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"Beast of Bosnia" (Mystery Animal Corpse)

what is it ?

It still looks like an otter to me. but your right all skinned up and such and those hind legs at closer inspection its very difficult.. the fur on the otters though really cover the mammal up; to survive the cold, and could hide such as we see ,when its ,''skinned by some maniac"!.. weasel,mink, or otter family it seems though...any-body?? :eek!!!!:
 
It is the structure of the lower jaw and its teeth that I am trying to match with pics of skulls . Staffordshire bull terrier anyone ?
 
woops

i was ging to say when you go to that web choose mammals /then click(choose ) north american river otter. looks like that check out the ear
 
Although the head does look otter like in the corpse , it is too short and heavy . Check out otter skulls ,they are surprisingly fine and narrow. And any ears will have been lost in the skinning .
 
what is it (pt2)

ask carol (of the spinning pussy) immac maybe?:p
 
Marten, but not the pine martin that is found in UK, there is a different spieces found in mainland Eurpoe, bigger, more adventursome, called the marten.
 
Yep, I'd say that was a cat. It's hind leg looks long only because there's no hanging skin and fur to disguise it. Cats are weird shaped without their fur - thinner than you'd think. As for pine marten? I think the "scientist" was a little off-base there. I'd believe it was a donkey before I'd go for that one.
 
Its tail is too thick and long for a mustelid and its teeth are wrong for a cat .I think it is a small breed of shortish faced dog .
 
It looks very dog like to me, but whenn you get to the chest it becomes very slender and looks like something of the weasel family. As for the limbs, these long hind legs and shortes for limbs would suggest a weasel family creature, but that short stocky head would throw that idea out of the window. ...i seem to remember wolverines being a little too stocky in the body to be this but i haven't seen a skinned one. But then again the head is too short for that anyway.

It's got me lost!
 
If the lungs weren't inflated and especially if the ribcage were damaged or decayed it would look smaller than that in a normal living dog . Not all breeds of dog have deep chests anyway . Mustelids don't have particularly long hind legs .
 
hmm is this thread still alive?

do you reckon it could possibly be a true cryptid? or is it definitely summat like a cat, dog, rat or beaver - i think not. :rolleyes:
 
Marion said:
Its tail is too thick and long for a mustelid and its teeth are wrong for a cat .I think it is a small breed of shortish faced dog .


Actually, river otters have rather thick tails. Since they use their tail the way a boat uses a rudder, their tails are muscular, and like the rest of the body, the tail tends to have a fat layer, for insulation. The teeth match the size/pattern for a river otter and most of the river otter sites note the "strong jaws" which would result in a well developed (i.e. slightly bulky) facial musculature. Since the creature in the photo is skinned but is not a skeleton, making a final call on the shape of the skull is tricky.

I'm racking my brain trying to think of a species of dog which has a fairly extreme leg-length variance between the from and hind legs, and with the exception of a hyena (which has longer front legs) I can't think of one. Anyone know of a breed of dog with longer hind legs (longer to the same proportions as this critter)?
 
One thing - it is not a cat - I have seen enough skinned lions and tigers in my time to know - the fact that he paws are intact is one giveaway as we normally break off the lower part of the paws to keep the claws with the skin. Also, the animal is a bit out of proportion to be any of the larger cats.

The jaw bothers me a bit but I am inclined to agree that it is a mustelid of some description - I am going to check with a few people at work who know more about these things and will come back to you with their prognosis.
 
Ok, the consensus here is that it is a European Otter. The paws look like fingers because the webbing has been removed. The tail is correct and the head structure is apparently correct as well.
 
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