As I was walking through the woods on Friday at Huntley Meadows Park, I noticed something white among the leaves on the ground. At first I thought it was just a mushroom, but upon closer examination it turned out to be the upper portion of the skull of what I am pretty sure is a raccoon (Procyon lotor). There were no other bones in the area, nor was the lower jaw anywhere to be seen.
I don’t know much about animal anatomy, but I was fascinated by the shapes and contours of the skull, a kind of natural and organic sculpture. It was intriguing as well to examine the sizes and shapes of all of the different teeth.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Wow! Such detail- nature is amazing!
Nature is indeed amazing.
Raccoon, indeed. None of the skulls I’ve found ever have the bottom jaw, which is kind of interesting. There’s only the upper portion, with or without teeth.
I haven’t found very many skulls, so I didn’t know if it was typical to find only the upper portion. Apparently that is the case. Maybe predators pry open the jaws to get to some tasty portion of the prey.
Good photos of a great find!
Thanks, Walter. I was pretty happy when I stumbled on this skull (and a bit surprised too).
It is fascinating, I really appreciated the photo series you posted.
Thanks, Charlie. Recently I have stumbled across quite an assortment of unusual finds.
That’s enough to convince me that I don’t want to be bitten by a raccoon!
Those teeth look like they could do some real damage (and I always worry about rabies, which affects some of the raccoons in our area).
You know what I am going to write already, right? My kids are going to LOVE seeing your photos. My 8 year old in particular has a bit of an obsession with raccoons so he is going to find this so interesting. Those teeth are far bigger than I could have imagined for a start.
Very cool. 🙂