This Friday I have a big chunk of bone for you to have a go at identifying. It’s something I came across in a stray box – I expect it belongs to another specimen, but I need to identify what species it might belong to before I can start checking. Any ideas?
Your suggestions will be most welcome in the comments section below – let’s see if we can work this out.
Looks like the posterior portion of the frontal bone of an ungulate?
…Aurochs?
That’s certainly along the lines of what I was thinking.
Elephant?
But which bit could it be?
It looks like the back of the skull of a bovid, and because it is so flat, I think it may be a domestic cow.
However, the horns seem to point backward, so I change my guess to Asian water buffalo
Ah, but horn cores can curve differently at the base from higher up, so the direction may be misleading…
I agree it looks like the frontal bone of a bovid and judging by the size a pretty large one.
may be some marine mammal? part of skull?