What About The Bones?

[BigTreeWalker]

Thanks Dave,

As far as species ID by tooth, that's what they say.

That question about carnivore/omnivore made me laugh. :-) The animal was eating meat off those bones. Seriously though it doesn't tell you what else it might eat. Bears are in the order Carnivora but are omnivorous. Carnivores use their canine teeth to catch and hold prey animals. But remember, if bigfoot exists, it wouldn't need this capability, it has hands.

Look here for a good visual comparison between carnivore and primates, as well as other orders of animals.

http://www.skullsunlimited.com/record_class.php?id=1

The various orders are listed alphabetically. Very good visual information for the tooth layout of the various types of animals.

[Guest Crowlogic]

Don't rule out Porcupine at work.  

 

http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2008/04/09/porcupine-surprise/

 

The need to gnaw at big, hard objects means that crested porcupines have a very visible impact on their environment. They collect bones .

[BigTreeWalker]

Interesting article, but our research is in the new world as opposed to the old world. Other items of note:

1) Different families, not just different genus.

2) Bones were not found piled in a den.

3) Carrion is not fresh meat.

4) Only two incisors top and bottom.

[BigTreeWalker]

On 9/8/14 my hunting partner and I left the Wright Meadow trail and crossed into some old growth then into a 20 or so year old clearcut. This is about 10 miles SE of the first elk kill site. We moved down into the clearcut following an elk trail. On the way down the trail I noticed some tufts of elk hair and wondered what had happened there. The trail was lined with 15 to 20 year old fir trees which had branches reaching clear to the ground. It was a good place to sit and wait for something to come by on the trail. When we reached the bottom of the hill we had to cross a small steep sided gully. At the bottom of the gully, sort of hidden under a small fir, was a pile of elk bones. I glanced at these then noticed more across the gully. So we crossed over. On a flat area beside the gully was the head and spine of an adult cow elk. There were several ribs stacked on top of a clump of Bear Grass. I noticed that the ribs on the grass had some visible impressions on them similar to our other discoveries. I collected several of these rib bones and put them in my pack. The skull didn't show the trauma I saw on the other one. Instead, half the spine was still attached to it but the other half was in the bottom of the gully. Some of the bones were in the bottom of the gully and some were up above as if the animal had eaten part of its meal down below then carried the rest up above to finish.

 

Bones and bone stack on bear grass.

 

Bones collected.

 

Tooth impressions. Note in the 1st picture both the small scavenger toothmarks on the bottom and the large incisor impressions on the top. One of the larger incisors shows a distinct twist so we dubbed this one Snagtooth.

 

Some of these bones showed signs of a smaller scavenger having bit some of them, unlike the other two sites. It may have been a mink as they tend to be fearless of other larger animals. I couldn't find any information about the smaller carnivores' teeth in the research we did on the larger carnivores. However, whatever the animal was, it was too small to take down an elk. In this kill as in the previous one we saw signs of a possible ambush, disarticulation while feeding, and bone stacking behavior.

[SWWASAS]

What would you make of a female deer kill where the fetus was intact and not eaten but the rest of the fairly recent kill was eaten and had been gotten to by scavengers. The fetus was still intact. What really surprised me that the tender fetus was not eaten immediately. At the time I assumed cougar kill because of tracks and scat in the area. Could there have been something wrong with the fetus and it died, killing the female deer rather than a predator? Just curious if someone has seen this.

Edited April 14, 2015 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT

[BigTreeWalker]

I think I saw something on a RMSO video about a sighting and a deer dying while giving birth. But I couldn't tell you which one.

[daveedoe]

thanks for the link BTW. 

[BigTreeWalker]

In this post I will share some of the findings about the size of the mouth. The measurements were taken from the impressions in the rib bones as an arc. Then the radius was calculated from this arc.  I took mine as a reference by biting a piece of cardboard and taking the measurements from there. (These illustrations probably won't be to scale when I post them. However, they will be to scale to each other for comparison.)  I found out just today, when I meet with my research associate, that most of the research deals with the distance between the canines as a measurement of the mouth width. I will be using what I am presenting here to extrapolate this canine measurement in the next few days. But until then this will give you a visual comparative size of what we have found. (I worked graveyard shift last night so I’m kind of tired right now after a long morning and short sleep! Good thing I had most of this post written earlier.)

 

Elk kill #1 adult mouth radius=1.65" (just over 1 5/8")

   

                

Elk kill #1 juvenile mouth radius=1.197" (just under 1 1/4")

 

Elk kill #2 mouth radius=1.459" (just under 1 1/2")

 

My mouth radius as a reference = 3/4"

 

Note that even the juvenile has a much broader bite than mine!

 

This is a table I pulled from our paper. It's metric but it is easy to see the comparative sizes of the

canines. DB stands for the distance between the canines. The impression width is the total width of the marks on the rib bones. This is for the larger impressions; the adults.

