Saw this on cryptozoology.com
http://www.cryptozoology.com/gallery/display_picture.php?id=2972
Any ideas,what it could be?

I'm almost sure that is an old lion skull. The angle the picture was taken makes it look distorted. Get pictures of a side anngle or top angle and it will look like a lions.

That's a bear skull 100% certain no way it can be a lion. I'll post photo's of a brown bear and a lion next to each other and you can see the difference. Cats faces are way shorter then that, although that bear has a short face too. The canine teeth of a lion are also much bigger then a bear. I have the largest privately owned collection of Skulls in the western United states. I can photo and post just about anything you want to see where skulls are concerned!

For comparison, the skull on the left is from a black bear that squared 6'6". The skull on the right is of a hyena that weighed 198.6 lbs. All I could see of the hyena peering through the brush was its eyes so that's where I put the 300 gr. Nosler Partition. Hence the missing skull tissue.

Hunter, seems conclusive, I'll let them know.

My uncle is a Ph.d zoologist/mammalogist retired from a lifetime of wildlife study and academe at MSU. I sent him the link for his opinion. He emailed the following back to me:

"The MSU Museum or most other ones with systematic collections have skulls for comparative study.
The photo doesn't show the back of the cranium, but what does show indicates that it is an ursid. I can't recall what the skull of a sloth bear looks like, but I suggest that the owner go to the natural history museum in Chicago, New York, Boston, College Station, Lubbock, Washington, Berkeley, London, Tokyo, Paris, Los Angeles, etc. and compare this skull with one of Ursus arctos." .

remember, biologists have only recently (last 10-12 years) "Admitted" that canine and ursa are closely related...

Museum Quality Skull Replicas - Carnivores: http://www.skullsunlimited.com/carnivores.htm

Sloth Bear:


Grizzly/Brown Bear:


African Lion:


Spotted Hyena:

I would like to look at the teeth(molars and premolars). lions and bears and canines all have differnet molars and premolars(structure....is it a purely cutting tooth like a feline, cutting/crushing like a canine or mostly crushing like a bear).

The picture is good but it is a little too close and we need a side view. At first glance i would say bear......

It looks like it could be the skull of a brown hyena, the nose appears a little to long to be a bears skull. If you look at the top of the skull it appears to come almost to a point, just like the hyena post above where the bears skull is more round. I'm curious to know what it is myself.

Jeez, clearly the same as Hunter's Hyena. Shades of the Beast of Gevaudan, circa 1764!

IF they know what they were doing when measuring that skull I think it has to be a lion or a brown bear...the cryptozology site says the skull measures 17 3/4 " by 10 1/2".....a 28 and 1/4 skull is a very nice bear or lion and ~8" larger than the largest hyena listed by SCI.

Without a better picture I still think it is a bear....

-phil

quote:

IF they know what they were doing when measuring that skull I think it has to be a lion or a brown bear...the cryptozology site says the skull measures 17 3/4 " by 10 1/2".....a 28 and 1/4 skull is a very nice bear

Thats my take. A damn big bear at that.

Miss Ursid was my 4th grade teacher. She was a real rag. I think that skull is her.


Dutch

No, your honor, I attended correspondence school...

Maybe it´s a heliophant? Ask Winnie P or P.I. Glet as they´ve hunted several of these.

This is a very interesting skull. I have to say it looks like someone is playing a practical joke here. My first and final impressions were that it is a bear species. It is almost certainly not a lion or hyena skull. I can not see the sagital crest (back of cranium), which is very pronounced in a hyena for attachment of the extremely strong jaw muscles. The carnacial teeth (premolars) of a hyena are extremely stout for chomping through heavy bone, stouter than that of a lion. The snout is too long for a lion and the nasal cavity area seems very pronounced, possibly suggesting a very keen sense of smell, as one might find on a bear. I can not see the molars, but on a lion, they would all be relatively sharp for cutting hide/flesh, with no flat grinding molars. I can not see from this angle, but if there are flat grinding molars there is little doubt that it is a bear of sorts.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Dutch44:
Miss Ursid was my 4th grade teacher. She was a real rag. I think that skull is her.


Dutch

QUOTE]

After doing some research I find that Winne P.Uh and P.I. Glet hunted hephaclumps and not heliophants. They still might be of help though so contact them for data.

The teeth wear and some of the secondary maturational changes in the skull are c/w an old animal. Some of the skulls shown in comparison are from much younger examples of the representative species. I would guess it is an old hyena.
Paul

I'd put my money on it being a hyena.

Cheers,
Canuck

DNA

The only African bear I´ve heard of is one that has been extinct for millions of years and the only fossil findings are from the Western Cape.

It´s a hyena.

End of story.