Despite our goal to keep as much of the specimen intact as possible, unfortunately, due to a suspected perforation of the stomach the specimen had to be gutted to prevent digestive leakage. Following this the skin was completely removed from the medial half of the pectoral fin, and we began working laterally. This unveiled the origin of the muscle block was actually in 3 places: the meta-, meso- and prop- terygium. The colouration of the colour block has also become
One of the large difficulties with working laterally was as the fin became thinner, it became harder to separate the fin from the cartilage skeleton, and easier to damage the pectoral structure.