Friday mystery object #101 answer

As promised, here’s a quick answer to last Friday’s mystery object:

The big nuchal crest (ridge running along the back of the skull that meets the sagittal crest) points to this being a carnivore.

The large auditory bullae (the bulbous bits on the underside of the skull which relate to hearing) and very rounded notch in the occipital condyles (the bit of the skull that attaches to the atlas vertebra of the neck) suggest a cat, since dogs have a more V shaped notch and smaller bullae.

This is the back of the skull of a Leopard Panthera pardus (Linnaeus, 1758), in fact it is part of the same specimen as mandible F from last week.

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