This week I am have a great guest mystery object from Andy Taylor for you to have a go at identifying:
Here’s what Andy says about the specimen:
On Sunday, myself and Sophie Bagshaw were working through specimens that were donated to me from a person who had been given them by a zoological park. The specimen in question was part of a huge shipment of almost 140 frozen specimens that were in various states of preparation and were mostly head specimens. … I have a large rodent skull that I’m struggling to ID
Andy and Sophie have been doing great stuff with osteology for educational purposes for a while now, so it was a real pleasure to get a question like this, and it seems like a perfect opportunity for the community here to add their thoughts.
So, what do you think it is? Let us know below!
Zygoma 
Could this be a D…a p…a? (sorry, could not think of anything cryptic)
I think it’s a very close relative 😉
from the middle America?
I’m thinking a bit further south…
Thank goodness we don’t have to go squirrely trying to figure this out. Just hystricarical.
A bit big, and the orbits much too round, to be the North American Er……. do…… (sorry, I’m no more cryptic than Wouter!). The outlines of the molar/premolar teeth don’t seem quite right for an African species with a similar common name that I found on the WWWeb. But definitely (thank you, Kateedmonson, for the puns) hystricarical!
plus Er do has orange incisors
Nerp! Lacks the ear periscopes!
Spiny rat?
It would be a particularly huge spiny rat (scale in inches not cm!)
Oh rats! It really aperead I was cave in in to a genus. But I am back to seeing red!!
this one is smaller than the Bigfoots of western US…. is this the salty tail?