posted on May, 6 2009 @ 11:18 PM
As a taxidermist who has been practicing taxidermy for over 20 years I can clearly state that it is simply a skinned monkey of some sort. Basically
it looks like it was skinned for a taxidermy mount and someone looking at the carcass came up with an idea...
I've seen tons of animals with and without skin, with and without trap injuries, in all sorts conditions from fresh to fully rotted. The
missing/abbreviated fingers/toes would result from the skinning process - often the last joints must be removed from the rest of the carcass and then
carefully separated from the hide to avoid damaging the hide. This is especially true of small animals.
Based on the out-sized cranium, it is likely a juvenile animal. In animals that are not fully grown, especially mammals, the cranium is always
proportionately much larger than in an adult. Large head, small facial features, small mouths and teeth and large eyes - you see this in puppies,
kittens and pretty much any young of any animal.
Speaking of teeth - the idea that this is a juvenile specimen is reinforced by what they said about the rootless reptile-like teeth. In juvenile
mammals, even those with all their adult teeth already come in, it will be a while until the roots become solid. Until then, they are hollow and
open-rooted - just like an alligator's! Also, during the process of the permanent teeth coming in, some of the deciduous teeth take longer than
others to be pushed up and fall out. I have a bobcat skull with 4 upper canines - when it died the milk teeth had not yet been pushed out completely
by the permanent teeth. It is indeed bizarre looking, and it does have more teeth than an adult bobcat would, naturally.
As a long-time taxidermist, that's my opinion on this one.