This week I have an interesting, even weird, skull for you to identify:
Any idea which species it belongs to?
It’s pretty distinctive, so if you recognise it please be a bit cryptic in your comments, to let people who haven’t seen one of these before have a chance to work out what it is.
Have fun!
Zygoma 
Arr, I’ll get on that right away, Cap’n! Now, what is it that a good pirate is s’posed to say when he’s obeyin’ an order..?
my best guess is that they are born naked, toothless and blind and belongs to the Family S…r…e. Indigenous to the Americas, Africa or Eurasia?
nope… I got it wrong. I think Chris’ comment below pointed me in the right direction 😉 its a nocturnal arboreal omnivore
Bad, mad, spooky!
This skull’s too easy- like its owner, it’s like you’re giving us the finger, Paulo!
Oui-oui! Yes-yes! Sí-sí! Ja-ja! Ydw-ydw!
Hmm quite creepy! Err! Don’t think I know it
Dm is not an abbreviation for diabetes mellitus and ET might flip you off.
It would give you the finger for not recognising it.
Ta for this Paolo.
As an absolute outsider in this kind of stuff, my first thoughts were, of course, about the incisors.
Immediately thinking rodent, or lagomorph, I began to wonder what kind of species had such lower incisors that, not meeting the uppers, might somehow still keep them short. Didn’t seem possible.
Didn’t have an answer and presumed it was just one of those things that was beyond my ken.
Then saw all the other clues that made the identity clear.
And it started me thinking about the other teeth. I presume those molars, and/or pre-molars are distinctive?
Even though this creature might not have a dry nose, it is still part of the rodent + lagomorph + one other group.
More beautifully, it is ugly, but lovely: one of the late great Douglas Adams included in his “Last chance to see”.
And, if everybody else is right (I just follow the cleverest in these matters) then it is significant in terms of evolutionary theory and another late great: Stephen Jay Gould.
In one of his books (“Wonderful Life”?) where he used the Burgess Shales as an example (and the initial work of Simon Conway Morris, which the latter repudiated quite forcefully in the ’90s ‘evolution wars’) he used the woodpecker as an example of the contingent nature of evolution inasmuch as it doesn’t always converge upon the same good ideas.
That is, he claimed the woodpecker niche, and/or method, was not replicated or replicable.
The thing is that his definition was vague, and his exclusion of this particular ghost creature kind of relied on his changing his definition…
One of the great writers on the history of science. One of the greatest advocates of evolutionary thinking in a nation that could do with it.
Possibly not one of the better actual theorists on the subjects though…
AnywAy, I’m going with everybody else’s guess, and berating myself for not noting those molars and premolars….
Not that I’ve had guessed anyway, but I might have go closer.
Basically, you guys are too clever for me.
Still enjoy this anyway. Ta.
As opposed to the bee -bee or see see .
i’d be Mad if i had no Gas in my Car and ran into this thing at night.
i want to post a cool link talking about this lil beast, but i’ll wait till later next wee as to not give it away. thanks to those clue above guys.
I… I enjoyed the way people hinted at the identity!
It is amazing how many mammalian clades have produced critters with enlarged incisors (one pair down and, give or take rabbits, one pair up). Even among primates (broadly construed) there have been numerous examples: if it had looked like old fossil instead of fresh bone…
Thank you for thislong-running and very enjoyable series!
This little guy is good at flipping the bird….
Yes yes, I think quite a few of us have it this week. Though he may flip me off if he found out I initially thought he might be a baggy little old lion.
I showed this critter to my son…needless to say the 8yr old immediately saw the value of such digits…including the possible velocity a removed bit of nasal protein could attain.
Gross!
ok it’s thursday, i’m going to post this page:
http://retrieverman.net/2012/01/17/aye-ayes-keep-their-middle-fingers-cool-when-not-in-use/
sad they are not appreciated locally for the fantastic evolutionary twist they are.