..came in today after a week away to find a box with 'newborn elephant' written on it, and a load of bones in it. Alas, a quick look told me that it was in fact being used to hold a few old horse bones, that wouldn't fit in the other two boxes that had appeared... I wonder where the elephant is though? I knew we had some isolated teeth (now, that's a big thing, an elephant's molar), but I didn't know we had a baby one knocking around. Better do some work. I have to put together some new storage racks, and divide an otter and a dog up into elements (humerus, femur, metacarpals etc) to add to the collection.
Perhaps you were meant to divide them into elephants, not elements, in order to confuse future archaeologists...
<affects not to know what they're talking about> It's not that similar, beavers are large rodents, whereas otters are mustelids. The dentition alone is completely different...
how do you know though? Have you ever considered the possibility that the Otter was lying about its dentition?
NO. I've seen the dentition with my own eyes, I don't rely on animals telling me about their skeletal structure... Once they are skeletons, they aren't very talkative anyway...
