I have noticed a problem when playing solo and not wanting to destroy points of interest in the environment like the bone piles in the desert or fish skeletons on the lunar island and that is that bone shards are a pretty scarce resource. They're not super valuable or even necessary but I've thought of two ways to make them more available for people like me that wouldn't be overpowered just a nice quality of life improvement. One idea is boring but would be very easy to implement, the other would add a nice element to exploring multiplayer worlds and public servers but require a lot more on Klei's part but personally I think it would be really cool to see.
Boring Solution: Make it so you can hammer deer antlers and beefalo horns for 1 bone shard (I know we have rotten fish for this already but fishing is painfully boring and merm farms are incredibly slow). This would be a nice way to supplement bone shard production and you could make a "farm" out of a deer pen with some trees in it.
Fun Solution: Boss Skeletons! Players leave a skeleton when they die, you can see the history of the world through this, but only one part: the failures. Why not let people see the triumphs as well? Imagine joining a server and walking beneath the towering skeleton of a Deerclops as you approach their base, it would give people more points of interest to build around & let them easily see what has happened in the world before they joined not to mention adding to the sense of fear & mystery for new players. Their first time seeing Bearger could be a gargantuan skeleton just hunched over in the wilderness and they get to wonder whether its a threat for the future or something ancient and long since dead. Aside from the dramatic elements of seeing the world littered with giant skeletons you would also be able to, you guessed it, hammer them down for bone shards. I think there's a precedent for this in Hamlet too with the naga boss so it wouldn't be out of place in the world of Don't Starve.
I thought about all/most creatures leaving behind a skeleton and whilst I think visually at first that would be awesome it'd be going too much in the opposite direction where cleaning up after a hound wave/farming pigs would become tedious especially if all the skeletons had collision plus there would be an over abundance of bone shards. And before anyone suggests it, yes I'm aware that I could just die and res with amulets/effigies repeatedly for bone shards but I'd prefer a more streamlined option that feels like survival rather than...abusing a game mechanic?
EDIT: Just to add, I think all the bosses have pretty characterful death animations already and then they fade away leaving behind a pile of drops, so all I'm really suggesting is that as they fade away a skeleton is left behind in the same pose their current death animation finishes on.
EDIT 2: Getting ahead of myself here but IF this idea was considered there would also then be the opportunity to add "zombie" boss variations similar to the Lunar Island pengulls, hounds & spiders that could perhaps spawn under certain conditions and be harder variations of the original with maybe extra drops? I'm thinking you "plug" the boss drop (such as Deerclops' eye) back into the skeleton (maybe some meat too and nightmare fuel in the same way you build the celestial portal) and then on the next full moon he reanimates ready for a fight. I'd even consider having the reanimated boss explode into a pile of fossil fragments (like fuelweaver does) + their usual boss drop that was used to reanimate them as a way to make fossil fragments renewable but I'm sure the lore police wouldn't like that.