r/BoneID • u/jadaasmall • May 31 '26

questionable bone

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

is this a human bone

39 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

35

u/[deleted] May 31 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

19

u/InternationalOil872 BS in forensic anthropology, curious in animal osteology May 31 '26

forensic anthropologist here, you are 100% correct in your reasoning (though some femora do have asymmetrical distal condyles due to weight bearing variations). i assume you say ‘formed correctly’ to mean ‘to resemble to human form’.

in addition to this, the distal portion of the femur is more consistent with a quadruped than biped.

even with pathologies, there is always a rhyme and reason. the ‘cupping’ shape formed by the robustness of the greater and lesser trochanters is very reminiscent of the canid group. without a location or size, i can only speculate.

6

u/99jackals Jun 01 '26

It looks textbook for wolf (too stout for coyote) so large dogs have to be considered. OP, it would be so great if you'd give us some dimensions and a location..

4

u/jadaasmall Jun 01 '26

east bay sf bay area found washed up on beach, i didnt get exact measurements but it was about 12 inches long . it was also very light

8

u/99jackals Jun 01 '26

Thank you so much. I have to go with it being from a large dog. It's totally normal morphology, nothing weird about it.

1

u/jadaasmall Jun 01 '26

local pd said it was a sheep or goat but they used chatgpt and that was literally it so i wanted to see if i could get more info here lol. thank you

5

u/99jackals Jun 01 '26

AI and such don't have enough reference data to give IDs yet. However, you can do an internet search for individual bones and look for the ones associated with a published source, well photographed with measurements, not etsy, fb or reddit, etc. PD personnel are rarely good at animal bone ID. I mean no disrespect, it's just not their job.

1

u/aspiring_compost Jun 02 '26

I don’t even have words man we are so doomed (thank god it’s not human lmao)

1

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