 

 

Predator or Kill

 

Canine Width

DB

Impression Width

Cougar

10.9

28.29

NA

Black Bear

11.2

29.39

NA

Wolf

10.6

27.38

NA

Grizzly

15.6

39.12

NA

EK#1

NA

NA

39.1

EK#2

NA

NA

34.6

 

Please note that there are only three impressions registered on these rib bones. They may have four but only three registered. If the predator is human-like there would be four incisors. If it is one of the predators mentioned here, there would be six incisors. This being the case these teeth will not fit between the above mentioned predators’ canines.

 

 

I see my table did not attach correctly. There were 6 rows (the animals) and 3 columns , they are listed above the right column of numbers. The data is there if you can figure it out. I might try again later.

Edited April 16, 2015 by BigTreeWalker

[BigTreeWalker]

I see in my last post that the second figure didn't come out the same size as the rest. Oh well, the radii are still stated there for comparison.

Tooth Impression Possibilities

Our interpretation from analysis of the evidence is that we are seeing at least two adults, possibly three, because there is not enough evidence on the first bone pile to identify a third individual, and one juvenile. Something I noticed about these juvenile impressions is that they show bumps on the edge. You can see this in the pictures of the smaller impressions in a couple places on the ribs of EK#1. This is what I found out about human teeth: "New anterior adult teeth almost always have bumps on their incisal (biting) edge, known as mamelons."

http://www.ecds.on.ca/ask_dentist/teeth_bumps.html

Very, very, interesting!

The larger impression range on all the bones is .42 to .75 inches.

The smaller is .21 to .40 inches.

The average adult human range for incisors from our research is .22 to .44 inches. So the smaller impressions are very close to adult human size teeth. The larger impressions are bigger than human.

Looking at what we have for measurements we can now go through a process of elimination of known animals.

These impressions were visibly made by at least three flat incisors. In carnivores, the largest canines on a grizzly bear are about 5/8" in diameter. Canines produce large round or oval punctures, or they just split the bone. But they do not chisel it as seen with these tooth impressions. Compare the images of the smaller scavenger teeth marks and imagine this damage enlarged. The incisors of the largest carnivore in NA, are only 1/4" to 5/16" wide. These incisors positioned as they are between the canines will usually register as crenulations (small bumps) in the flesh along the bone as it is consumed or, at most, small chips on the edge of the bone. (If you zoom in on the edge of the bones of our control specimen, which I have yet to post, you might be able to see these crenulations.) The only way we can get a good impression from a carnivore incisor is if it put the bone in its mouth and bit across the bone between the canines,which we don't see here. Carnivore carnasials (molars) are used to break bone and they leave deep pits and fractures in the bone; this is usually across the bone. (Watch Bigtex's wolf chew the bones. She is using her carnasials.) Carnivores are the most likely suspects but are actually the easiest to rule out.

Other possibilities: rabbits and/or rodents (beavers, porcupines, etc.). They gnaw on things constantly to wear their teeth down because the teeth never stop growing. They also gnaw bones for calcium and other things for salt. The biggest problem here is that their teeth are in pairs; top and bottom jaws. They also create scores in whatever they are gnawing on. Some everyday examples are: beaver chewed sticks, porcupine chewed trees, rodent gnawed bone and antlers. If you spend enough time in the field you can recognize this gnawing and it is nothing like what we are seeing on these bones. Most of the double scores you see from these animals are less than a quarter inch wide individually. Another thing is that considering the size of these animals, something else would have made the initial kill and disarticulated the bones for them to later find and gnaw on. If it was a cougar kill, they are very protective of their kills. I have found a dead and eaten skunk next to a cougar killed deer before. These kills were fresh (a couple months at most). Our control specimen was six months old the last time visited with still no rodent gnawing present. And the bones were just starting to disarticulate due to natural decomposition.

Horses and other ungulates. Most don't even have upper incisors! Only horses have teeth that could possibly match what we have found. Now if it was fruit I would say it was a good possibility. But I haven't heard of any meat eating horses (I could be wrong though). Pigs might be another possibility but there aren't any in the area. Besides, their teeth aren't lined up nice and neat like we see here.

When we first started our research, my research partner contacted a WA state biologist. All he had was a description of what we had found; no pictures and no measurements. He said it was most likely human behavior. As I said, he didn't have all the facts. Okay, how many of you have such big teeth and go out into the woods, rip carcasses apart with your bare hands, and eat raw meat? ;-) I make a joke out of this, but it is an honest question.

Another person contacted was a county coroner. I believe my research partner showed him some pictures with no measurements. Again, his conclusion was human-like.

Using the process of elimination and logical flow of thought, what do we end up with?

Oh wait, I know... carnivorous horses... Oh, can't forget the carnivorous colt either.

;-)

[Guest Divergent1]

Pretty good, so what will you do with this evidence? Will you keep collecting to try and establish the number and patterns of movement for the creatures? 

[BigTreeWalker]

The main reason I posted here as I said in the OP was to make this information available to others who spend time in the field. In hopes that it might answer at least one of the questions I see quite often when bones are found in the field... What did this? It is also important forensic information and hopefully some of the people who work with forensic science will take notice. This is important because with this evidence and if others find more it will build a strong case that there is something unknown to science that is producing the evidence being collected. I know things related to the subject can be and have been ignored. But I hope with enough of this type of evidence that other scientists would realize the importance of this and admit this needs to be investigated more deeply.

