This week I have another unidentified specimen from the Dead Zoo collection for you to help identify:
The skull is 8cm long, so not a huge critter. Any ideas what it might be?
Have fun!
Zygoma
Adventures in natural history collections
This week I have another unidentified specimen from the Dead Zoo collection for you to help identify:
The skull is 8cm long, so not a huge critter. Any ideas what it might be?
Have fun!
Zygoma 
The tympanic bullae make me think of mustelids. All the premolars are there, maybe Martes genus. But there are many species. Maybe too big for the fishing one. The American and European ones are the smallest but I don’t have morphological criteria
Looks like I’ll pine for an answer.
So not one of the “United” family, but rather one from the Wild Wood who took over Toad Hall? Is that the consensus?
Baum! That’s sweet! But is it a New Found species?
Maybe the invader, what done for our water voles.
Poor Ratty. I knew him, Horatio. Dagnab you Wild Wooders. And the close relatives you rode in on.
Low, but perceptible, sagittal crest, and it looks to me as if the side view (top photo) shows nuchal crests as well. And skull roof sutures fully closed. I take it that this time we at least have a grown-up?
Adult I think, but on the young side.
Wonder if he can retract his claws? Hmmm . . .
Perhaps a bit…
In the bottom photo, the close-up of the teeth, it looks as if the upper carnassial is a bit “outboard” (further from the centre-line of the skull) than the teeth in from of it. In my attempts to figure out Paolo’s previous puzzles, I’ve looked at pictures of a bunch of Carnivoran skulls: this feature (the apparent outboard placement of the upper carnassial) is one I’ve noted in a number of Canids and Mustelids, but not in other families. Though I don’t put much faith in this subjective impression.