I am new at this, actually going to mount first deer head. I have a Randy Life video and the way the back of the head looks where the neck meets the head seems odd. Is the base of the head suppose to have a smooth transition to the neck or is there an indent? I have ref. photos but they don't show this area well enough to tell. Any info would be appreciated.
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Are you talking about the neck union at the occiput?
I am talking about the area where the bottom of the ear butts are. This is hard for me to explain. Go from the bottom left ear butt across the back of head to bottom of the right ear butt. This is the aea on the video that looks like it has fairly sharp indent. (Where the skull meets the neck). John Griffith emailed me a picture - it is helping. As I stated, I am new at this and I need to learn some skeletal locations. I feel stupid for having to ask but, where is the occiput? Thanks Glen for your patience here.
that's why it is one of the most commonly used words by American housewives. It is also referred to as the poll. That "pointy kinda" shape at the back of a deer (animal) skull. But, it now sounds like you are asking about the area behind where the ear butts attach. Do I have that correct? If I do, that can vary with the neck diameter behind the ears. A young pre-rut buck will have more "indent" than an older buck showing neck swell. Are we on the right track?
Sorry I didn,t look in the dictionary*** I have it figured out. Thanks anyway. (by the way I am not a housewife
you didn't know what occiput was.
Kidding aside, I was surprised to see your question posed. I kept watching the thread to see what others would say.
There are a few different areas behind the head that have the potential for dents (that's what I call them too). They are created as a result of up and down movement and side to side movement of the head and neck. It's just muscles coming and going in states of flexion and relaxation, but the flexion and relaxation for the particular pose does have to be correct in order for the head and neck area union to look "right". The first cervical vertebrae, or wing atlas, and it's position is also a big player in creating these dents.
So which dents did you get figured out?
Also, if you have the technology, how about sending me a picture of it when you get it done?
I am sure I am not the only one new to taxidermy that has asked questions that seem too basic for others. I never said I had the "technology" concerning mounting deer heads. What I said is I am new and going to mount my first deer head. I also said, I felt stupid for asking and I guess I was. We all started out not knowing the correct technology. This is why we ask others who do have experience in taxidermy or am I wrong here? I do appreciate your info though. Next time I will not ask before doing some research. Just trying to learn Glen.
I think you are reading a couple things into my threads that aren't implied.
First off when I said,"I was surprised to see your question posed", the reason I said that is because of the number of people that DO NOT even notice these "dents". YOU get a Gold Star by your initials for Powers of Observation. If you had used a name and an e-mail address, I would have sent you some reference photos, and reference photos are part of my living. It is indeed a basic question, but how many will actually do anything with the information, or even know the answer? You will notice your question sat for over a day and no one answered. What would that tell you? It told me that everyone else was doing the same thing I did, keep an eye on the thread to see what others would say.
Secondly, I asked,"Also, if you have the technology, how about sending me a picture of it when you get it done?" Translation on that is if you take a picture of the mount after you are done and have a digital camera or scanner, how about sending me a picture of it?
I was the one that had the extended hand, which I have been known to withdraw. Taking a little kidding over a word is a real small price to pay for free information that cost some one else a pocketfull of money and one heck of a lot of time to accumulate.
You are right I did take it the wrong way. Sorry for offending you. When I read technology I did not take it that way. I took it as sarcasim. When you said you were watching the thread, I guess, well I don't know what I thought. Not trying to make excuses I am frustrated with this deer head. I am known to be a perfectionist and have to learn it takes time to learn. Again I am sorry I took this the wrong way.
DW
Annoyed is a different word...
DW, you probably have no idea as to how much your "basic" question will have opened up the eyes and minds of others.
Many will be asking, "What are these guys talking about, dents in a deer's neck?" Then they'll look closer at their reference (ideally live deer) and be saying, "I'll be darned, there really are dents!".
You never did say as to which dents you got figured out.
Well now we can down to the question at hand. I am doing a semi-sneak offset shoulder mount. When I watched this tape, the dent at the back of the skull looked like a sharp indent - more like cliff. When I look at my ref. picture, the very lowest part of the ear butt(on the back side)well if you look at both ears the ears butts are rounded out . I thought maybe this was giving it the dent look. I was thinking also that the hide on the skull is not as heavy as the hide on the neck taking muscle under hide into consideration, I was thinking that the muscle on the neck starts at this point giving this dent look.
forgot to say the form is a head down semi-sneak-offset shoulder mount
I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!
