Evans Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 On Tuesday I scheduled a little time in between customer site visits to scout out four areas of interest. This was supposed to be a quick visit and back on the road as I only had about an hour to kill. Three hours and one upset customer later I left the first site (I never made it to the other three sites) with the collection of what I presume to be bison bones and one canine skull in the attached pictures. The bison bones, and please correct me if you have other ideas, were found in a stream bed with the exception of the rib. It was found half way eroded out of an embankment almost at water level. The embankment was about 25 - 30 feet high. The canine skull was also found half buried in the stream bed. I need help with the ID on this. It does appear to be mineralized to a point but I have not made a certain determination on that yet. I have not been able to compare it to any modern domesticated dog or coyote. The lack of of a prominent sagital crest is giving me some problems. I believe this area was once inhabited by the Mexican Grey Wolf up until recent times and have not yet ruled that out as a possibility. But again, it may simply be a lost mutt that fell off the embankment the rib was buried in. Just curious on this one. Thanks, Brian Brian Evans For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Nicholas Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 Great finds and skull! I hope you get an ID soon, I'll look through my files and see what I can dig up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bmorefossil Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 now thats a sweet skull awsome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoenixflood Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 Here is a link for a site with a lot of canine skulls Click Here! I'm thinking Dire wolf or red fox, perhaps fox because of the size? Nice find, I don't know about the white teeth though? The soul of a Fossil Hunter is one that is seeking, always. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roz Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 Nice finds for sure, especially the skull. Have only found one skull and turned out it was a young deer, old but not fossilized. In part of the skull is what looks like mineralization but I can't tell for sure. The teeth do look too new, but I guess that can be deceiving. Welcome to the forum! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommabetts Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 I am thinking cow bones and a coyote skull, they just look too resent to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreekCrawler Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 [ perhaps fox because of the size? Hmmmm...too big to be a Fox! Coyote,Dog,Wolf I'm going with Coyote! B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoenixflood Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 [ perhaps fox because of the size?Hmmmm...too big to be a Fox! Coyote,Dog,Wolf I'm going with Coyote! B Yeah, your most likely right What was I thinking. Yeah does kind of look like the skull on the website I posted. The soul of a Fossil Hunter is one that is seeking, always. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 phoenix, what happened was you were struck by the thrill of discovery and got brainlock. happens to me all the time. then again, could have been a fox with a thyroid problem, huh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoenixflood Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 phoenix, what happened was you were struck by the thrill of discovery and got brainlock. happens to me all the time. then again, could have been a fox with a thyroid problem, huh? Perhaps but what's throwing me of is the ridge in the back but noprominent sagital crest in the front Besides, us Middleeasterns have killed off most of our big predators. I never had a chance The soul of a Fossil Hunter is one that is seeking, always. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 i see wear on the sagittal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreekCrawler Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 Hmm... I just measured my 80 lb Labs Skull for reference to the photos above. My Lab is one of those taller types and is very large. Anyway her skull is 10" to the tip of her nose.Which leads me to believe that the skull above might be larger than a Coyote. Oh she is extant, so there would be a little shrinkage in the length. B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pristiformes Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 I agree fully with mommabets determination of a recent coyote skull and some bovine bones. If you wanted to decide if it was a coyote versus a domestic dog, you can take some simple measurements, as taken from a skull key by Carl Ernst: Rostral width less than 18% of condylobasal length, is coyote. Rostral width more than 18% of condylobasal length, is domestic dog. Rostral width is the inside width between the canines. In the skull in question, since the canines are missing, measure between the holes where the teeth would be found. condylobasal length is the longest length of the skull, measured from the anterior-most tip of the snout to the posterior-most portion of the skull. Take these measurements carefully, to the nearest millimeter. This key is really very simplistic since we've all heard of dogs and coyotes interbreeding (coydogs) and we all know that Canis familiaris, as a species, has an incredibly variable osteological morphology (think of all the different breeds). Neet skull though, I would keep it in my collection even though it looks recent. A coyote skull in my comparative material collection has a condylobasal length of 193 mm while its rostral width measures 21 mm (10.9% of the condylobasal length). Jason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJ Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 I agree, Barry. It seems to large for a coyote and the proportions are wrong. It is also too small for an adult wolf and the frontal is too large. Brian, I think it may be a dog (fig. 17-3). The human mind has the ability to believe anything is true. - JJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoenixflood Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 I agree, Barry. It seems to large for a coyote and the proportions are wrong. It is also too small for an adult wolf and the frontal is too large. Brian, I think it may be a dog (fig. 17-3). You may be right. I know that I don't know You made me think of one thing to consider with your post is age, it may be a juvenile. The soul of a Fossil Hunter is one that is seeking, always. