Welcome to the third installment of the Carnal Carnival, this month on the science of taphonomy.

What is taphonomy? Roughly, it’s the study of what happens to an organism after death, from decay through whatever eventually becomes of its remains. Applied to paleontology, especially, it’s a kind of prehistoric CSI in which the circumstances of an organism’s death and preservation can be investigated. It’s not a pretty science – scientists regularly observe the breakdown of extant species to study what happened to animals which perished long ago – but every bone and skeleton has a story to tell about the death and postmortem “life” of the animal it represents. This month’s crop of