DW, both your observations can be correct. Does that help to confuse you? Now if you want to sort it out, we will take advantage of TECHNOLOGY!
You will need to copy and paste each address to your browser. That's the only way you will be able to get in on the first address.
These articles will give you a start on deer anatomy.
www.hidetanning.net/DeerProportions.html
www.hidetanning.net/FormAlteration.html
Let me know if this was what you needed.
Hey Glen
I pasted the addresses to the browser and I can not get into the first one. ? Tells me it can not find the address. Any suggestions?
Thanks.
P.S. I really need to understand the occiput(and why housewives know about it lol
It should wurk fer you. Try again.
www.hidetanning.net/DeerProportions.html
Well what the heck! How are you pasting it into your browser?
typing the address in by hand. If that doesn't work, I'll set up a link for you to get in on.
Click on:
hidetanning.net
When the home page appears you will see where it sez:
Technology for DW
Click on that.
Ken Edwards provided the link to hidetanning.net, don;t forget to thank the man.
Thanks for the link, I finally got there...
OK here we go...
The short necked deer has shorter vertebraes in the neck creating a hammer head look. The distance between the occiput and the pedicules will also be shorter and have a sharper indent. Thus causing the dent at the union of the back of skull and the atlas to be sharper or more dented in. The longer necked deer has longer vertebraes causing more of longer slope between the occiput and the pedicules causing more of a sloping angle at the union of the back of the skull and the atlas.
So the difference of the slope angle on the back of the head should tell how much of a dent to have at the union of the back skull and the atlas? So would it be correct to say when a deer comes in check the angles between the occiput and atlas to determine if it is a short or long necked deer and have the union at the back skull and the atlas look anatomically correct with the angle from the occiput and the pedicules(depending on what kind of deer you have)? I would also think you if your head was turned one way or another ,the dent it would be more prominate on one side at the union? Not sure, but would it make getting the ears in better position? oh one more question:Will a short necked deer have a shorter distance between the back of the eye and the throat latch compared to a long necked deer?
Whew!
DW
P.S. I thanked Ken for his site and his willingness to educate others.
I forgot to put in last post - Am I on the right track or not?
Looks like I'm going to wind up making a livestock judge out of you!
I'm impressed, you apparently really do have "The Eye Ball".
I'll be back later to add more to the thread, and keep you on a roll. This working business keeps cutting into my play time.
You are a very good teacher! I am eager to here what you have to say next. Write back to you later. I hear ya about the working business, but you always have to have play time!
Hey Glen
Don,t leave me now!lol (I know your busy)
I thought I would be a kewl computer nerd/geek, whatever they are, and Google up a bunch of whitetail images to help illustrate. Dang, that was harder and took longer than I thought. I'm part way through. Hang in there, you're gonna get some home work.
looking forward to it. I have been trying to find some stuff myself. I agree for what i want to see seems few and far away, but I know you will come thru lol
I'm going to do this in installments, a post at a time to make this a little easier to follow. At this point I am not going to answer your questions. Mean ain't I? What I'm going to do is to see how much I can increase your awarnesses. The best tools you have are your own eyes, hands, and mind. With your own mind, once you allow it to work independently of others' thought processes and opinions, you can learn and apply at a much quicker rate than someone that waits for an answer from someone else.
What I'm going to do is make comments, and then provide a web address so you can follow those comments with your own eyes. We are going to look at the animal as a whole, and as to how it affects form and function, or as an end result, conformation.
Remember Gregory Mendal and the garden peas? Mendalian Principle does not start and stop with peas, corn, taters, or domestic birds or animals. The principles of inheritance remains the same even in the world of nature.
In the first link address I gave you that showed the long neck buck (Indiana deer), if you looked beyond the neck length, you would have seen a long framed rectangular animal. This same buck will have what is known as a high neck tie-in, both at the withers (that's the highest point of the shoulder) and at the sternum, or brisket. In the world of domestic animals, an animal such as this will typically have taller lobes coming up off the thoracic vertebrae, that's the ones the ribs are on. This will also allow for more room for length of shoulder blade. Remember this, and think of him as a "tall garden pea".
Someone is always wanting a rule of thumb for animals. Doesn't exist. In this first link, all the deer are anatomically correct. These are also Texas deer, and I'm sure we have some folks on this Forum that could tell us as to how much of a geographical range this "type" covers.
