guess this critter skull (pic)

[adkmountainken]

while turkey hunting i found a pile of owl pellets. i allways brake these open to see what they have been eating and usally ( %99 ) of the time i find mice skulls and rarely anything else. well to my suprise i found what i could only guess to be a skull of a small reptile, i had thought lizard, newt or something along that line. showed a buddy at work and he knew right away. now what is your guess????
 

 

[john4645]

Tyrannosaur Rex ?

[Ian johnson]

shrew, mole?

[JC]

Dats a shrew...

[Gatekeeper]

I agree... shrew

[adkmountainken]

could be shrew, my buddy had said it was a bat as the teeth are very pointed and the jaw bone looked allmost canine, he was not %100 positive. interested to see what others think, so far shrew it is i guess!

[inthecrease]

What the heck is a shrew?

Someone's been on vacation and mom made them release a baby gator!

[Bob B.]

pretty long nose for a bat, but posible I guess.

[adkmountainken]

i believe the leg bones i found ( my buddy said the are wing bones, hence bat guess ) would be to long for a shrew. i guess i should have kept a couple more of the bones.
 Yeah, i thought it looked just like a baby gator skull, hence my lizard guess!!

[JC]

Hmmm, I guess it could be a bat...but looks like a shrew to me. Compare to this one...

 

David, a shrew is a small mammal insectivore, about 30 different kinds in the U.S. High metabolism makes them a voracious eater, ron laclair didn't pick the name for his bows because they were average hunters. By the way, the short tailed shrew is the only poisonous mammal found in North America...they have a venom that's a neurotoxin I believe to help them kill prey more efficiently. Always liked shrews and wolverines...grit far beyond what their size belies.

[Deadsmple]

yup that's a bat

[JC]

Deadsmple, any idea what kind of bat? I didn't know any up that way had a snout that long...

Wait a minute...found a pic of a "big brown bat" and it looks like a dead ringer...

 Brown Bat  

Bet you guys are right, looks like a bat now. Sure fooled me.

[Deadsmple]

Big brown is what i was thinking.

[Deadsmple]

Wow great pic JC!

[inthecrease]

Don't mean to derail, but JC, we got any shrews in GA? Reckon I've never seen one in 35 years in the woods if we do.


Sorry, carry on with the skull ID.

[JC]

Yup, we have 4 I think, the short-tailed shrew is the most common...that's the pi-son-us one! Most guys mistake them for mice.

Where you at in GA?

[OkKeith]

Well,

Hard to tell from those views. Seems too long to be a Brown bat skull. If it has cheek bones, mole. No cheek bones, shrew. Here are some ID drawings.

 
above: MOLE

 
above: SHREW

 
above: BROWN BAT

 
above: BROWN BAT

Ken, if you get a chance remove the lower jaw and flip it upside-down the wide space between the "two front teeth" on a bat skull is fairly easy to see. Send us some more pics, it's a real cool find!

OkKeith

[inthecrease]

Griffin

[adkmountainken]

will do, its the little things of nature that are so fasciating!

[DeerSpotter]

He just have to know the right people !