Skulls: An Exploration of Alan Dudley’s Curious Collection. I'll cover cleaning and preserving skulls in another post, but for this one I want to provide you with some identification guides and tools to use to identify the bones and skulls you find. The most effective means of identifying a skull to species is with the use of a dichotomous key. Omnivores - Omnivores eat both meat and plant material. This skull belonged to a woodchuck, a.k.a. Small holes (fenestrae) in many of the skull bones. Skulls is a beautiful spellbinding exploration of more than 300 different animal skulls—amphibians, birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles—written by New York Times bestselling author, Simon Winchester . This feature alone makes lagomorphs distinctly different from rodents. Rodents are also transmitters of dangerous diseases.
Animal Skull Dentition. Rabbit: order Lagomorpha . There are many different rodent species located throughout the world.
This is an outstanding book for anyone with an interest in skulls. NOTE: I just added a post on animal skull ID using teeth and dentition. For a more complete animal skull identification guide, we highly recommend the following books. Owl pellet contents: small mammal bone identification guide. Rodent skulls are distinctive, but it's possible to mistake a rabbit skull (order Lagomorpha) for a rodent. The key was the length of the skull, but first the rodent identification. Rodents are common and formidable pests in human dwellings. They may thrive in urban or rural settings and are known to cause considerable damage to buildings. This is an example of a rodent skull, with bright orange incisors (Photo: Mike Simpson, Flicker Sharing).
The jaw musculature is strong. A great example can be … Books. Rodent identification. For a more complete animal skull identification guide, we highly recommend the following books. In my previous post about animal skulls I provided you with some basic animal skull identification resources, but in this post I want to help you begin to narrow down what type of animal skull you might have found. Animal Skulls, A Guide to North American Species. Was it a mouse? Something else?
A dichotomous key allows a person, through a series of questions, to identify an organism to species by process of elimination. A brief pdf handout with detailed photos of the skulls of California seals and sea lions. Below is an example of a dichotomous skull key. Rodent groups differ in the arrangement of the jaw muscles and associated skull structures, both from other mammals and amongst themselves.
Rodent molars are well equipped to grind food into small particles. If you have seen something that looks like a rodent in your house or on your property, you may wonder exactly what kind of pest you just saw.
Each rodent can become a nuisance pest, but only a few of them pose real health risks to people. Use the identification chart below to identify the remains of a rodent that may be found within an owl pellet. Photos of owl pellet contents – a guide to help identify the bones of small mammals found when dissecting and analysing Barn Owl pellets. Mole? Rodent Identification. groundhog, Marmota monax. Notice the long incisor teeth, and the molars at the center of the jaw. The lower jaw is thrust forward while gnawing and is pulled backwards during chewing. Rabbit skulls resemble those of rodents, but there are some distinct differences.
Elbroch, Mark, 2006. Guide to Identification of Pinniped Skulls of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. Vole? Stackpole Books.