Here are 4 skulls of three common and one less common exotic companion mammals.
Read the hints below, and see if you can guess.
The cheek teeth (back teeth) of the guinea pig are not flat, but rather are angled.
The rabbit actually has 4 maxillary (top) incisors while rodents only have two.
The guinea pig has 16 cheek teeth (these are harder to count than you think!)
The chinchilla has the biggest middle ear cavity of all the common rodents! It’s huge!
Sugar gliders have a peculiar “underbite”
Why do we have skulls at the clinic?
Our skull collection is used frequently to help plan difficult surgeries, such as complicated abscesses involving diseased bone, and surgery of the middle ear or nasal cavity. These are visual references to help us find landmarks. Sometimes we might even do a practice surgery on the skull itself!
Answer key, from top to bottom
Rabbit
Guinea Pig
Sugar Glider
Chinchilla