Animal Skull Detectives by Dr. Verity Matthis, University of Florida

November 9, 2024

Dr. Mathis is the Mammal Collections Manager at the Florida Museum of Natural History. She brought a variety of mammal skulls from the museum and taught us what could be learned about each animal by looking at the characteristics of a skull – eye placement, teeth, auditory bullae, nasal passages, etc. Students filled out worksheets based on their observations. Then they tried to guess, based on their worksheets, what kind of animal skulls they were looking at.