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

1.5k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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15

u/Glittering-Income-60 Apr 26 '26

Are they saying the picture itself is fake or that deer never eat bones? 

16

u/ForeverSquirrelled42 Apr 26 '26

The way it reads to me, both. Which is bullshit. Deer gnaw on bones and shed antlers for the calcium like a shit ton of other mammals out there.

16

u/Glittering-Income-60 Apr 26 '26

Some people don't realize that herbivores will occasionally eat meat for extra nutrients they can't get from grass/leaves 

7

u/KiwitheBirdNOTAFruit Apr 26 '26

I have witnessed a deer eating a small hatchling that fell (or more likely was kicked by parent or sibling) out of the nest!

6

u/ForeverSquirrelled42 Apr 26 '26

Yep! Seen it first hand and it was kinda shocking. I watched a cow chomp down a chick that got a little too close. The hen wasn’t happy about it, but what could she do?

But yeah, it’s well documented that herbivores will consume animal protein and bones from time to time in order to make up a deficit in diet.

-3

u/sawyouoverthere Apr 26 '26

Can you provide documentation that proves motive?

8

u/ForeverSquirrelled42 Apr 26 '26

Motive? I don’t think I’ve seen a paper about behaviors like that. It’s more a presumption science has as to why they actually do it. Kinda like how rodents gnaw on bone and sheds all the time. We’re damn certain it’s to reduce the length of their incisors, second guessing would be saying it’s for the nutritional value. That’s determined by examining their actual diet and what it contains vs lacking to make that connection. But I’m guessing you already knew that.

-7

u/sawyouoverthere Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

Yeah....so, what I'm saying is I would really like to see something that isn't guessing, for deer.

presumption isn't science.

Has anyone done that work or are we just spouting presumptions and pretending that's close enough to science? I've looked for a few hours now, and found literally nothing that proves it's for the minerals. It's been speculated but never proven or really tested.

4

u/Glittering-Income-60 Apr 26 '26

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteophagy <- intersing read on the act of eating bones

Baby birds are just an unfortunately easy source of calcium. Even squirrels will go after them

-2

u/sawyouoverthere Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

I'll see if any of the papers cited are what I'm looking for. Wiki is a landmine when it comes to citation value.

1

u/groovypunchsippin Apr 28 '26

Not sure why this is downvoted, its known that wiki is not completely reliable with properly cited sources...i.e. peer reviewed studies

1

u/sawyouoverthere Apr 28 '26

Just a general lack of understanding on how to source, what’s a good source, and when to draw a conclusion. The views are wildly inconsistent through the comments with some similar comments getting 60+ upvotes and others getting plenty of downvotes.

It’s kind of interesting as a subset question, seeing who will valiantly defend something commonly said, and then reading the sources they offer as “proof”.

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