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Dear Hannah, If it has clavicles, claws on all digits except the rear thumb, and epipubic bones, it's probably a possum. Epipubic bones should be present in marsupials only, not eutherian mammals. If you have Whitehead et al.'s Photographic Atlas for Physical Anthropology it will probably be helpful to you for this identification. Best of luck, Elspeth * Elspeth Ready, PhD candidate Department of Anthropology Stanford University* *Main Quad Building 50, 450 Serra Mall Stanford, CA 94305-2034* On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 10:59 AM, Julie Curl < [log in to unmask]> wrote: > Hello Hannah, > > Have you tried a small species of monkey, such as Rhesus? > > Best wishes and happy new year! > Julie > www.sylvanusservices.com > Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange > ------------------------------ > *From: * Hannah Russ <[log in to unmask]> > *Sender: * Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites < > [log in to unmask]> > *Date: *Wed, 2 Jan 2013 18:44:53 +0000 > *To: *<[log in to unmask]> > *ReplyTo: * Hannah Russ <[log in to unmask]> > *Subject: *[ZOOARCH] Mystery skeleton ID > > Happy New Year Zooarchers! > > I thought I'd start the year with a mystery ID! > > Last year we ran a project in Sheffield that re-housed around 1000 museum > skeletal specimens that were either going to be disposed of, or had been in > long term storage. For the most part the specimens were in excellent > condition and very well labelled, making excellent additions to our already > extensive zooarchaeology reference collection. However, we got one almost > complete, unlabelled, skeleton (minus skull) of a cat sized animal from > Creswell's surplus modern comparative collection. Despite it being almost > complete we are still scratching our heads over what species it is! > > It doesn't match anything in our reference collection here in Sheffield. > We know it has a long tail and claws, clavicles are present, as are > epipubic bones. > I have photographed the humerus, scapula, femur, pelvis and tail which can > be seen at the link below: > http://alexandriaarchive.org/**b**onecommons/items/show/1884<http://alexandriaarchive.org/bonecommons/items/show/1884> > > Any ideas would be most appreciated. It looks so sad sat in the lab > waiting to be labelled, we'd really love to incorporate it into the > collection. > Have a fantastic 2013 everyone! > > All the best, Hannah >