Wolf Skull: Thane
More pics of Thane, my gray wolf skull.
He's happy to see you!
A lovely profile shot which highlights several prominent features. Look at the blade of the jawbone and the depth of the hollow where it goes under the cheekbone. All that room is for muscle.
I love the hooked projection on the back of the jaw. It gives the skull a rather dire appearance, doesn't it?
A better view of the heavy cheekbone. The masseter muscles attach to the interior of the zygomatic arch; heavy arches indicate an animal with powerful masseter muscles. The masseter is used for lateral strength and stability, not simple open-and-close force. They are, in other words, the muscles that drive the chewing and grinding action. Wolves chew quite well.
You can also see the deep shadow cast by the occipital crest, which runs perpindicular to the sagittal crest along the back of the skull. The occipital crests mark the point at which the skull connects to the spinal column, and as such, they form an anchor point for neck muscles. Large occipital crests indicate powerful neck muscles.
Also, in this picture you can see the opening to the inner ear, immediately behind the cheekbone. The rounded area just below is the auditory bulla, which houses the structure of the inner ear. Again, larger bullae indicate a better sense of hearing. The lower range of a wolf's hearing is roughly comparable to our own, but their hearing in the higher range outstrips ours by a considerable margin. We can hear sounds up to about 20 khz, but wolves' hearing is far better, perhaps enabling them to hear sounds of up to 80 khz.
This is an interesting feature I noticed as I was taking these pictures. The bone over this sinus has thinned, eroded perhaps by an infection. You can see that the bone of the postorbital processes (the points coming off the skull and cheekbone) are rather pitted as well, slightly moreso than on the other side:
That is simply a beautiful photo. So beautiful I couldn't decide which crop of it I liked better.
There you can see one of Thane's other remarkable features.
Thane's got an old wound, a round puncture into the braincase that healed over completely.
That's a close-up view of it. I don't know if it was a bite or what.
You can see it there as a little shadow.
The fangs of the wolf are impressive. Note that the incisors are not straight and even, but serrated and interlocking. You can see it better in this picture:
A giant version of this picture is here.
The wolf's jaws are very long; the effect is at once elegant and brutish. I especially love the shadow where the infraorbital foramen opens out. Beautiful.
A palate view of the skull. Note how wide it is across the rearmost teeth. Note also the flattened surfaces of the rear molars, used for crushing. You can also see the auditory bullae here as two round prominences just above the rear of the cheekbone.
I love the shadow of the teeth in this picture.
All the better to eat you with.
Note how the upper premolar is set significantly out and down from the other teeth. These teeth, along with their counterparts on the lower jaw, are the carnassials. The teeth overlap like the blades of a pair of scissors, shearing across one another, their sharp edges cutting through meat.
You will also note that a wolf's canine teeth are not all that sharp. Most larger carnivores don't have sharp teeth when you compare their teeth to, say, a weasel's or a cat's; pointy teeth aren't all that much of a help when you're bringing down really big game, and they tend to wear down quick. The sharpest surfaces in a wolf's mouth are, in fact, on the carnassials.
And the money shot, a view straight between the teeth of one of the world's most wonderful predators. Spend some time just looking at it, the curves of the tooth rows, the curves of the cheekbone, the long, oval curves of the jaws themselves. Even in an animal as angular as a wolf, there are beautiful curves.
I have taken measurements and examined his sutures and his crests, and while I can't really guess how old he was because I'm just not that good yet, I can say that he was fully-grown. His nasal bones, the long ones atop the snout, are well-anchored and do not move. The sutures were pretty well-closed. His sagittal crest was well-developed and had advanced some distance along the front of his skull. He showed no signs of old age, though, so my guess is that he was somewhere between three and seven. He was on the large side. He's about eleven and a half inches long, which, with the width across his cheekbones, marks him almost without a doubt as male.
I've been meaning to post these for a while, and I've got more skulls to show you, too. I thought I'd start with Thane, because he is so special to me.
