Sunday, June 17, 2012

Death in the Duff





Mountain was working a groundhog in the hedge, but she could not quite reach it, and the soil was rock hard.  She was in a good location and so I just waited for her at the edge of the field, glad she was going to get a little energy wrung out of her before we went home. Gideon and I were already pooped from a dig just a few minutes earlier, but Mountain had had to play honor guard on that one. 

While we waited, I noticed a patch of fur and just a few feet away, small bones.  Can you guess what this creature was, based on skull and fur?

I now have a very complete skeleton in a bag -  backbone, ribs, leg bones, shoulders, hips, skull, even toe nails.  It's rare to get a skeleton as complete as this one is unless you've boiled the animal clean yourself.  I'm pretty sure I could articulate this one pretty well with nothing but a glue gun.  It would be a fun project for a grade school class.
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1 comment:

M said...

My guess is that opossum wasn't just playing dead.