# The Skeleton Revealed: An Illustrated Tour of the Vertebrates

> What can a skeleton tell you about how an animal lives? Biologist Steve Huskey posed and rebuilt nearly 200 vertebrate skeletons, from pythons swallowing squirrels to an owl eating a cobra, to show how bones shape the way animals hunt, feed, dig, climb and defend themselves. Along the way you learn that leopard tortoises chew old bones for calcium and that anteaters walk on the sides of their feet to spare their palms.

Summary by Kersey Lawrence, Original Wisdom. Updated 9 November 2026. Page: https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2017-huskey-skeleton-revealed-illustrated-tour/

## Citation and access

- **Authors:** Steve Huskey
- **Year published:** 2017
- **Journal or source:** Johns Hopkins University Press (book)
- **Full citation:** Huskey, S. 2017. The Skeleton Revealed: An Illustrated Tour of the Vertebrates. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
- **DOI:** 10.1353/book.57048
- **Access status:** Publisher link only
- **Where to find it:** https://doi.org/10.1353/book.57048

## Tags

- **Species:** Amphibians > African clawed frog; Reptiles > African rock python; Reptiles > Boomslang; Mammals > Chinchilla; Birds > Cooper’s hawk; Mammals > Eastern mole; Fish; Mammals > Four-toed hedgehog; Reptiles > Gaboon viper; Reptiles > Leopard tortoise; Reptiles > Nile crocodile; Birds > Philippine eagle-owl; Mammals > Prehensile-tailed porcupine; Reptiles > Puff adder; Birds > Red-tailed hawk; Birds > Scarlet macaw; Mammals > Southern tamandua; Amphibians > Suriname toad; Mammals > Two-toed sloth; Mammals > Virginia opossum; Birds > Wild turkey
- **Behaviour and ecology:** Behaviour; Feeding; Hunting; Movement; Predation; Predator avoidance
- **Data type:** Review
- **Observer qualification:** Not needed
- **Discipline:** Behaviour and ecology
- **Year published:** 2017

## Detailed keywords

- **Species:** Studied: about 190 photographed skeletons of living vertebrate species, mostly snakes, lizards, turtles and tortoises, crocodilians and bony fishes, with some rays, amphibians, birds and mammals. Mammals include two-toed sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni), Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana), lesser anteater or tamandua (Tamandua tetradactyla), chinchilla (Chinchilla chinchilla), prehensile-tailed porcupine (Coendou prehensilis), eastern mole (Scalopus aquaticus) and four-toed hedgehog (Atelerix albiventris). Birds include Cooper’s hawk (Accipiter cooperii), red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), scarlet macaw (Ara macao) and Philippine eagle-owl (Bubo philippensis). Amphibians include African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) and Suriname toad (Pipa pipa). Reptiles include leopard tortoise (Geochelone pardalis), Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus), boomslang (Dispholidus typus), puff adder (Bitis arietans), gaboon viper (Bitis gabonica), African rock python (Python sebae) and many other snakes. Prey posed with predators: southern flying squirrel (Glaucomys volans) with Cooper’s hawk; grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) with eastern diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus adamanteus) and redtail boa (Boa constrictor constrictor); brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) with Hog Island boa (Boa constrictor imperator); grey partridge (Perdix perdix) with red-tailed hawk; Philippine cobra (Naja philippinensis) with Philippine eagle-owl; Jackson’s chameleon (Trioceros jacksonii) with boomslang; green iguana (Iguana iguana) with Central American rat snake (Pseudelaphe flavirufa).
- **Location and habitat:** No study area. Each species account gives the animal’s natural range and habitat worldwide, including Africa (for example leopard tortoise in southern and eastern Africa; boomslang in sub-Saharan Africa; four-toed hedgehog in central Africa), the Americas, Asia, Australia and the Indo-Pacific. Specimens were donated carcasses (zoos, aquariums, fish farms and private donors); the work was done at Western Kentucky University, United States.
- **Topics:** vertebrate skeletons; functional morphology (form and structure); how the skeleton serves feeding, prey capture, swallowing, defence, locomotion, burrowing, climbing and swimming; teeth, jaws and claws; predator and prey poses; natural history and diet of each species; leopard tortoises biting through old bones for calcium; tamanduas walking on the outsides of their feet to protect their palms from their long front claws; moles digging; hedgehogs travelling up to 5 miles a night; snakes following prey by scent and warmth; conservation threats such as the pet trade, overharvesting and invasive species.
- **Statistics or models:** None
- **Data type:** Illustrated reference book: original photographs of skeletons the author prepared and posed, with short accounts drawn from general natural history knowledge. No references are cited and no dates of preparation are given. The PDF holds the book twice (pages 3 to 354 and again from 355 to 707).

