#mustelid skull

[thiss-too-shall-pass]

American Badger

[pacificremains]

Second wee American badger skull. RIP baby.

[beardless-bearded-vulture]

Finished cleaning this male beech marten skull, sourced from roadkill

[hiddenstashart]

the saggital crest is a bony structure on the top and back of the skull of some carnivorous mammals, where the temporalis muscle (one of the main muscles responsible for chewing) attaches to the sides of the skull.

generally the larger the crest is, the larger the mastication muscle of the animal to which it belongs.

the illustration above is the skull of a fisher - a member of the mustelid family, along with weasels, otters, wolverines etc.

photo credit for the second pic is attributed to Douglas H. Domedion via Wikipedia

[chupacabracrafts]

Ferret taxidermy in progress. I carved and sculped the head using measurments and a tracing of his (still meat covered) skull

[dead-dogs-still-fetch]

Finally Home! Backyard Photoshoot

I am finally home for the summer! Decided to take this fella back with me in order to get some nice outdoor photos. Be prepared to see a lot more of my collection photos.

[shadyufo]

Mink vs Ermine

[frowningfox]

Get studied, weasel. Just some warmup weasel sketches.

[justvulturethings]

Mink skulls: male and female comparison sets! I have I think 3 in stock, $65 each. No glue or strong chemicals used whatsoever, so jaws/teeth might be loose

[doomweaselart]

Introduction time!

Hi, my name's Spike (DoomWeasel),

I like to draw Skulls, DarkArt, Animals and Wildlife with my trusty ballpoint pens.

I'm new to Tumblr so I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing yet!

But I'll be gradually adding in my art over the next few days.

[taxtiles]

Some still photographs of the polecat form I’ve created. Commission work nfs. #polecat #taxidermy #taxidermist #mustelid #gothic #naturalhistory #wip #skull #cool #wildlife #nature https://www.instagram.com/p/Co0TbV9KXDl/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[seydjk]

Gnarly, awfully natured, dangerous, sly and probably stinky old vampire is out in the woods in a hurry to find tasty looking friends! Be warned, he doesn't even leave bones behind. Old mustelid walks this earth terrorizing critters alongside with his attractive partner. His claws are sharp and his teeth are for bite, he wants you flesh and your beautiful skull for his collection. Grell loves leathery accessories with his trophies attached to them, most of his "wardrobe" was generously gifted to him by his boyfriend.

Amazing vampire idea belongs to @heremob, original character designs belongs to me. Following HTF character design for Grell was made by me, his partner - by @heremob

[pacificremains]

Old lady wolverine skull. Some of those teeth had been missing a long time. Last picture is her with one of my giant males.

[heremob]

Top coolest animals that i REALLY like (reminder i'm not a specialist/biologist or anything, i'm just super into researching animals! so if you have anything to add or anything to correct feel free to do so! i love learning :D)

Those fellas are super cool looking! they are called the vampire deers! those are a group of species that aren't necessaraly true deers, that name is given for deer lookin mammals! Thats why the Mouse-Deer (That isnt a true deer) is in the Vampire deer group because of their lil fangs

But its mainly associated with musk deers (that if im not mistaken aren't true deers) or the barking Deer! (That do have antlers unlike most vampire deers that only have their fangs >:D) that are in fact true deers.

Wolverines / skunk bear / glutton / woods devil /carcaju and etc Those angry devils, incredibly cool dudes. Even tho they look like little bears they are mustelids! a family that includes otters, weasels, badgers, ferrets and etc. Just like their cousins they are ANGY really angy >:( so don't get close because they DON'T wanna be friends (they are hard to find in the wild so that is already really hard to happen)

Starting with their habilities, since they live in extremly cold places, they developed over the years a thicc hidrophobic oily fur! basically they are 💥ANTI-WATER💥 to adapt tho those really snowy environments and survive! and also avoid heat loos because of the blood of their prey/water. They also have incredbly good smelling habilities, let's just say that isn't easy getting food in that deadly cold, they do in fact have a vast food menu that goes to fruits and dead bodies but that's not easy to find! so they have a incredibly sensitive nose to track their great meals, dosen't matter if it is freezed, they have teeth and claws made to rip off that cold meat! Personally they are my favourite mustelids :3 lov yapping about them

PINK FAIRY ARMADILLO! Look at this silly, they are the smallest armadillos in the world (around, they are super cute.

But its hard to know much about them because they don't have much info but ill try!

Why they are pink? They are this collor because of their blood vessels that are close to their shell, and that with their white fur helps them with their body temperature since they live in really hot places on Argentina's center. (un beso a mis hermanos de argentina)

But do not be mistaken because they are GREAT scavengers because of their big claws.

Smilodon Populator I myself am a big fan of ancient felines (such as machairodus and cave lions) BUT I SPECIALLY LOVE THE SMILODON because guess what? The first ever fossil of a Smilodon was found in Brazil!

Enough of yapping about Brazil and more Smilodon yapping, specially the Smilodon populator aka the biggest saber-tooth species in history! They lived during the pleistocene period (Pleistos + kainos) and those kittens lived along-side humans! Aw, How cute.

But you see, those sabers aren't really that effective, they needeed to hunt their preys surgically, trow them on the ground with their big paws, and kill them by bleeding with a SPECIFIC bite on the prey's neck, probably, because of that their sabers would break alot, thats why most of the skulls are found with one loosing tooth.

Even tho they are called the Saber-Toothed Tigers they aren't close to tigers because they are not on the True panther (phantheranae) family or ""True big cat family"' so i can say, they are on a extinct sub-family named "Machairodontinae" not close to True Big cats or Avarge Cats (felinae) even.

