Cattle (Bos taurus) are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates widely kept as livestock. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae. The skeletons are considered to serve as one of the didactic equipment’s because of which, for or several years the skeletons of various animals are assembled and mounted for to make use of them in identification of animal’s remains, in archaeological as well as forensic studies. The widely utility is for academic purposes i.e., comparative studies and anatomical variations. Various educational institutions do undertake the skeleton preparation procedures by various methods, however to get a huge bovine, weighing a ton and with 06 ft tall height and had 10ft of body length, was itself a great opportunity and challenge as well for to decide about the maceration method to be adopted. Though nowadays burial maceration is not adopted on top priority, we however had to go by the same old method, and it took us almost get the bones macerated in 130 days for the maceration and 11 months 90 days and 22 hours for getting the skeleton mounted. Skeleton preparation will always have great importance in research, museum collections against various fields not only in veterinary anatomy but also in zoology and paleontology. This will serve as a basis for various advancements in preparation techniques and applications in forensic and archaeological studies

Bovine Anatomy, Skeleton, Largest Cross bread, Gaja bull Skeleton

It is concluded that the size of any animal dictates the strength and structure of its skeleton, that is why they have strong bones to support body weight and to withstand the forces, which is one of the reasons for thicker denser bones. Therefore the maceration and assembling (or preparing skeletons) of this heavy weighted and huge sized bull even takes more time due to the increased size and complexity of the tissues and bones involved. So even if some methods are old and outdated in terms, many a times there are incidences where we have to go for the old school ones’. The animal under this study and the skeleton assembled is one of its own kind. This stand as the first one to get recognition as, the one who marked his name in India book of record- as heaviest and tallest bovine during life getting assembled post death – the pride of Maharashtra, prepared with all its bones intact, in a record time of 11 months 90 days and 22 hours

Shilpa S. Modekar Salunke (2025). Maharashtra’s’ Largest Crossbreed Bovine- Gaja: Skeleton Characterization. Biological Forum, 17(4): 50-53.