We have also discovered in our research that the bone modifications we see here are very similar to that done by neanderthal, some primitive African tribes, and at least up until very recently some of the Eskimo people. We have been in contact with a scientist whose research is in this field of bone modification and plan on having him take a look at our research.

As I also said previously, our goal is to get our research published. Already, one pattern is emerging. Which is that they seem to be using the ridges between Mt St Helens and Mt Adams as travel corridors.

[SWWASAS]

Good work! Interesting to note that the radius points to juveniles of different sizes even though in some cases they are much larger than human. With pack animal and even human hunter gatherer tribes there is a pecking order in which kills are shared and distributed. Is what we are seeing evidence that the juveniles and smaller adult BF are relegated to eating rib meat and smaller pieces of meat where as the adult male or females who may have made the kill get choice parts like liver and large muscle groups? Just wondering since it seems to work that way elsewhere in Nature.

Those ridges also are where they are least likely to encounter humans.

Edited April 16, 2015 by SWWASASQUATCHPROJECT

[WSA]

I'd just like to know who here is going to step up and deal with this invasion of carnivorous ungulates! I had no idea!

 

Nice work. Before even seeing your data, and just from the pictures, I could clearly see the chisel shaped impressions on those bones, and I'll second the observation that this was not the work of rodents, and I've seen more than my share of beaver-gnawed sticks and squirrel-gnawed antlers. 

 

One thing that does puzzle me though. Obviously, whatever left these impressions was striping the meat from the bones, and the soft gristle out towards the ends. (It might be obvious I've spent more than few hours in rib joints in my life) But why not crack them for marrow too? Maybe the long bones are the only ones that made that investment in effort worthwhile? Did the bone stack contain all of the skeleton, or just these? Was this a case of something taking "ribs to go", I wonder?

[Guest Divergent1]

The main reason I posted here as I said in the OP was to make this information available to others who spend time in the field. In hopes that it might answer at least one of the 

We have also discovered in our research that the bone modifications we see here are very similar to that done by neanderthal, some primitive African tribes, and at least up until very recently some of the Eskimo people. We have been in contact with a scientist whose research is in this field of bone modification and plan on having him take a look at our research.

As I also said previously, our goal is to get our research published. Already, one pattern is emerging. Which is that they seem to be using the ridges between Mt St Helens and Mt Adams as travel corridors.

Way to go!! I have to say though, is there anyway you could make a tutorial on how to correctly measure and document these kinds of findings? Also how to recognize bones that have been modified ( because I doubt I would have noticed that with it sitting right in front of me) for other folks who would like to collect this kind of evidence? Have you found any rocks near these bone piles that you suspect could have been used as a tool? How would you go about distinguishing a regular rock from a rock used as a tool?

[BigTreeWalker]

Good work! Interesting to note that the radius points to juveniles of different sizes even though in some cases they are much larger than human. With pack animal and even human hunter gatherer tribes there is a pecking order in which kills are shared and distributed. Is what we are seeing evidence that the juveniles and smaller adult BF are relegated to eating rib meat and smaller pieces of meat where as the adult male or females who may have made the kill get choice parts like liver and large muscle groups? Just wondering since it seems to work that way elsewhere in Nature.Those ridges also are where they are least likely to encounter humans.

BP#1 showed evidence of one adult individual. There was not enough impressions to determine if this individual was different from those in the other two locations.

EK#1 showed evidence of one adult and one juvenile. Although we did find one impression that has us stumped. It was big compared to the others and didn't show much curve to it. The individual could have just bitten down here and broke a piece of the bone out.

EK#2 showed evidence of one individual, younger maybe. This kill site seemed more disorganized than the others. That was just an impression I got about the site.

I will attempt to answer both your and WSA's questions about prey utilization. All the body and leg bones appear to be present at the 1st and 3rd sites. However, there were no leg bones present that we could find at the second site. As WSA suggested, take out? From the evidence at the second site it may have been a family group. Some of the bones were spread around the area with no apparent secondary scavenger marks. I was thinking this looks like what a child would do with it's toys.

As far as the choicest portions of meat goes. I like barbecued ribs as much as anyone, but raw, not so much. However, as any meat connoisseur knows, the choicest and tenderist cuts of meat are the tenderloins and backstraps along the inside and outside of the spine. The legs would be the easiest to carry off for later.

Divergent1, that is a very good suggestion about some sort of field guide. It would be very helpful for those in the field. I will definitely consider doing this as I have the time. However, I will also be reviewing some of this when I make the post about our control specimen.

Also, we have seen no sign of tool usage. Even though the bone modification appears similar to historic Neanderthal sites, that is the difference: no sign of tool marks on the bones. We know where the ambush point was for the 3rd kill site, but I didn't see anything that looked like a possible club or spear, which I think would be useful tools to bring down a 300-400lb elk.

Other than some mastication on the ends of the ribs we didn't find any significant signs of major bone breakage, except in the nasal area of some of the skulls.