[pkmnprofloblolly]

Hello, saw your post about fox pokemon. What exactly are eevee? Always grouped 'em in with fox pokemon. Are they atleast canine like?

that's more of a loaded question than you might think! for a very long time, where eevee rests on the mammalian family tree is the sort of thing you could ask 10 biologists and get 13 answers, and maybe a shouting match. eevee has wildly variable internal features that make placing it in a certain spot really difficult- i'm talking like minute differences in the shapes of bones that would usually be used to identify certain groups. you might think that with the discovery of dna we'd be able to definitively place it where it belongs, but eevee's genetic makeup is remarkably plastic (changeable) and unstable. there's even quite a bit of research looking into cancer prevention based on its genome because of that (the species isn't immune to cancer, but has a much lower incidence of it than you'd expect given its penchant for frequent mutation).

so, let's talk about some mammals! particularly, a large group called the carnivora.

(note that "carnivora" or "carnivoran" sound similar to but do not mean the same thing as "carnivore". carnivores are any animal that eats meat, while carnivorans (members of the carnivora) belong to a specific branch of the mammal family tree. most carnivorans are indeed carnivores, but not all.)

so, carnivora! almost every person that's proposed a place on the mammalian family tree for eevee has placed it in or near the carnivorans. it's a group that is made up of two smaller clades: the feliforma (the cat-like carnivorans) and the caniforma (the dog-like carnivorans). the feliforma includes groups like the cats, hyenas, and mongooses. the caniforma includes groups like the dogs, bears, weasels, and seals.

some examples of the feliforms on the left, and caniforms on the right. of the feliforms we have pyroar and meowstic (cats), mightyena (a hyena), and yungoos (a mongoose). of the caniforms we have houndour (a dog), buizel (an otter), sealeo (despite the name, it is a walrus), ursaring (a bear), and zorua (a fox). you hear that right, mightyena is closer to a cat than a dog, and yungoos is entirely unrelated from mustelids (ie weasels, otters, badgers) like buizel or furret.

for an example of what i mean with the thing about eevee's weird morphology defying classification- there's this bit of bone on either side of the bottom of the mammalian skull called the "tympanic bulla" (basically just "Ear Balloon", since it's a hollow chamber). caniforms have only one chamber in their ear balloons, and feliforms have two chambers. eevee has.. both, somehow. if you took 2 eevee skulls and looked at their tympanic bullae, you might find that one has one chamber and one has two. that's.. really weird, just so everybody knows. that sort of thing isn't something you see in basically anything but eevee, same goes for its wildly variable genome.

so, is eevee a caniform, a feliform, or something else? our best answer came in the form of three extremely well-preserved fossils from the johto region, dating back to about 44 MYA, just a few million years before the feliform and caniform branches actually separated.

three pokemon were found, exceptionally preserved- including soft tissues!-, all together. they'd been buried in a mudslide and fossilized right next to/on top of each other, the mineral content of the soil just right to discourage bacterial growth, allowing the soft tissues to stay intact and fossilize as-is.

the fossils were collected and CT scanned to see the bones within the mineralized soft tissues- each of the three individuals appeared to be the same species, with near-identical skeletons. none of the skeletons showed type characteristics (like lignin or metallic structure), making type hard to discern. but what we could tell from the bones is that these were animals just outside of the carnivora- closely related to the ancestors of all carnivorans. and excitingly, they bared a close resemblance to a few skeletal features found only in eevee.

despite the homogeneity of their bones, the fossilized pokemon's soft tissues differed- the fur, in color and pattern (the fossilized fur no longer retains its color, but by looking at microscopic pigment cells within preserved fur and feathers we can deduce color and pattern!) and certain organs- around the throat area, each individual had an elemental organ like many pokemon today use to fuel and store energy for their typed attacks. each of the three fossilized pokemon's throat organ was different in elemental specialization: one fire, one water, and one electric.

(reconstructions of the three pokemon in question. top electric, left fire, and right water.)

see where i'm going, here? it's unknown if the three individuals represent three different evolutions, or three differently typed forms (like oricorio) of a singular pokemon, and a pre-evolved form is not yet known, if it existed at all. but we can say with some confidence that these guys may well have been ancestors of eevee as we know it today, which places eevee within the non-carnivoran carnivoraforms- something that emerged before the feliforma and caniforma existed, with traits found in both and found in neither.

[jaketeachesdeath]

We started, instantly made a mistake and then made more. Definitely out of practice.

But the first of the skulls to be added to the #Jakelog is done!

This juvenile Treecreeper is tiny and despite the common identification strategy of the long downward curved beak this one didnt seem to have grown into thiers. The skull is paper this and there was urgency to get this one done before all the others in the bundle.

I love Treecreepers, they say theyre unmistakable but you really have to be able to spot them first, round and round they go all the way to the sky before dropping down to meet the base of the next tree to start the insect hunting process again. Apparently even thier collective name is a spiral!

Much like Woodpeckers they have a stiff tail for balance and support and specially adapted feet with long toes and claws for grip. Unlike Nuthatch the Treecreeper only travels in an upward direction. They have this fantastic mottled appearance to blend in with the bark of the trees which are often coniferous, however most of the time we've seen them on deciduous trees.

They like to nest in crevices that they fill with light materials some would consider whimsical, spider webs, moss, feathers you know. Unfortunately they still are often predated by mammals, Mustelids often, but those sneaky Squirrels are at to along with the not so innocent Woodpeckers people often forget about as being nest raiders.

Keep your eyes open for thier mouse like spiral movements against the bark the next time youre out and about

21/07/24