I hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas, apologies for the late posting of the answer to Christmas Friday’s mystery object, but better late than never. I must admit that this was a bit of a cheat, because I have posted one of these before, but this time it had antlers and it was gift wrapped:

Without antlers it proved tricky before, but this time only a few of you got to see it at all (I assume due to Christmas). Jim is the only one to have identified it this time, although KateKatV took this opportunity to remind me about a bit of silly season science from a few years ago – something that might merit a blogpost all to itself…

With no further ado, here is the unwrapped object:

This is a male Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) skull from my personal collection. The antlers give it away since they lack brow tines and have a particularly rough coronet (the bit where the antlers meet the skull).

Hopefully I’ll get to do a mystery object this Friday – but it’s not a certainty. If not I’d like to wish you all a Happy New Year now!