Lion Skull -- Thunderer
Way back, while discussing skulls, I mentioned I'd gotten something amazing, and in honor of the return of the sun, here he is.
Ol-Kúrrúkúr, the Growling One, the Thunderer, son of the savanna. Ollie for short.
African lion skull, presumed male, I'm guessing about six years old. He was taken in Tanzania in 1988, and came from the estate of a game hunter. As he was killed 20 years ago and came to me thirdhand, I feel no remorse about taking him in.
His right upper canine was missing, so he has been fitted with a resin replacement that I covered with gold leaf. Hey, it was going to look fake anyway. This way at least it looks like it's supposed to look fake.
Note the large, forward-facing eyes and the large nasal vacuity. And, you know, notice the enormous goddamn teeth.
Ollie is about fourteen-fifteen inches long; my calipers won't open that far. He's nine and three-quarters inches across, though. And his teeth are about two inches long.
Side view showing the large sagittal and occipital crests meeting in a large prominence called the supraoccipital shield. It is to this long, heavy keel that the powerful biting muscles and the muscles of the neck attach.
A lion without fangs can still suffocate prey with its bite, so it could be said that it is this crest, even more than the teeth, that makes the lion the frighteningly powerful hunter it is. (Of course, one could argue that it's the shoulder muscles, since it's all for naught if you can't hold the wildebeest down. How about we just say that the whole damn animal is like a tawny juggernaut of death?)
Lateral view. Lions often kill by suffocation, simply latching hold and crushing down until their prey asphyxiates. Did I mention that? Yes?
Obviously, the upper right canine is fake. The others have split, which tends to happen to large predator skulls over time.
You can see that he no longer has the fine turbinate bones in the nasal cavity. For a 20-year-old skull, he's in really fine shape, though.
The wide cheekbones provide ample room for the large clamping muscles to descend from the sagittal crest. They pass under the cheekbone and run down to anchor in the wide, concave flange of the lower jaw.
Note the broad, heavy brow. Note also the thornlike prominences just behind the eye, both above and below. Many animals have these, called postorbital processes, but they are especially well-developed in cats large and small. I think they're just lovely.
Here you can see a dent in the nasal bones. Lions live a very hard life.
A view down into the area inside the cheekbone. In the live animal, this would have been filled with muscle. It's a rather terrible thought, isn't it?
A better view of the sagittal and occipital crests.
Inverted cranium seen from the rear. There are several small holes that oughtn't be here, left from when this fellow was mounted on a trophy plaque. Obviously, I've freed him from that, removed the screws, and will be treating him with a deal more respect.
The crest at the top of the skull, which is in the bottom of the picture, is the rear of the supraoccipital shield - the triangular area where the sagittal and occipital crests meet in a triangular shape. You're looking at the back edge of the occipital crests. The pitted bone provides a stronger anchor point and more surface area for the muscles of the neck.
Again, there are a few screw holes that shouldn't be there, most noticeably in the channel that receives the jawbone. I will eventually fill them with Antler-Sculpt or something.
Note how everything about this skull is built in a blunt triangle shape. Very powerful bone structure.
Palate view with lower mandible.
Cats really don't have many teeth. Lions and other cats are carnivore's carnivores; their diet includes only incidental plant matter, and as such their teeth have evolved solely for eating meat. Those big teeth in back act like shears.
Look how deep the depression is inside the flange of the mandible. You can see striations in the bone where the massive clamping muscles that come down from the saggital crest attached.
I don't really think I need to say anything about this.
Here he is with a CD for comparison. Ollie is huge, fourteen or fifteen inches long and almost ten inches wide.
He positively dwarfs Grond, who, at just a quarter-inch shy of a full foot long, is the largest wolf skull I have.
A moment of unintentional irony provided by Tazendra.
With a Canadian lynx. The Canadian lynx gets to be about 24 pounds -- about twice the weight of an average housecat. Keep that in mind when estimating size.
The skull of a Canadian lynx will fit entirely into the mouth of an African lion.
Hell, it would almost fit up his nose.
This kitten would probably fit up his nose:
That's my sister's kitten, Merkin.* There will be more pictures of kitten/skull cuteness forthcoming.
My favorite picture from the shoot.
The lion is perhaps the most formidable hunter on Earth, and certainly the pride is the most formidable hunting unit on land. The only carnivore I would pit them against in terms of combined strength, intelligence, and teamwork, and the size of prey brought down in relation to the individual, would be orca. Tigers are larger, but do not attack such large prey. And they do not attack in groups. Wolves are impressive hunters, but they don't kill elephants - and probably wouldn't try even if they knew what one was. And, folklore aside, wolves don't make a habit out of eating people.
It is a profound feeling, a terrible one, to hold him in your hands, all four and a half pounds of him, knowing that he came from one of the wildest places on Earth, that he was wild in the truest sense of the word. In a wolf's face we can see the dog, in his eyes we can see our own. We see part of our own history writ there == for all our animosity, we brought the wolf into our homes, we learned to love him, and he, us. The lion's face is not that much like a small cat's, and is far beyond that of any animal we keep near to us. Those terrible, beautiful eyes are not like our eyes. Their history is not so neatly tied to our own. We never befriended or tamed the lion.
There is a terrible wildness in a lion's face, and though healthy wolves seldom attack humans, lions, especially Tanzanian lions, have no such compunctions. It's hard not to wonder, holding him, looking at the marbled bone. It's hard not to feel awfully small and soft. We live ten times as long as lions, we have language and art and civilization. We can be beautiful, and we can even be deadly. But in our design, in our bones, we are not so terrible as this. We cannot rival this.
