What is this? - Page 2

If we could see the teeth better and a top view of the skull, it would be easier to identify. Do they have other pics and/or the approximate size of the animal?

Just that pic, but I think cage may be right.  Look at the skull on the side in the picture......see the bone sticking out like it is oddly........Look at this picture, exact same thing.......and it's a wolverine skull.   http://www.boneroom.com/casts/images_bc/mammal_wolverine.jpg

Wolverines don't have that long of a skull, nor do they have that many molars. 

http://www.dinosaurcorporation.com/wolverine.html

On second look, the molars are too pointed for a bear.  Looking more like a wolf.

http://www.dinosaurcorporation.com/wolfskull.html

Hard to tell how big the animal is.

How large is it? It definitely looks like a cat to me. The snout is too short to be a bear.

Edit: okay, after consulting my Mammalian Osteo-Archaeology book, it's the skull of a raccoon. Teeth are the most important thing in identifying remains, and the last two teeth in the lower jaw are flattened. If this were a true carnivore such as a cat or a wolverine, they would be sharp, like a dog's carnassials. the large teeth used to shear through meat and crunch bones. 

The skull in the picture looks slightly different because it's from a juvenile raccoon, and the growth plates aren't fully closed yet.

I spent close to a year examiing and identifying animal bones for a university course I was taking, so I'm pretty sure of my I.D.









 

Would help if we knew what Country???

USA, Indiana, OP said.  (waves@Lennard!)

I'm going with raccoon, too, after a comparison with Ss's picture-link. Besides, it does make the most sense, being how common they are in the USA. I rather was hoping it was a youngish, maned-lion, but that's just the dreamer in me! 

What really throws you off in a "guess this" photo is the lack of anything to indicate scale. 

I looked at a few skulls and Raccoon is the one that seems most similar.. the molars and the curved jaw are the giveaway. 

Speaking of shooting, I used to have the skull of a female raccoon. If you looked closely, you could see the cause of death was an overdose of lead...there were two shotgun pellets embedded in it.

I lost the skull when I took it to Comparative Anatomy class one day, then later left it behind in the cafeteria. (No, I didn't accidentally give one of the cafeteria staff heart failure: it was in a paper bag, and the staff would have just assumed it was someone's lunch leftovers, and chucked it out.)  : (  If I'd still had it, I would have recognized the animal in that photo right away.

My professor said it was from a female, because the front surface of the canines was worn completely smooth and shiny. The females click the upper canines against the lower to communicate with their kits.