This week I have another mystery object for you from the wonderful Galerie d’anatomie comparée et de Paléontologie in Paris:
Any idea what species this exploded skull is from?
It’s probably a bit on the easy side for some of you, so please try to give your answers a cryptic spin, to keep the game fresh for everyone. Enjoy!
Zygoma 
Ok it’s not a fruit eater!
I have an evolutionary nasal mystery: anyone interested in trying to solve it go to https://64blandford.wordpress.com/2015/04/03/nasal-cartilages-in-fossil-ape-anatomy/
One terribly lazy animal.
Oh! I just can’t be bothered. Such an effort!
Hmm… I have strong suspicions, at an ordinal level. How can I say them cryptically?
Oh, well… Observations: Weird teeth, with strangely simple crowns: this mammal’s ancestors last had “tribosphenic” teeth a LONG time ago. None in the very from to the jaws. (So… definitely not a rodent!) Interesting “pseudocanine” near the front of the lower jaw. Note that it looks as if it would occlude BEHIND the pseudocanine in the upper jaw. (This is something that happens with monsters on paperback book covers, but not very often in REAL mammals. I know of it only in connection with one “order,” hence my suspicions…)
I think the HARD cases in that order tend to have smaller teeth, so I’m guessing that this… This is a HAIRY one!
(And, given all that, it seems to me that Agata and Chris have similar thoughts.)
See these almost daily on Twitter, but the bones & teeth were a revelation to me
Might respond with 2 fingers?
Hopefully this is roundabout enough: If I were to give it a name, I think ‘Sid’ would be appropriate.