I'm aware that there are books out there that help in identifying
skulls, but I'm not ready to spend that kind of money on this question.

My dad recently found this skull in the woods of my grandparents
property in Harris County, Georgia, and no one has yet been able to
identify it.

Anyone care to speculate? I'd appreciate any clues about what it might
be.

One particularly confusing characteristic is the "bill" shape of the
snout.

I've taken some pictures. If these don't show sufficient angles or
details please let me know and I'll take some more.

http://butzon.com/skull-pictures/

john scanlon

Skull, no.
Here in Mount Isa we spend a lot of time extracting Oligocene-Miocene
fossils from limestone with acid, then sorting out the pieces -
anything from splinters of bone to partial skeletons of marsupials,
crocs, snakes, lizards, fish, and birds. A lot of bits are quite hard
to identify, and it's a good rule of thumb (and only partly a joke)
that if it looks REALLY weird it's probably bird pelvis.
Bird pelvis! - something quite large, but I don't know what (first
guess - do they hunt ducks in Harris County?)
The real giveaway is the structure of the underside, where a whole
series of vertebrae are fused together into the 'synsacrum'. Next time
you eat roast chicken, you'll find this just under the stuffing (but
may have to dig a bit). Also low down on the side, the round socket
(acetabulum) for the head of the femur. The upper surface does look
rather like the top of a mammal skull (e.g. opossum, pig, large dog
etc.) where the jaw muscles meet along the midline on a dorsal crest,
but here that's the bird's thigh muscles doing the same thing.
Lucky you didn't shell out for a book on identifying skulls, I suppose.
Cheers,
John

george

I don't think that is a skull. I think it is part of the pelvis of a
quadruped. There are obvious tail vertebrae running on the interior side
and femoral sockets (the sockets for the femur or upper leg, also called
the acetabullum) on either side. It's not a skull. Hope this helps.

George

george

You know, after looking at it more closely, and checking some images on the
internet, I believe you are right. It appears to be a bird pelvis. I knew
it was a pelvis, but I was wrong about it being a quadruped. Here is a
bird pelvis similar to what he has:

http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/courses/bio204/lab7_p15.jpg

George

ken shaw

Maybe a turkey or canada goose?

Ken