Osteology is the scientific study of bones. The skeletal remains of an animal contain many clues about the life of the organism. Diet, disease, and activities all leave tell-tale marks on the framework of the body. Here in the animal department, Keeper Katy is particularly interested in osteological subjects. She is currently working to clean up this group of bones that she and Keeper Jill recently excavated. Before I tell you more about them, I thought it might be interesting for the readers to do some digital osteology and try to determine from what animal this skeleton comes. If you have a guess, write a comment below and tell us what your evidence is for your guess. I’ll tell you more information soon.
It looks like some kind of canine from the jaw bone in the lower left corner. I'll need a bigger picture to further ID it.
We, my daughter and I, think it's a bear. The bones look too big to be a wolf, or small size animal. But the teeth look like they are used for eating meat, so not a horse or herbavore.
My son and I had identified some ribs and upper leg bones that made us think it was an animal about the size of a wolf or deer. The tooth on the lower left definitely belongs to a carnivore, so we'll go with wolf as our guess. The large flat bone in the middle baffled us at first, but maybe it's a shoulder blade?