The split roe buck deer skull

The splitroe buck skull has been in the peroxide for a week (together with the young red deer). The peroxide cleans up the bone and makes it white. I was careful to only put it in the peroxide up to its antlers so they didn't go white. Here's what it looked like when in the peroxide.





These look like full grown antlers with three points. deer antlers don't get any more than three points. They are about 16cm in a straight line from the base to the tip. Roe deer antlers start growing in December and stay in velvet until June or July when they are fully grown. These look full grown so this deer must have died between July and November or December. Roe deer antlers are really knobbly at the bottom, different to red deer.

The skull only has the three molars left on each side, because it looks like the pre-molars have just fallen out after it died. The molars feel loose. They are adult teeth, and still feel sharp if I run my thumb over them. Because they are adult teeth, I think this deer must be at least a year or 14 months old. Because they are still sharp, I think it must be younger than four years.

This skull isn't in good condition. You can see it is slit down the centre of the nose so the front part of the skull is in two halves. A deer skull is made up of lots of different parts, and if you look closely they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. In this one, something has forced the two bits apart, and they won't close together again.

I don't know what caused it to split. Maybe someone pulled it apart afterwards, or maybe something forced it apart, like it filled with water and the water froze, or something like that.

Here are some more pictures showing the split in the skull.

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