23rd
Okay, so I’ve been working on this on and off throughout the day. I’ve called and sent emails to a number of University zoology departments and the Bronx Zoo and the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. So far, only Seattle has gotten back to me with the following response:
“This is tough due to 1) not knowing the overall size, 2) the advanced state of decomposition, and 3) only having one position to view it from. A couple keepers also looked at this and couldn’t give an ID. Our photographer looked at it and there may be evidence of some Photoshopping as well. So unfortunately we don’t even want to hazard a guess at this point. It could be a domestic dog or cat that has had it’s skull anatomy altered through trama or decomposition, or an exotic species that someone was keeping as a pet, or just a faked photo, but it’s just not possible to positively ID with the info at hand.”
Whoa, Eva! Thank you for enquiring about this and doing the leg work. As to the veracity of the photo I can only say I’m fairly sure it’s not photoshopped. The people who showed me the photo received the photo from a friend of theirs who actually found this thing and took the photograph. That doesn’t prove anything, but it’s provenance is slightly better than randomly finding this photo somewhere in a dark corner of the internet.
As to size, I was told that it was about 3 feet long though. If you look closely there are flies on it’s back which gives you a little idea of scale.
As the expert said, I think it’s going to be next to impossible to positively ID this thing but thanks Eva, that was awesome!
