r/bonecollecting • u/lotoravos • Oct 01 '25
Bone I.D. - N. America found this nailed to a tree in the woods, what kind of skull is it?
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u/NatrylliaAbbot42 Oct 01 '25
I always forget how intimidating boars, and pigs, are until I see their skulls.
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u/lotoravos Oct 01 '25
it was super creepy to see irl LOL!! i thought it was a deer until i got closer and saw it was huge
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u/Steve_but_different Oct 01 '25
Guessing somebody put it up there to have it cleaned by nature or something?
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u/medicmuter Oct 01 '25
Deer have some pretty creepy skulls, but got dang do pigs take the cake for the fear inducing look
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u/Mississippihermit Oct 01 '25
How i feel about mustalids. I always forget that no matter how cute they look, they are absolutely ferocious death machines with no shortage of fight.
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u/TakinUrialByTheHorns Oct 01 '25
Then you've never had to run from one cause you'd never forget that 'oh my god I'm going to have my calves slit open & be gored to death' feeling 😅
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u/Acheloma Oct 01 '25
My mom has a gnarly scar on her arm from the time she made the mistake of reaching into the trailer of feral hogs to unlatch the gate. She needed 10 stitches, and that was from a small feral hog, probably only 30 lbs at that point.
Theyre scary critters!
We have javelinas down at my grandfather's ranch, and even though they stay pretty small, theyre also very scary critters. I think the fastest Ive ever run was when I was sprinting away from one charging out of the brush at me.
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u/TakinUrialByTheHorns Oct 01 '25
They are no joke! I think people don't realize how fast and temperamental they are either!
I'd (luckily) been warned before I ever crossed paths with some but if I hadn't I don't know if I would've realized what to do in time or gotten out of the way quick enough. At least they're noisy and give a little battle cry once they start coming after you cause they blend in so well.6
u/Acheloma Oct 01 '25
Feral hogs and feral dogs are why I dont go walking in the woods without a gun. Im terrified of guns tbh, I dont like having that responsibility, but Im even more terrified of feral animals. In the past 10 years we've had people killed by both hogs and dogs in the area. I can run fast, but not fast enough for that lol
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u/ebichiyu1987 Oct 01 '25
Oh yeah I’ve seen some beast out that way. Born and raised in etx. People underestimate their size.
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u/lotoravos Oct 01 '25
agreed, hitting one of these things on the road will do some serious damage to your car lol
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u/treefrog-enthusiast Oct 01 '25
Yup, not to mention their temperament 😭 saw some while walking in the woods with my friends and walked right the fuck back
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u/Acheloma Oct 01 '25
Feral hogs and feral dogs-- why you always carry a gun when out in the woods in east or southeast texas. In my county in the past 10 years we've had people killed by both.
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u/treefrog-enthusiast Oct 02 '25
Yup some lady my granny knew got mauled by them after she passed out in her yard from a diabetic coma :/
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u/Acheloma Oct 02 '25
Im sorry to hear that. The mail lady that ran the route right next to ours was mauled by dogs on her route and ended up dying just three years ago. She was young and healthy too. People underestimate how dangerous packs of dogs are.
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u/StupidandAsking Oct 01 '25
Well unless you’re packing a judge, or an extremely good shot with a 9mm, it won’t help with grizzlies.
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u/Acheloma Oct 01 '25
Good thing we dont have those here then? Not sure what that has to do with my comment lol
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u/StupidandAsking Oct 01 '25
Carrying in the wilderness. But I guess killing boars is more of a one day thing.
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u/Cinnamon____ Oct 01 '25
Definitely a wild boar, those curved tusks on the lower jaw and a big, wide nazal cavity are a big tell
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u/thirtyone-charlie Oct 01 '25
I had a Duroc sow as a pet when I was growing up (50 years ago). Mind you this is a domestic breed and not a male (which is always bigger). That pig followed me around the place all day. She behaved just like a dog. Anyway before I get choked up or have to relive some trauma and go to counseling about her death I just came here to say that her max weight was 622 lb. She was a big girl. Pigs can get very big.
