After last week’s fiendishly tricky mystery object I’ve decided to give you a much easier one. Any idea what this is?
As usual I will do my best to answer your questions and provide guidance – good luck!
Zygoma
Adventures in natural history collections
Zygoma 
What size is it ?
It doesn’t look catty or doggy or sheepy or deery.
Ah yes – I forgot the scale bar in this one (slaps wrist) it’s about 4cm long if I remember correctly.
Doh! I didn’t remember correctly at all! The skull is 7cm long – sorry!
A carnivoran juvenile?
Ooh, that would narrow it down…
It’s something with a massive zygoma anyway. It seems not to have any teeth apart from that front fang, 4 cm. So something that cuts and chews? Purely from the mechanical point of view, a beavor???
I think that the front ‘fang’ is actually the premaxilla, so no cutting or chewing with that.
Meerkat? Honey bear?
I don’t think I meant Honey bear….
Honey badger perhaps? Snookum bear? It’s not one anyway! Nor is it a Meerkat I’m afraid.
Sorry if my mobile phone has been publishing the same comment over and over …
Just trying to narrow it down. Are we maybe in juvenile pinniped territory?
I don’t believe it would be… lil pinnipeds usually come with teeth since they nurse for a very short time before mom leaves them.
Not pinniped but definitely juvenile.
Does it have a really big nose?
Not exceptionally so – certainly nothing like an elephant or tapir.