This week I’ve decided not to opt for an Eastery mystery object and stick with skulls – hopefully nothing too difficult, but enough to be a challenge. Any idea what this skull belongs to?
As usual I will try to respond to any questions comments or suggestions below.
Good luck and have a lovely Easter Bank Holiday!
Zygoma 
It looks most like a fox, but not quite. It’s not a coyote and the teeth are wrong for a badger.
Excellent – not a badger or coyote or fox, but definitely a carnivore!
Long and relatively flat, which has to narrow things down a bit. Its a moderately sized animal from the scale, and the sagittal crest looks large, while the teeth look carnivorous. My initial thoughts are in the direction of a procyonid or viverrid, from the number of cheek teeth.
Ooh, good initial thoughts…
Hmm… well, if that’s on the right lines, my next thoughts are leading me to a beast with (oh, I’m rubbish at these subtle clues, but let’s try anyway) a tautonymous nose? I’m not hugely confident of that, but it seems the best fit for the moment…
That’s a great subtle clue! It’s not a Coati though – I’ve done one of those before.
Oh, yeah… I knew that. Ahem.
But if I’m on the right track family-wise, I can’t imagine there’s may species that would have a skull that big. Moving away from the procyonids, the versions of the other group that live in Africa and the larger bit of India would be about the right size, and their heads are around the right shape too… so maybe one the other of those?
Very good…
Well, I have to plump for an individual species at one point, and the two do look very similar, from what I can tell. So… I’ll say India.
I think it’s a carnivore- but not a Carnivore. I haven’t checked, but I think there are too many teeth at the back, and the angle of the lower jaw looks weird – I’d guess that there’s some serious convergent evolution here so I’m going wild with a Tasmanian Devil.
That is pretty wild! Alas, it’s not right though. It is actually a Carnivore…
Oh poo! Then I’ll be even wilder and suggest a binturong.
Ooh, in the right ball-park…
Red Panda?
Cooler…
Is it a ringtail skull?
Though I’m not sure if they are classed as carnivores- since a lot of “carnivores” tend to actually be omnivorous.
It’s not a Ringtail, although there are several species of mammal which go by that name. I assume you’re referring to the Ring-tailed cat Bassariscus astutus. These are members of the racoon family, so they are Carnivores (with a capital C) despite being omnivorous.
Yes I meant Ringtailed Cat.
(Still me by the way…logged in under my wordpress account now)
African Civet?
Daubentonia madagascariensis
Dang – so I jumped the wrong way at the final hurdle. Got to admit, there’s not a lot of difference between the two, though…
Mongoose?
Not quite, but not too far off…
Has this been solved? So… it’s a Carnivore, it’s housecat size-ish and might have omnivorous tendencies… I was going to suggest something like a viverrid, as the skull is not ‘long’ enough for a mustelid (pardon my untrained language!), but it’s too big for a mongoose, so it could be a civet of some sort….
I’m really curious now! 🙂
Carlos.
It’s a bit bigger than a housecat, but you are definitely on the right track!
Cynogale?
Very close, but not quite.