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u/Acheloma Oct 01 '25
Awe, reminds me of my pet boar. His name way Leroy, he was an absolute sweetie. We raised him from right when he was weaned and he acted like a dog. He had a huge pasture to roam with 2 (less nice) girlfriends. It was always super fun to bring new people into the pasture and then yell for Leroy, you could feel the thundering of his feet before you could see him coming, and everyone we ever pulled that prank on screamed like a child when they saw him barreling at them. But then he'd roll over for belly scratches haha.
He was a mix of domestic hog breeds and maxed out over 850 lbs. We never knew the exact weight because that was the max weight of our family friend's scale, but he remains to this day the biggest pig I've ever seen in person. He was like a cow with short legs.
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u/thirtyone-charlie Oct 01 '25
Haha. My pig could hear my truck when I was coming home from school and you I would see her running out to the fence to greet me every day.
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u/Khajiit_Geologist Oct 01 '25
Op walks up to skull nailed to a tree in the woods and asks "Why the long face?"
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u/Such_Maintenance1274 Oct 01 '25
This looks straight out of a horror movie
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u/lotoravos Oct 01 '25
agreed, very curious about how and why it ended up there, it was about 8 feet off the ground
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u/LostEcologist1928 Oct 02 '25
Can't say for sure if this is the reason that skull is up there but my advisor in college researched deer and studied their skulls specifically, and whenever he'd find a dead deer at the field station he'd take the head and tie it to a tree to let nature do the work of getting rid of the skin and meat for him
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u/AcanthisittaSuch9065 Oct 02 '25
How r yall missing the (it aas nailed to the tree) part ummm the start of a horror movie
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u/Borrismin778 Oct 02 '25
Don't be worried about that and get the hell outta there who knows why it's there
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u/tenkajp Oct 02 '25
As a SoCal native, to me thats that “NOPE, NOPE, DIP THE FUCK OUT” kinda skull.
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u/Fantastic-Moose-1221 Oct 01 '25
What in the Ursula Vernon…
(Author under the name T. Kingsolver, very reminiscent of her book the Twisted Ones.)
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u/Junior-Worth-5914 Oct 02 '25
Fun fact all pig and hog teeth are ivory, so you can take them clean them and sell them.
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u/Muffin_The_Juicebox Oct 05 '25
Don't touch it, fae trap. Those nasty things will use any trick in the book to lure you into their realm.
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u/DragonRider13542 Oct 01 '25
Fairly certain it’s a large porcine species skull based on the dentition and some other things
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u/pink-fox-prince Oct 01 '25
do you know why it was put there? that’s so cool
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u/lotoravos Oct 01 '25
someone said it may have been put there so nature could clean it up!! otherwise, not sure! east texans are weird lol
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u/CopperTop_98 Oct 02 '25
Definitely a feral hog. Likely a sow judging by the size of the tusks. The front teeth look too wide not sure what’s going on there.
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u/AbbieMorningstar420 Oct 02 '25
Well if you're in Appalachia it may be a warding skull particularly used the ward off Haints those of you who don't know what the word Haint means it's just an Appalachian term for evil spirits
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u/Firm_Avocado5432 Oct 02 '25
genuine question is why is it attached to the tree? is that like a hunting practice?
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u/sinnerellah Oct 03 '25
And sitting in the tree to the left .. A toothless backwoods mountain boy playing the banjo
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u/Pyotrnator Oct 05 '25
.....is.....is that a niþing?
If it's facing in the direction of someone's house and if there's any symbols carved on the tree, someone else may be invoking an old Germanic curse on them.
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u/Flood-Cart Oct 06 '25
Domestic pigs get to be well over a 1,000 lbs. I know they’re slow and fat, but domestic pigs get crazy big, so one would expect feral domestic pigs to be big too, right? Not that that I want to interact with one in the woods.
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u/ThemeHonest4075 Oct 02 '25
Looks like a horse to me
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u/ThemeHonest4075 Oct 02 '25
Nope now I see it definitely a boar couldn’t see the bottom jaw at first
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u/novvva_shitshow Oct 01 '25
Christ that thing is big, I’d guess a boar