Fluorescent light, red dye, and gelatin are the ingredients of an emerging photography technique that allows scientists to better visualize the skeletons of animals.

Researchers who study vertebrates have long relied on what’s known as clearing and staining—stripping specimens of their soft tissues and coloring the remains with red dye—to take detailed images, used to examine anatomy and the relationships among species. But stripped of ligaments and musculature, skeletons can be flaccid, making them difficult to prop up and photograph from certain angles.

“There's so many different pictures you just can't get,” says Leo Smith, an ecology and evolutionary biology professor at the University of Kansas, who helped develop the new technique. “If it’s a catfish, it’s going to sit