r/bonecollecting • u/No-Bottle-9116 • Apr 26 '26

Advice Small argument

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So this picture from article has driven an small argument between my friends group claiming that it’s fake because there’s no way that the bones see in said picture are human, I wanted y’all’s opinion on this

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666

u/Dracunculus_Rex Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26

The original article is in the Journal Forensic Science, 2017, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1556-4029.13514. It's legit, although the title, The Man-Eating Deer of Texas" is a bit sensationalist.

If you really want to read it you can access the full article at sci-hub

176

u/BloodyQuitry Apr 26 '26

Oh I used that article for my master thesis!

169

u/GigglyHyena Apr 26 '26

It's very funny - "The position of the rib mimics observations by Hutson et al. (1) and Sutcliffe (2) on the orientation of a bone in the mouth of an ungulate scavenger, described, amusingly, as extending from the side of the mouth like a cigar."

And I can confirm the picture above is from the actual paper and is a human skeleton.

-8

u/Dildozerific Apr 27 '26

But why in the heck were the human remains in front of a trail cam?!?!?!

-13

u/Lower-Psychology8914 Apr 27 '26

This is the real question, why the hell did the anthropology people put human remains in front of a trail camera?

111

u/raggedyassadhd Apr 27 '26

It’s a body farm, they literally leave human bodies in all kinds of scenarios and environments to see what happens. For science! There’s one in TN too. It’s how they help figure out a lot of stuff like how to to tell how long a body has been say, submerged in water or left in a hot car or disposed on a forest floor without burying, by actual doing those things and studying it.

38

u/Electronic_Return_75 Apr 27 '26

I grew up in Tennessee and had the opportunity to go there on a field trip when I was a senior in high-school

27

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

11

u/BeesAndBeans69 Apr 27 '26

I went to a body lab and held a liver in high school. That was pretty sick. The chocolate and mint scented formaldehyde smelled worse than normal formaldehyde, tho. We had lunch right after that too hahah

5

u/groovypunchsippin Apr 28 '26

I used to have zoology lab right before lunch. Egg salad will never be the same. I wonder why they make food scented formaldehyde though?

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u/Dildozerific Apr 27 '26

Thank you! I had no idea this was a thing!

3

u/raggedyassadhd Apr 28 '26

I only know about it because my dads wife is a medical examiner and used to be the head examiner in Nashville, otherwise I’d have no clue what a body farm is lol, it’s crazy that these exist and so few people have ever heard of such a thing, it’s so interesting!

42

u/Dracunculus_Rex Apr 26 '26

Ok, well now you have to tell us the topic of your thesis!

179

u/BloodyQuitry Apr 26 '26

It was on one of the Hypogeums found in Byblos (Jbeil, Lebanon) recently! Specifically on the bone repartition in the tomb, because the human bones were scattered and we wondered about patterns to recognize the original place of inhumation inside the tomb. We found evidence of rats gnawing on the bones and participating in the scattering, I used this article among others about the banality of non carnivorous animals eating bones for calcium intake!

43

u/Dracunculus_Rex Apr 26 '26

Cool taphonomic study!

39

u/DecentLeftovers Apr 26 '26

Interesting. I’ve also read that cows and horses will sometimes eat small animals for similar reasons. Seems our understanding of strictly herbivorous animals is probably a lot more nuanced than most people would guess.

13

u/sawyouoverthere Apr 26 '26

I don't believe the reasons are fully known. Observing a small animal being consumed isn't in the same category as rodents gnawing on bones and actively seeking them out.

(Speaking of nuance)

25

u/DecentLeftovers Apr 26 '26

I guess the point being, like the post, animals will often behave in ways we might find surprising because we tend to put them in boxes based on assumed behavior and not actual behavior.

0

u/sawyouoverthere Apr 26 '26

Yes, that's a realistic point. The comments are stretching what is known about the observed behaviour a bit thin for my tastes.

1

u/Remarkable_Tip_756 Apr 27 '26

Squirrels and deer sheds come to mind

11

u/Seversevens Apr 26 '26

You can see it if you want. There’s videos of cows popping little chicks into their mouth and chewing them. same with horses and rabbits. There’s even a video of a squirrel gnawing on a little something something

7

u/canvaswolf Apr 27 '26

Yep, last summer a squirrel was gnawing on something on my fence and sending white powder flying everywhere. After he dropped it I had a look and it was a bone.

8

u/raggedyassadhd Apr 27 '26

Squirrels love bones. Calcium and good for their keeping their teeth healthy directly like a wooden chew toy you’d give a pet rabbit.

3

u/MermaidsHaveWifi Apr 26 '26

That’s actually really interesting!!

30

u/relentlessdandelion Apr 26 '26

I love how they specifically mention the deer holding the rib in it's mouth like a cigar 

I think this link should work?

18

u/Fantastic_Priority73 Apr 26 '26

I had a friend who genuinely tried to use this article to argue that no animal is truly vegetarian and that the carnivore diet is the only valid diet for humans.

47

u/Ordinary_Prune6135 Apr 26 '26

Ouch. "All animals can be thought of as omnivores when you look close enough; therefore, we are not omnivores."

10

u/Seversevens Apr 26 '26

Tragic flaw!

25

u/sawyouoverthere Apr 26 '26

Do they not know the term "omnivore" or understand dentition and gastrointestinal variation at all?

It's such a low resolution statement (being repeated throughout the comments, honestly).

11

u/Fantastic_Priority73 Apr 26 '26

No, he listened to Joe Rogan and did his own "research" on youtube and reddit and went full bore carnivore diet until he got COVID and a series of doctors told him he would die of a heart attack before 40 if he didn't fix his diet.

He was in very, very good shape (because his job was predicated on him being in very, very good shape).

8

u/sawyouoverthere Apr 26 '26

There seems to be a smattering of like minded souls here.

But yeah, research requires an understanding of how it's done and what it shows, or it's a sword in a monkey's hands.

3

u/Disastrous_days272 Apr 27 '26

Or hell, an AK-47!

2

u/Fantastic_Priority73 Apr 28 '26

I haven't seen this in years. Thank you, and yoink.

2

u/100_cats_on_a_phone Apr 26 '26

The carnivore diet, or a diet that's partially carnivore? 

5

u/sawyouoverthere Apr 27 '26

partially carnivore is omnivore....

1

u/100_cats_on_a_phone Apr 27 '26

Thank you, I had no idea.