I is for Invertebrate Skeletons? It's Impossible!

The story 'de jour' this year, has been the growing realisation on Faceplant, and other [anti-]social media sites, that a lot of the skeletons on offer in the piles of polymer crap, being flogged off the back of what is supposed to be a thoughtful day of genuflection, for our own mortality and the memories of those who have gone before us, are actually completely bonkers, and I mean kecks-on-your-head and pencils-up-your-nose, shell-shocked bonkers! Not least because some pertain to be the internal skeletons of animals with exoskeletons, and others - the skeletons of things which normally have neither!

 

In my defence, I had already begun, over a month ago to shoot them in situ, when a post on 'The Darker Side of Science' alerted me to the bigger picture and the fact that I was not the only one, if not actually late to the party!

Shot first but seen third, this was in the big Farnborough Asda, under their George label, and as I had by this point seen the two below, had an idea for a short post, ergo: the shelfie was executed, and here's a spider skeleton, of course!

 

The one I'd seen first, Sainsbury's had these out quite early in September, so I'd walked past them dozens of times hoping the display might magic itself some bags of 'army-men' skeletons, zombies or the like, no such luck of course, but the ridiculous spider skeleton was tempting, at only three quid, but a bit big? Two-quid cheaper than Asda, it appears to be the same moulding!

 

And Morrisons also had these out before October I think, however they then ran-out after I'd stated collecting the shelfies and I found myself going back several times looking for the restocking, which, but the time it came, had led to me discovering their yellow-ticket scheme is better than Sainsbury's, with the result my freezer box is full of strawberries and raspberries at 29p a punnet! It's a larger design than the other two.

Amanda Bussell has come up with a  lovely psychological hack for accepting all these weird and wonderful creatures into your house, life, or wargames army! Just imagine they are the crazed output of a mad 'Dr. Moreau' type scientist! And yes, that is the skeleton of a boneless mollusk!

 

István Xpali found this larger, articulated spider 'skeleton' in his native Hungary, at 7000 Forints (about £15) it's at the expensive end of the cryptozoological spectrum!

 

The octopus again, all jelly in real life, and another large, articulated spider, from the price I'm guessing it's a lawn ornament around two or three feet long? It's also a particularly evil looking thing with all those dead eyes!

 

Meanwhile, Nicole Marie found this, err . . . it has to be said doesn't it? I have to write this shit down . . . a pumpkin skeleton!!!! In Jo-Ann Fabrics, an Ohio-based haberdasher's chain in the United States. It's a PUMPKIN . . . SKELETON! And there are smaller ones on the shelf below!

Suddenly this lobster, shot by a Toni Delany looks fecking sane and normal! Another internal skeleton for a creature better-known for its exoskeleton, almost easier to take than most of the others, because we know them to be large, hard'ish things?

 

And finishing this section of found stuff, is another huge outdoor display spider, this one about five-foot across, and owned by Dani Dennan. There is a good video on YouTube which looks at many of them here, and Clint's Reptiles (also on YouTube) does a yearly round-up of the whackier new-entrants to the genre, I was going to post another link, but most of his stuff is 'normal' so you're better off doing a search for "Halloween Invertebrate Skeletons".

Meanwhile, I hade made a purchase myself, not much safer ground, being equally, or more of a fantastical beast, but having grabbed the snake in Poundland or wherever it was, a few years ago, I couldn't resist another reptile!

Posed here with an unknown figure I think may be an interim-period Supreme, maybe? It was a fiver in Morrison's and with the snake, directs my Games Workshop army project - rather on hold, but a long-term gaol - toward a reptile mounted army, you can probably fit three or four old-school GW riders between the two sets of hips/shoulders!

Back to Asda for something else and saw these, which appeared quite late (last week) and were about Action Man/G I Joe size, which suggests a gag which could scar a child for life, coming down to breakfast and finding that the horrid little shelf-elf ate your doll in the night, and just left the bones still in the clothes!

 

While I was taking all the other shelfies I shot this rather fine, life-size rat, in Morrison's and you can see giant bats behind, with the same flimsy thread of elastic they had fifty years ago, when they tended to be joke-shop rack-toys over here, and Halloween was something other people did!