Can anyone ID this skeleton?

[Hypnagog]

I was out and about a few months ago and found this partial skeleton in a ditch surrounded by beer cans.

I wondered if it was from a deer.



There are more (and larger) pictures on my blog if anyone wants a closer look along with a close up of the mandible and teeth.

http://hotchpotchblog.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/finding-bones/


Thanks

 

[superc0ntra]

Hard to tell w.o the horns. Deer or Goat?

 

[Goatboy]

Hi Hypnagog,

looking at the skull and especially the horn buds I'd say it was a sheep. Could be wrong not got a big screen here.

GB.

 

[Bushwhacker]

I think it's a muntjac.

 

[Oblio13]

When deer shed their antlers, there's just a pedicel left on the skull. Goats don't shed their horns, but after they die the horns slip off and inside them there's a long bone that remains attached to the skull. I don't know about sheep, but would guess that they're similar to goats. The skull in your pictures looks like it has antler pedicels, but there's something on top of them that I can't make out. Maybe someone hacked off the antlers, or something chewed them off? Around here, mice and porcupines like to eat shed antlers, when you find them in the woods they're almost always chewed up. My best guess is that that's a buck deer that died in the fall, before it shed its antlers, and that something/someone subsequently ate/cut them.

 

[leon-1]

Looking at the size of the skull in comparison to the can, the shape and size of the mandible and the position of the antler and what look like young crowns forming I am thinking possibly a young roe deer.

If that was a Muntjac I would be looking to see any signs of it having fangs.

 

[Bushwhacker]

Yeah, that skull ridge isn't right for muntjac.
Roe deer is more like it, but it doesn't look like a very large animal.

 

[blacktimberwolf]

I'm no expert but arn't the antler buds too far apart for roe ?

 

[Hypnagog]

Thanks everyone.

I've never seen deer in that area and the beer cans make me wonder if someone had taken it there.

 

[nuggets]

any pictures of its feet ??

 

[Hypnagog]

any pictures of its feet ??

No sorry. I didn't see any other bones around the area and I couldn't see the front legs.