For those new to the show, a word about bones and ethics.
* Yes, Merkin.
Ol-Kúrrúkúr, the Growling One, the Thunderer, son of the savanna. Ollie for short.
African lion skull, presumed male, I'm guessing about six years old. He was taken in Tanzania in 1988, and came from the estate of a game hunter. As he was killed 20 years ago and came to me thirdhand, I feel no remorse about taking him in.
His right upper canine was missing, so he has been fitted with a resin replacement that I covered with gold leaf. Hey, it was going to look fake anyway. This way at least it looks like it's supposed to look fake.
Note the large, forward-facing eyes and the large nasal vacuity. And, you know, notice the enormous goddamn teeth.
Ollie is about fourteen-fifteen inches long; my calipers won't open that far. He's nine and three-quarters inches across, though. And his teeth are about two inches long.
Side view showing the large sagittal and occipital crests meeting in a large prominence called the supraoccipital shield. It is to this long, heavy keel that the powerful biting muscles and the muscles of the neck attach.
A lion without fangs can still suffocate prey with its bite, so it could be said that it is this crest, even more than the teeth, that makes the lion the frighteningly powerful hunter it is. (Of course, one could argue that it's the shoulder muscles, since it's all for naught if you can't hold the wildebeest down. How about we just say that the whole damn animal is like a tawny juggernaut of death?)
Lateral view. Lions often kill by suffocation, simply latching hold and crushing down until their prey asphyxiates. Did I mention that? Yes?
Obviously, the upper right canine is fake. The others have split, which tends to happen to large predator skulls over time.
You can see that he no longer has the fine turbinate bones in the nasal cavity. For a 20-year-old skull, he's in really fine shape, though.
The wide cheekbones provide ample room for the large clamping muscles to descend from the sagittal crest. They pass under the cheekbone and run down to anchor in the wide, concave flange of the lower jaw.
Note the broad, heavy brow. Note also the thornlike prominences just behind the eye, both above and below. Many animals have these, called postorbital processes, but they are especially well-developed in cats large and small. I think they're just lovely.
Here you can see a dent in the nasal bones. Lions live a very hard life.
A view down into the area inside the cheekbone. In the live animal, this would have been filled with muscle. It's a rather terrible thought, isn't it?
A better view of the sagittal and occipital crests.
Inverted cranium seen from the rear. There are several small holes that oughtn't be here, left from when this fellow was mounted on a trophy plaque. Obviously, I've freed him from that, removed the screws, and will be treating him with a deal more respect.
The crest at the top of the skull, which is in the bottom of the picture, is the rear of the supraoccipital shield - the triangular area where the sagittal and occipital crests meet in a triangular shape. You're looking at the back edge of the occipital crests. The pitted bone provides a stronger anchor point and more surface area for the muscles of the neck.
Again, there are a few screw holes that shouldn't be there, most noticeably in the channel that receives the jawbone. I will eventually fill them with Antler-Sculpt or something.
Note how everything about this skull is built in a blunt triangle shape. Very powerful bone structure.
Palate view with lower mandible.
Cats really don't have many teeth. Lions and other cats are carnivore's carnivores; their diet includes only incidental plant matter, and as such their teeth have evolved solely for eating meat. Those big teeth in back act like shears.
Look how deep the depression is inside the flange of the mandible. You can see striations in the bone where the massive clamping muscles that come down from the saggital crest attached.
I don't really think I need to say anything about this.
Here he is with a CD for comparison. Ollie is huge, fourteen or fifteen inches long and almost ten inches wide.
He positively dwarfs Grond, who, at just a quarter-inch shy of a full foot long, is the largest wolf skull I have.
A moment of unintentional irony provided by Tazendra.
With a Canadian lynx. The Canadian lynx gets to be about 24 pounds -- about twice the weight of an average housecat. Keep that in mind when estimating size.
The skull of a Canadian lynx will fit entirely into the mouth of an African lion.
Hell, it would almost fit up his nose.
This kitten would probably fit up his nose:
That's my sister's kitten, Merkin.* There will be more pictures of kitten/skull cuteness forthcoming.
My favorite picture from the shoot.
The lion is perhaps the most formidable hunter on Earth, and certainly the pride is the most formidable hunting unit on land. The only carnivore I would pit them against in terms of combined strength, intelligence, and teamwork, and the size of prey brought down in relation to the individual, would be orca. Tigers are larger, but do not attack such large prey. And they do not attack in groups. Wolves are impressive hunters, but they don't kill elephants - and probably wouldn't try even if they knew what one was. And, folklore aside, wolves don't make a habit out of eating people.
It is a profound feeling, a terrible one, to hold him in your hands, all four and a half pounds of him, knowing that he came from one of the wildest places on Earth, that he was wild in the truest sense of the word. In a wolf's face we can see the dog, in his eyes we can see our own. We see part of our own history writ there == for all our animosity, we brought the wolf into our homes, we learned to love him, and he, us. The lion's face is not that much like a small cat's, and is far beyond that of any animal we keep near to us. Those terrible, beautiful eyes are not like our eyes. Their history is not so neatly tied to our own. We never befriended or tamed the lion.
There is a terrible wildness in a lion's face, and though healthy wolves seldom attack humans, lions, especially Tanzanian lions, have no such compunctions. It's hard not to wonder, holding him, looking at the marbled bone. It's hard not to feel awfully small and soft. We live ten times as long as lions, we have language and art and civilization. We can be beautiful, and we can even be deadly. But in our design, in our bones, we are not so terrible as this. We cannot rival this.
For those new to the show, a word about bones and ethics.
* Yes, Merkin.