PAGE INDEX1. Skull of Ringed Seal, posterior view2. Skull of Heron, 3 views
Found on the beach in N W Greenland, where seals form an important part of the Inuit diet.In the summer, ringed seals are often shot in open water with .22 rifles. The small calibremay seem inadequate for an animal this size, until you remember that the skull bones are very thinand the head is normally the only target, when the seal comes up to breathe. Typically, the wound is to the rear, as the animal swims away from its pursuer. There is no exit hole - comparewith the large-bore rifle page.
B - .22 bullet entry hole, may have been enlarged to aid extractionof brain.
C - Slices cut from articulating surfaces of occipital condyles during butchery.
Heron skull, contrasting views
P - path of bullet
S - surface of bone torn away
Q - quadrate bone
The evidence for this damage having been caused by a .22 bullet, rather than,say, by crows is the violent fracture of the quadrate bone. This is a separate, but quitesubstantial bone, delicately articulated with other bones, and I don't think it could be broken like this, without dislocation, in any other way.