He's happy to see you!
A lovely profile shot which highlights several prominent features. Look at the blade of the jawbone and the depth of the hollow where it goes under the cheekbone. All that room is for muscle.
I love the hooked projection on the back of the jaw. It gives the skull a rather dire appearance, doesn't it?
A better view of the heavy cheekbone. The masseter muscles attach to the interior of the zygomatic arch; heavy arches indicate an animal with powerful masseter muscles. The masseter is used for lateral strength and stability, not simple open-and-close force. They are, in other words, the muscles that drive the chewing and grinding action. Wolves chew quite well.
You can also see the deep shadow cast by the occipital crest, which runs perpindicular to the sagittal crest along the back of the skull. The occipital crests mark the point at which the skull connects to the spinal column, and as such, they form an anchor point for neck muscles. Large occipital crests indicate powerful neck muscles.
Also, in this picture you can see the opening to the inner ear, immediately behind the cheekbone. The rounded area just below is the auditory bulla, which houses the structure of the inner ear. Again, larger bullae indicate a better sense of hearing. The lower range of a wolf's hearing is roughly comparable to our own, but their hearing in the higher range outstrips ours by a considerable margin. We can hear sounds up to about 20 khz, but wolves' hearing is far better, perhaps enabling them to hear sounds of up to 80 khz.
This is an interesting feature I noticed as I was taking these pictures. The bone over this sinus has thinned, eroded perhaps by an infection. You can see that the bone of the postorbital processes (the points coming off the skull and cheekbone) are rather pitted as well, slightly moreso than on the other side:
That is simply a beautiful photo. So beautiful I couldn't decide which crop of it I liked better.
There you can see one of Thane's other remarkable features.
Thane's got an old wound, a round puncture into the braincase that healed over completely.
That's a close-up view of it. I don't know if it was a bite or what.
You can see it there as a little shadow.
The fangs of the wolf are impressive. Note that the incisors are not straight and even, but serrated and interlocking. You can see it better in this picture:
A giant version of this picture is here.
The wolf's jaws are very long; the effect is at once elegant and brutish. I especially love the shadow where the infraorbital foramen opens out. Beautiful.
A palate view of the skull. Note how wide it is across the rearmost teeth. Note also the flattened surfaces of the rear molars, used for crushing. You can also see the auditory bullae here as two round prominences just above the rear of the cheekbone.
I love the shadow of the teeth in this picture.
All the better to eat you with.
Note how the upper premolar is set significantly out and down from the other teeth. These teeth, along with their counterparts on the lower jaw, are the carnassials. The teeth overlap like the blades of a pair of scissors, shearing across one another, their sharp edges cutting through meat.
You will also note that a wolf's canine teeth are not all that sharp. Most larger carnivores don't have sharp teeth when you compare their teeth to, say, a weasel's or a cat's; pointy teeth aren't all that much of a help when you're bringing down really big game, and they tend to wear down quick. The sharpest surfaces in a wolf's mouth are, in fact, on the carnassials.
And the money shot, a view straight between the teeth of one of the world's most wonderful predators. Spend some time just looking at it, the curves of the tooth rows, the curves of the cheekbone, the long, oval curves of the jaws themselves. Even in an animal as angular as a wolf, there are beautiful curves.
I have taken measurements and examined his sutures and his crests, and while I can't really guess how old he was because I'm just not that good yet, I can say that he was fully-grown. His nasal bones, the long ones atop the snout, are well-anchored and do not move. The sutures were pretty well-closed. His sagittal crest was well-developed and had advanced some distance along the front of his skull. He showed no signs of old age, though, so my guess is that he was somewhere between three and seven. He was on the large side. He's about eleven and a half inches long, which, with the width across his cheekbones, marks him almost without a doubt as male.
I've been meaning to post these for a while, and I've got more skulls to show you, too. I thought I'd start with Thane, because he is so special to me.