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Siphuncle Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 Snout too robust for fox - I have a couple fox skulls at the house and they have more narrow, delicate snouts and jaws. Looks a bit different from the yote skulls I have too - a bit too wide across the base of the snout. Grüße, Daniel A. Wöhr aus Südtexas "To the motivated go the spoils." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pristiformes Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 It seems that the skull is a bit large for a coyote, but I don't think that, in and of itself, is cause to rule out C. latrans. The three I have in my collection, from FL and AR, are all smaller than the one in question. Based on the photo, the one in question measures roughly 8.5 inches (216 mm). The three I have measure 187, 193, and 198 mm in length. It is the ratio of snout width to skull length which is diagnostic between man's best friend and a coyote (see my earlier comment). The size of the skull gives only a rough clue as to which form of canid you've got. In order to rule out gray wolf, measure the diameter of the socket (from front to back, which is the widest width) where a canine would be, if it is more than 12 mm, it may have come from a gray wolf. The total length of the skull, again based on the photo with the ruler, seems to be within the minimum length of a gray wolf. In the mammal key I have in front of me, gray wolf skulls are said to normally be at least 210 mm in length. Since I estimated the unknown skull to be about 216 mm based on the photo, it would seem that you'd have to measure the diameter of the canine socket in order to rule it out. The canine width of the coyote skulls I have measure about 10-11 mm from front to back. Let me recommend picking up a copy of a skull key to N.A. mammals, such as: Skull key ot adult land mammals of Delawere, Maryland and Virginia, published by Carl Ernst in Chesapeake Science 16(3): 198-204. (1975). What I'm getting at here is that in order to be as accurate as possible as to your determination, you'd really have to do some measurements and rule species out systematically using a key. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evans Posted November 21, 2008 Author Share Posted November 21, 2008 Thanks for all the feedback on this, its interesting to explore a find that I have never had before whether it turns out to be recent or not. Jason, thanks of the tools to start to figure this one out. The measurements as you requested are as follows and correspond to the attached pictures: Rostral width - 25mm Condylobasal length - 213mm Ratio - 11.7 % Canine socket diameter - 13mm Thanks again to all that responded. Brian Brian Evans For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evans Posted November 21, 2008 Author Share Posted November 21, 2008 Sorry about the last post, I added the incorrect picture for the condylobasal lenght. Brian Brian Evans For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramo Posted November 21, 2008 Share Posted November 21, 2008 I would guess dog. I've skinned a lot of coyotes and have a couple skulls in the shop, and I am fairly certain that it is not a coyote. As for wolf, I don't have a clue I guess it could be from a wolf. For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun. -Aldo Leopold Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pristiformes Posted November 22, 2008 Share Posted November 22, 2008 Thanks for all the feedback on this, its interesting to explore a find that I have never had before whether it turns out to be recent or not.Jason, thanks of the tools to start to figure this one out. The measurements as you requested are as follows and correspond to the attached pictures: Rostral width - 25mm Condylobasal length - 213mm Ratio - 11.7 % Canine socket diameter - 13mm Thanks again to all that responded. Brian Okay, so based on the narrowness of the snout versus the skull length, you have excluded man's best friend from the list of possibilities. However, given the width of the canine socket (> 12 mm) it would seem that you cannot exclude the gray wolf. However, given that the canines are no longer with the skull, and the key asks for the width of the canine tooth base, we might think that the socket is slightly wider than the base of the canines. Looking again at one of my coyote skulls, one of its canine teeth measures 10 mm in width at the base, while its socket is closer to 11 mm. This gap might have been filled with the gum around the base of the tooth in life. Anyway, I'm not sure where to go from here. I think it might still be a coyote, but it might instead be a gray wolf (do gray wolves live in that area?). Either way, it was fun keying it out and we learned a bit about canid anatomy in the process! I'll defer to a mammalogist now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramo Posted November 22, 2008 Share Posted November 22, 2008 Here is a coyote canine socket photo. Hope this helps. For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun. -Aldo Leopold Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommabetts Posted November 22, 2008 Share Posted November 22, 2008 The Mexican Red wolf was native to the area but was killed out a very long time ago. Parks and wildlife did reintroduce some back in Texas about 15 years ago but I haven't heard how they are doing now. The last one I seen in my area was about 10 years ago. Some did cross with coyotes, producing a larger coyote. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJ Posted November 22, 2008 Share Posted November 22, 2008 Okay, so based on the narrowness of the snout versus the skull length, you have excluded man's best friend from the list of possibilities. ... OK, I'll risk being taken to the schoolhouse.... How can a dog be ruled out so easily? There is a large variation in the skulls of different breeds. That being said, the frontal on the skull Brian found seems to be much longer than a wolf's. In addition, the zygomatic process on a wolf has a different form. The relative location of the z. process to the zygomatic arch is farther back than a wolf's. I'm not an expert, but I guess the form of Brian's find doesn't seem to fit wolf, coyote, or fox to me. OK, hammer those keys...what am I missing? The human mind has the ability to believe anything is true. - JJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommabetts Posted November 22, 2008 Share Posted November 22, 2008 I personal don't think it is a wolf either, at most it is a coyote, but most likely a dog. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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