groundhog skull

In this post I will talk about my groundhog skull, and why I think it was young.

the groundhog dental formula is:

I : 1/1   C : 0/0   P: 2/1   M: 3/3 = 22    (11x2=22)

or

upper: 2 ; 0 ; 4 ; 6

lower: 2 ; 0 ; 2 ; 6

which means:

a groundhog has 1 incisor, 0 canines, 2 premolars and  3 molars on each side of the top jaw, so they have 2 incisors, 0 canines, 4 premolars and 6 molars on the top jaw. (12 teeth)

they have 1 incisor, 0 canines, 1 premolar, 3 molars on one side of the upper jaw therefor has 2 incisors, 0 canines, 2 premolars and 6 molars on the entire bottom jaw. (10 teeth)

ground hogs have 22 teeth.

--

Unfortunately, I do not have the lower mandible of the groundhog. But the cranium has room for all 12 teeth (some fell out post-mortem, but all the teeth have grown) I have one incisor, 6 molars, and 2 of the premolars on my skull. There are only 3 teeth missing.

Compared to my groundhog bottom jaw (not from the same animal) this skull has sharp teeth, suggesting this skull is young and\or the other animal from which I have the jaw was very old.

the 'sharp' teeth on my groundhog skull

the jaw from older groundhog

On this skull, the auditory bullae (inner ear bones), the back of the brain case and the nasal bones are missing.  I know that in deer, when the back of the brain case is missing it is a sign the animal was young. Also, the bones are not fused, which in most animals, means the animal was not fully grown. (It is possible that the brain case has been crushed, but because of the lack of fusion in the bones and sharp teeth I think it is more likely it is missing because the groundhog was young and the piece of bone just fell off.)

The pictures show the missing auditory bullae and braincase. In the first picture,  you can clearly see the bones that are not fused.

In conclusion, this groundhog had all it's teeth, but they where not worn down. That means that the animal was not as old as my groundhog jaw. The bones are not fused, causing the brain case and auditory bullae to detach and no longer be on the skull, And that happens to young animals. And that is why I think the skull was from a young groundhog.

old moose bones

a couple weeks ago my dad and i went to a different forest, i'm not sure what it was called. We walked for about 5 minutes and we found a ground hog skull! I think someone must have placed it there, because there where no bones around, and it looked 'perfectly placed'.. it just didn't seem natural. oh well, its a skull either way. It made me feel very lucky that we found something so quickly, and i hoped we would find more. Well, my wish came true!


Maybe 10-15 minutes after we found the skull, i saw a bone from a distance. When i went to check it out, I realized there wasn't 1 bone, but a lot of bones! there were some vertebrae, 2 scapula, ribs and a lot of leg bones (femur, tibia, fibula, etc.) . Unfortunately, there was no skull... but i did keep the 2 scapula, and 2 vertebrae.

after that, we started seeing bones EVERYWHERE.
here are some bones we saw that i didn't keep:

a very large bone (do not know what it was)... could only be from something as big as a cow, horse or moose
a bird sternum, it was from a small bird.
2 deer jaws with a couple of teeth
a couple bones here and there

and other bones i did keep :

The last thing i found was definitively the best: moose bones.
Two of the reasons that they are so special is these bones are VERY old. I know this because the bones no longer felt like bones, they felt like wood, there are very large cracks in them, they are stained green and brown, they broke very very easily and Moss and plants where growing on them! the other reason they are special is because there aren't many moose in the area or any area near where i found them. The moose are all up north. Since they are old, maybe there was a now 'extinct' population of moose living in the area.

out of the bones i kept 1 vertebrae and 3 teeth (I think one is a molar and the 2 others are pre-molars). I did not take anything else because i did not know if i could get the moss and plants off, and the bones looked and felt so weak i did not know if they would last very long.Although i did not take some more moose bones, I am very satisfied with our walk!