

E: It's at the very end. Whadjya [what did you] do, Hosenose?

A: Okay.
Wait wait wait. Ooh ooh, ooh ooh!

E: Ooh?
Aww no.

A: So close!

E: We're so close.

A: That's okay. He's just gonna have to keep this part of his tail. We just finished pulling the tail off.

E: Yeah.

A: Hooogh.

E: Aaaauugh.

A: Um, and now we're going to basically pull its shirt up over its head. Its neck is so long, too, mostly in other animals the ears would be coming up really soon.

E: Yeah! I noticed that. But he has such little ears. Might not be...

A: Yeah, and they're all the way up there.

E: Yeah. Wow. He has a big neck.

A: He does have a very big neck.

E: I've never done anything like this.

A: We're making progress.

E: Yeah. I feel like Julia Child. "Yeah, a little bit of sawdust."

A: "Rub it in!"

There we go.

E: I have- like, have all of my force into this.

A: Ohp, that's an ear.

E: Oh, you've got one?

A: Yeah.

E: It's always exciting when you go over the ears.

A: There we go. Ohp. Ohp. Oka-Owp. Okay. Ohp. Okay...

E: Yep?

A: Ohp!

E: Okay. Ohp!

A: Aawp.

E: Aaaa

A: Ohp.

E: No?

A: Okay.

E: Alright.

A: Okay.

E: My hands are getting tired.

A: Ohp. Oop. Oop!

E: Ohp? What are you doing?

A: I don't know, but I can get in there. So that's the base of his skull.

E: The back of the cranium?

A: Yes.

E: Then that's the occipital, we're looking at it from the other side.

A: I think we're like, equal strength, just like, pulling. It's really nice. 

E: Yeah! We're a good team!

A: We are a good team.

E: We should be superheroes. Superhero, uh, Anna Goldman and Emily Graslie. Mammal preparators! Fighting crime...

A: Together, they will skin this anteater.

E: fighting... yeah, I don't know.
He has no sagittal. He has no muscles on the back of his cranium. Like, it's all bone, right there, you can just see it straight up.

A: Well if you think about it, he doesn't need muscles to chew,

E: Oh that's true.

A: or anything like that. Woah, I think... we've got...

E: Fatty cheek? Eyeball!

A: Nope, eyeball! We've got the eye.

E: I'm afraid I'm gonna like- you're gonna cut all the way through the nose and I'm going to just fly back into that beaver over there.

A: Well, it's crazy how long his face is,

E: Yeah!

A: I keep on being like, "welp, we're getting close."

E: I would say you're probably two thirds of the way there.

A: Yeah. This is where his nose is.

E: It's gonna be good.

A: Okay, okay, so we've got the end of the lips.

E: We're so close.

A: So now I wanna be very careful to follow the lips. Kay, maybe we gotta flip him over.
It gets, uh, really close to the palate of his mouth,

E: Oh yeah.

A: so like right here is like the spot that I just can't... Yeah.

E: get under.

A: Whatever that was.

E: Something coming out of his face. You got a little bit of snot there, Hosenose.

A: Hmm.

E: So close!

A: I give up! It's over! Garbage!

E: Nooooo!

A: Garbage can!

TO BE CONTINUED

(14:11)
M: Next time on The Brain Scoop: Will Anna give up?

A: Garbage! Garbage can!

E: Nooooo!

M: Will the beetles go hungry? Will Emily find true love? Find out next week, on The Brain Scoop.

E: It still has brains on it.