A friend found half of a mandible the other day, complete with teeth. Can anyone here identify it? Her guess was a snake (which I explained was wrong). My guess was opossum. It is about 6 cm in length. Photos:
Location is western Pennsylvania. Thanks!!
Definitely opossum. Aside from other features, it has 4 incisors, which is unique among North American mammals. It appears to be a young animal, since some of the teeth are still erupting.
See here.
In snakes, all the teeth are similar.
From this chart of dental formulae, it looks like the opossum is the only species with four incisors on each side of its lower jaw. So if that’s a perfect half-jaw, I think you’re right.
ETA: Well, if I’m going to get scooped on a question like this, at least it’s by Colibri.
Well, I’m stoked. Opossum seemed a good guess just based on what is around here. The finder told me she would owe me a dinner if my original guess was correct, so I’m gonna start picking out restaurant ideas.
That’s a very handy site for reference though.
Maybe you should order something vegetarian, considering there’s a mostly missing recently-dead opossum in your area.
