Some time ago, in a forest near one village in Slovakia, I’ve found this skull. After looking at it for a bit, and drawing it, I suppose, that it most likely belongs to a dog, with a wolf-like head, perhaps a german shepherd, wolfdog, some northern breed or a mongrel of them… But not totally excluding the posibility of a wolf.
The lenght of the skull is a little smaller (21,1 cm) than that, what I found to be the average for the wolf as a species (23 – 28 cm), althought I’m not aware of the local wolves’ average sizes. The individual was already mature and probably not the youngest, since the teeth (P4, M1, M2) show large wear.
One characteristic commonly used to distinguish between wolves and the first domesticated dogs, is the orbital angle (shown in the picture above). The sharper the angle is the more “wolf-like” the head becomes. Some disagreement exists however, because apparently it’s a very variable feature, that must be taken with a grain of salt. I applied it to my skull, and it falls within the lower edge of a domesticated dog standards and higher edge of wolf’s.
As this is a very quick overview, and I’m an amateur on Canis skull morphology, feel free to refer to anything I missed out on!
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