Skull

A skull that I brought from my last research trip to Gunma.
This was my first time to find a skull in the wild and I could not figure out which animal's skull it was. So I asked Dr. Fukuda, a mammal specialist, who kindly told me that it was the skull of a Wild boar. He said that this one must have been shot by a hunter and butcherd near the stream.



I suddenly remembered that I had learned how to determine ages of Wild boar in the biology experiment class. So I searched for the handout.
Dental formula can tell the attribution of the animal. Although some of the teeth are already missing from this skull, you can see three cavities of incisors, which are characteristic to Wild boar since deer and Serow have no incisor.　And this one has emerging permanent canines and two molars each on one side compared to three of mature adult. So I guess this is one-year-old Wild boar.

ちょっぴり勉強しただけなので、いろいろ間違いがあるかもしれません。何か気づいたことがありましたら、教えてください。

そして、見つけてくださったＹ先生、突然の"鑑定依頼"にすぐにお返事をくださり、詳しく教えてくださった福田先生、本当にどうもありがとうございました！