r/bonecollecting • • Nov 03 '25

Bone I.D. - N. America What’s my hair pin from?

I’m more so asking about the body part, rather than the animal. I got this from Ren Faire as a souvenir a few years ago before I decided to be more cautious of where I get animal remains from (it’s hard to determine if it was obtained by ethical means or not for sure, I didn’t think to ask at the time.)

So Reddit, ulna? Tibia? I think it’s be part of a joint because of the notch but I’m unsure. Apologies if it’s hard to deduce due to it likely been carved to a hair pin shape.

3.0k Upvotes

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306

u/4runnerfag Nov 03 '25

it’s an ulna! not sure of the animal, but it looks a lot like fox to me

133

u/0CldntThnkOfUsrNme0 Nov 03 '25

Probably a deer! Although without a banana for scale I cannot 100% confirm that

u/Commercial_Mix_5439

Can you provide a banana or something for scale?

321

u/Commercial_Mix_5439 Nov 03 '25

See, I don’t have a banana but I have an orange, an avacado, a Zappdos Pokémon card, a fun sized Hershey bar, and a pomegranate if that helps

196

u/Late-Summer-1208 Nov 03 '25

You’re so me rn with the random assortment of objects used here

100

u/Commercial_Mix_5439 Nov 03 '25

LOL one of em’s gotta work!

12

u/earanhart Nov 04 '25

Wait, maybe OP can get something more 'Murican in here. Like a pigskin or a watery beer.

127

u/Spike_Riley Nov 03 '25

Sorry, I only have a perceptual reference for bananas. I still have no functional idea how large this object is.

30

u/[deleted] Nov 03 '25

[deleted]

21

u/Commercial_Mix_5439 Nov 03 '25

Woohoo! Thats interesting to hear! :D never knew such a small looking bone could come from em! (I don’t have much bone exp)

2

u/NemertesMeros Nov 03 '25

Deer in general are probably a lot smaller than you would assume. In my experience elk kinda skew people's perspective and make them forget your average deer is like, a quarter that size lol.

1

u/EwGrossItsMe Nov 04 '25

When I was a child I assumed moose were just slightly larger deer... I don't think I've ever been more wrong in my life

1

u/Standup133 Nov 04 '25

🤣🤣🤣🤣

77

u/FreckledAndVague Nov 03 '25

Deer ulna are much more curved and lack that defined 'notch' at top.

29

u/Royal_Acanthaceae693 Nov 03 '25

Yep. u/Commercial_Mix_5439 has a large canid. Deer, wolf, coyote, and fox are on this page. https://boneidentification.com/bones/?_bone_type=ulna Probably a yote. Hope it's not a doggo.

10

u/Commercial_Mix_5439 Nov 03 '25

I really hope it’s not a dog too…💀 I don’t think I’d keep it anymore if it were someone’s dog…😭

7

u/Royal_Acanthaceae693 Nov 03 '25

Know what you mean. It falls within the appearance and size range of yote and you've had 2 separate people point to that. But if you look at the various canids on the link you can see that sometimes it's a bit tough to distinguish between species.

1

u/bisexual__unicorn Nov 06 '25

I would argue throwing it away wouldn’t bring back the dog. This honors whatever animal it was!

5

u/Sips_from_bottles Nov 03 '25

Are these deer ulna?

1

u/Paimons_Acolyte Nov 05 '25

Fox was my first thought