![]() ![]() Going through this process, the unknown partial skull pictured above has a complete orbit (an ungulate), two lachrymal foraminifera (a cervid). Imagine you are wandering through the forest and you find a broken skull such as below. For the interested reader I also have keys I have developed for my courses to identify skulls if you would like such please email a request to NRTG. ![]() A caveat here: rather than littering this blog with photo after photo to demonstrate structures, I am afraid I must task you, gentle reader, to look up some of these features (for example moose nasal bones). These are only a teaser and focussed only on the skull of animals larger than a beaver the tips and tricks to do this successfully from all body parts could fill a book (and may soon do so… a project I am working on). Here I provide some general pointers to help you identify a found species from little evidence. This is where forensics meets wildlife biology. All is not lost, we can often (not always, but frequently) correctly identify to species based on relatively small amount of material. This is where identification skills are challenged. But, and I suspect this is your experience as well, we frequently don’t encounter whole carcasses in our rambles, but rather bits of skeleton disarticulated and scattered weathered, broken, or chewed upon. Being able to identify a species from a carcass or even whole skeleton is not that difficult. Yes, I am that guy that stops on the roads to check out road kill behaviour that has really honed my wildlife identification skills. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |