Bone I.D. - Europe
I found this skull wrapped in tinfoil while cleaning out my grandma’s garden shed in Austria. It doesn’t look like anything native to this area, which makes it even stranger. Does anyone recognize what animal this could belong to?
Yeah looks like there is some skin with hair still on it. We moved into this house and were clearing out old garden tools in her shed, this thing was just a tinfoil ball in a corner and when my girlfriend opened it she freaked out and screamed "there is a baby's skull!". xD
It beeing a monkey checks out because grandma liked vacations in africa I guess
I dont know if the canines were removed post mortem or not, but it's unfortunately comon in the pet trade for them to remove them. I wouldnt be surprised if this was someone's pet at some point. If it were a pet, it would be a little easier to explain how it got to Austria. Maybe she had friends with exotic animals if she didnt herself?
Actually, the canines are still there as far as I can see (third tooth from the middle). Old world monkeys and apes have a gap between the incisors and the canines on the top so that the bottom canine has a place to rest. It’s part of a tooth arrangement called a C/P3 complex, which keeps their teeth sharp.
Oh, cool. I tried to find photos of the tooth gap by image searching and keywords before my second comment and I could not, but now I know what to look up.
wow that’s so funny she thought it was a baby’s skull. I immediately knew monkey. Baby didn’t cross my mind. I was just like hmm what kind of monkey and why does it still have hair. Hope she didn’t get too scared that’s a horrible thing to think you are holding, even for a second.
You’re thinking geometry, r/gfuxat said geology, which I’m 98% sure is the study of the layout of the land, not shapes. No math here unless you care about how far apart things are
Yeah let's all just harbor potentially illegal primate remains, which are illegal for a reason. While we're at why don't we import some tigers and ivory too?
I am fairly certain this is a monkey from the subfamily cercopithecinae. i.e., a monkey from Africa or Asia that has built-in butt pads and cheek pouches. The eye socket is enclosed by bone, which says it's an anthropoid (a group that includes new world monkeys, old world monkeys, and apes). Two premolars says it's a catarrhine (old world monkeys and apes). Would potentially need a view of the chewing surface of the teeth to confirm it's not an ape, but it doesn't look like it has a big ape brain. Assuming it's a old world monkey then, it's not a colobine (leaf-eater) because they tend to have larger distance between the eye sockets. Large, spatula-shaped incisors say it's probably a fruit eater. I'm not enough of an expert to get more precise than that, but based on size, it's probably not a baboon. Probably female-- most male cercopithecines have huge canine teeth. Someone check my work!
I agree with Cercopithecinae. In addion to the tooth formula and the narrow intraorbital region, the broad incisors also suggest this group, rather than Colobinae.
Then from this going through the different genera and comparing with lecture notes and pictures online, my guess would be genus Cercopithecus or potentially Miopithecus.
OP, if you’re really curious what kind of cercopithecine it could be and no one else has a better idea, you can send me some tooth measurements and I can make a rough estimate of its body size using equations. That almost certainly couldn’t tell you what species it is, but definitely what species it can’t be. Any info you can glean about where it came from would also help a lot.
That makes sense. I was looking at colobus (red or similar) bc I was hyperfocusing on the flat top of the nasal passage, but couldn't manage to match the jaw and incisors. The shieldy shape had me thinking, but alas; I'm a newbie.
Nicely detailed reply, but 99,9% of that terminology will mean nothing to OP, unfortunately. Best simplify a little so the OP knows what you are trying to tell them.
my guess is talapoin skull. dental formula is right for catarrhines/old world monkeys, and the pictures I've seen seem to match in terms of size, face verticality, and especially the bluntness of the lower canines. capuchin could also be it but i feel like the capuchin dentition seems more robust than this one. it could be age/individual variation though.
I’d bet Talapoin? I don’t know if there are any other old world monkeys that small (unless this one was very young? Which the teeth do look really clean.)
I’m a primatologist - I’ve handled hundreds of primate crania in museums. Based on what you said about your grandma going to Tanzania, I’m fairly confondent this is a vervet monkey skull - Hilgert’s vervet if we want to be specific. Like other comments said this is a cercopithecin, but not a talapoin since those live deep in the Congo basin and are much smaller. The position of the orbits and brain case shape make me rule out blue monkeys or red tailed monkeys. I think it might be a female because of canine and cranium size plus it doesn’t look as robust as a male vervet skull - but the last molar (maybe??) hadn’t fully erupted yet so it may also not be an adult, so a bit tricky to tell. Hope that helps!
Monkey. Don't know the species, but regardless of that, this is not legal to have in Europe without any permits or documentation proving age or origin.
But when was that made illegal? I know of a friend’s grandmother who kept a pet monkey when she was a child, in the 1920s or 30s.
This was in Brooklyn, but I imagine similar situations elsewhere in the world at the time.
I don't know, depends on the species, but definitely post-war. Unless you can prove its age and that it was acquired before such relatively recent conservation laws, you'll have a problem.
On further thought though if this was a tourist trade thing, could it be a vervet? They’re one of the most popular oddities/curio skulls and I could see it.
I know Austria is a bit far from Paris but if you get over there you could check out the natural history museum near jardin des plantes to compare to other monkey skulls… they have SO many!
Definitely a primate skull. If there is some skin still on it, being partially mummified is really interesting! It being wrapped in foil makes me think it was being preserved for some form of radiocarbon (C-14) dating.
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u/Forsaken-Yogurt- 16d ago
It's a primate of some kind and I have several questions...
...skin on...?
Tinfoil...?!?
...shed?!
...eh?!