## Synopsis

### 1. What they did

Steve Huskey, a biologist at Western Kentucky University, presents a photographic tour of vertebrate skeletons. He explains that a skeleton protects organs, stores minerals, makes blood cells and, above all, works as a system of levers that muscles pull on to create movement. Because movement underlies behaviour, the skeleton can tell us how an animal feeds, moves and defends itself, for living species and for fossils such as dinosaurs.

Each carcass (donated by zoos, aquariums, fish farms and private donors) was set in a life-like pose, cleaned by flesh-eating beetles and carefully rebuilt. Many are posed in action: striking, swallowing, fighting or holding prey. Each photograph comes with a short account of the species’ range, habitat, diet, behaviour and the skeletal features behind it.

### 2. What they found

The book is a survey, not a study, but its accounts include many details of how skeletons shape behaviour. Examples:

- Feeding: the slingjaw wrasse shoots its jaws further than any other animal; pythons “walk” their skull over prey using movable rows of teeth on the roof of the mouth; boomslangs open their mouths nearly 180 degrees to reach their rear fangs.

- Bones as food: leopard tortoises have a keratin beak strong enough to bite through old bones, which they eat for calcium.

- Claws and feet: the lesser anteater’s front claw is so long that they walk on the outside of their feet to avoid digging it into their own palms, and use it to tear open ant hills and termite mounds.

- Digging and travel: eastern moles have an extra wrist bone, the “mole’s thumb,” that works like a sixth finger for shovelling; four-toed hedgehogs may travel up to 5 miles in a night.

- Hunting and fighting: red-tailed hawks drive prey such as grey partridges to the ground with talons and wings, then often eat part of it there before carrying it to a perch; rival wild turkey males fight with the sharp spurs on the backs of their legs.

- Defence: opossums, porcupines, hedgehogs and tamanduas each have their own ways of facing predators, from feigning death to quills and slashing claws.

### 3. What they concluded

The author concludes that by simply examining the skeletons of living vertebrates, one can learn a remarkable amount about how they survive: who their ancestors were, what they eat and how they catch it, and whether they fly, run, jump, burrow, climb or swim. The evolution of the skeleton remains a source of wonder.

### 6. Other technologies, skills or innovations

- Carcasses posed in life-like positions, cleaned by flesh-eating beetles and reconstructed bone by bone, then photographed, with photo editing by Tressa Tullis and Matt Tullis.

### 7. Implications for conservation (from the paper)

- Several accounts describe threats from people: overharvesting for the pet trade (the Hog Island boa, nearly removed from the wild in the 1980s and since rebounding) and for fur (chinchillas, still critically threatened in the wild); habitat loss; and released pets becoming invasive (lionfish in the western Atlantic, Burmese pythons, African clawed frogs).

### 8. Implications for tracking (Original Wisdom's observations)

_These are Original Wisdom's observations, not the authors'._

- Knowing the bones of the foot and claws helps explain the tracks an animal leaves, for example why a tamandua walks on the outside of their front feet.

- The leopard tortoise account is a reminder that gnawed bones are not always the work of carnivores or rodents.

## Cite this summary

Lawrence, K. 2026. Summary of: The Skeleton Revealed: An Illustrated Tour of the Vertebrates (Huskey, 2017). Original Wisdom, Tracking Literature. https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2017-huskey-skeleton-revealed-illustrated-tour/