June 27th, 2020 at 7:59PM
oddarticulations: “Here’s the front view of the super old male zoo bear whose spine I sorted in the video posted on my page. He suffered horribly from rheumatoid arthritis, resulting in bony growths all over his skeleton, including his skull. You...

oddarticulations:

Here’s the front view of the super old male zoo bear whose spine I sorted in the video posted on my page. He suffered horribly from rheumatoid arthritis, resulting in bony growths all over his skeleton, including his skull. You don’t often see a straight-on view of the skull of this species. From this picture alone can you guess what species of bear this is? Answer will be posted on Saturday
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_X3u_uhgRv/?igshid=1xgspsweitpe4

(via fumblebeefae)

  1. vannjaren said: @oddarticulations Ah, very interesting! I wasn’t so sure on my initial guess of sloth bear, since despite the tooth gap, the other teeth seemed to have very heavy wear, and I thought that was maybe not so fitting with their diet, so an old spectacled bear fits. In hindsight, the skull also looks more boxy than I would have expected, but wasn’t sure if it was just the angle, but now knowing the species it makes sense!
  2. oddarticulations said: @vannjaren you’re very correct that sloth bears are naturally missing two incisors to help with eating, but the bear pictured is actually a very old male spectacled bear. I don’t know how/when he lost those two incisors, but they’re not normally missing like in sloth bears. Great guess, though!
  3. vannjaren said: Sloth bear? I think I recall something about them having a gap in the upper incisors as an adaptation to their more insectivorous diet
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193 notes #he looks like mushroom
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