Help me ID a whale skull
July 11, 2015 6:04 PM Subscribe
Found a good-sized skull off the NC coast and I'd love to know the species. Possible odotoceti/toothed whale?
We found a whale skull on South Core Banks, an island at Cape Lookout National Seashore in SE North Carolina. Obviously we didn't take it home so I don't have actual measurements or the greatest photographs, but I used my hand as a maskeshift scale. Here are shots of the front, underside (we found no tooth sockets), side, and back.
The general shape (short snout and a huge space for the melon) make me pretty sure it's a kind of toothed whale, even though it's lacking teeth on at least it's upper jaw, but after comparing it to the skulls on SkullsUnlimited, nothing looks quite right. Maybe it's a calf? And help would be awesome, and thanks in advance!
We found a whale skull on South Core Banks, an island at Cape Lookout National Seashore in SE North Carolina. Obviously we didn't take it home so I don't have actual measurements or the greatest photographs, but I used my hand as a maskeshift scale. Here are shots of the front, underside (we found no tooth sockets), side, and back.
The general shape (short snout and a huge space for the melon) make me pretty sure it's a kind of toothed whale, even though it's lacking teeth on at least it's upper jaw, but after comparing it to the skulls on SkullsUnlimited, nothing looks quite right. Maybe it's a calf? And help would be awesome, and thanks in advance!
Response by poster: edgeways I think you totally nailed it. Looking at some photos, I can see that the skull we found is missing the eye socket and part of the zygomatic arches, and the beak is worn down. Yay, thanks!
posted by Drosera at 6:31 PM on July 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Drosera at 6:31 PM on July 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by edgeways at 6:19 PM on July 11, 2015