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Reply received - from teh guy in charge of prepping specimens for the Fla Museum of Natural History at UF here in Gainesville -
"Sure, the best way to get a nice intact turtle shell is to clean off as much tissue as possible and them put in into a dermestid beetle colony to eat the rest of the tissues. That's what we do here in the museum. The beetles eat every bit of the soft tissue and leave a nice, cleaned and articulated skeleton or shell in this case. We maintain a beetle colony on campus to prep museum specimens. However, our colony can unfortunately only be used for museum specimens. But you can also achieve similar results by placing the shell next to an ant colony on your property and let the ants remove all the remaining tissue. Maceration in water can also be used, but that will disarticulate the bones of the shell, which I don't think is what you want. I think using ants is the best way to achieve the results you are looking for. Just watch for other wildlife that may want to run off with it as well!
I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any additional questions!"
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