1. Once you get to this page, go over to the fourth picture in the first row. What I want you to look at first is the length of the pedicles, then look at the proportionate distance between the front corner of the eye and the antler burr, and the height of the crown/dome, of the skull. Burn that one into the mind. Then scroll down to the last photo in the last row, and look at the height of the pedicles and the height of the crown. What's the difference?
2. Now, without clicking on to enlarge any of the other photos just yet, scroll up and down the page looking at the thumbnails. What you should pick out is that you are looking at "square framed" animals, and they all have extremely high neck tie-ins at both the withers and above the sternum. Notice how short their backs are proportionately, remember the proportionate length of back of the first long necked deer?
3. Third row, far right, click to enlarge. Check out a proportionately long upper arm, and short upright shoulder blade. Notice too, the topline is almost level, with very, very little increase in height of the vertebrae lobes that create the withers. Look at where that puts the point of the shoulder, the union formed at the joint of the shoulder blade and upper arm. Now run your eyes back to the hindquarters. You should notice narrow hips, with extremely well angulated hindquarters. These guys were made to bound.
Animals put together like this will have a stilted, bouncy trot. You would see a lot of up and down "bounce" of the front end when the animal is at that gait.
4. Second row, far right photograph, click to enlarge, and you will see a deer on your left angling slightly toward you that is in mid stride. Notice the bend at the elbow and at the knee of the left front leg. Forward locomotion at a walk and a trot will place most of the muscle work load on the triceps and biceps, whereas if the animal had a short upper arm and a long shoulder blade, the shoulder blade would swing back and forth and less upward lifting of the body would be required as a result of the shorter upper arm. The larger muscle groups associated with the shoulder blade would be taking the work load which would yield less fatigue for the animal. In this case the long upper arm and short shoulder blade are not important if the animal does not have to travel distances or take high jumps. Remember, to a young animal, a high jump can be considered a relative term.
5. First photo, second row, look how long the thigh is on that doe!
6. Did you notice the uniformity of physical type in this group of animals?
7. Once you get this one digested, let me know. We'll do another installment.
http://www.diamonddwhitetail.com/gallery.html
That kind of stuff happens when you make me work late.
This will take a bit- I am going to study.
Through the magic of TECHNOLOGY, we are going to leave Texas and head to the Carolinas. These computers thangs can be right handy little tools.
A combination of lens settings and shade can yield effects that border the surreal in digital photography. Between spectrum wave lengths of light being lost or filtered by shade created by trees and lack of color translation by computers, every now and then a high contrast, high detail photo can be produced. Such is the case with this photo, and do they ever make good reference photos.
Another new awarness is this, the point of origin and point of insertion of muscles does not change from doe to buck, or even in most parts of the anatomy, deer to horse, or deer to dog. Skeletal structure and arrangement is the foundation that once covered with muscle and skin creates what you will see as an end product. In other words, once you learn one animal "group" it becomes faster and easier to learn another.
This doe reeks of femininity, and has a pretty, eye pleasing look. Not all doe heads are pretty, some of them are butt ugly, same applies to bucks.
You should now immediately notice as to how quickly the union at the head and neck form an angle almost like an upside down L. Now this is a hammerhead, and there are LOTS of them in whitetail world... depending on geographical regions and genetic families. It would be nice to have a full profile front end photo of this doe, she would be a good representative for the "short pea" type.
While we are on awarness trips, let's take advantage of the quality of this photo as a reference and you will see as to how much information can be gleaned from one photo.
1. Notice the nose to eye corner distance, now compare that to the nose to throat latch distance. Winged dividers work pretty good on computer monitors, if you don't have such a tool, a ruler will also work, if you don't have that, make marks on a piece of paper. Now notice the position of the eye in relationship to the throat latch, remember too, this deer is "almost" full upright.
2. Notice the lack of a Roman nose, remember the absense of the same in the Texas deer? The Roman nose describes the rise, and can also include the width of the skull over the sinus cavity. The function is to help in warming air before it gets to the lungs.
3. Ear. Look at the hair on the inside of the ear, notice that it tends to stand up, not lay down. See how the hair lays at the edges, and notice the pattern of the longer white hair that turns back into the ear.
Below the "V" of the ear, or conch, you can follow with your eye the shape of the cartilage that forms the auditory canal. You can see where it dents in at the reddish-tan patch of hair and heads towards where it goes into the skull.
Right below this dent you will see the parotido auricularis is nicely accented by the hair patterns. The parotido auricularis is that "strap-like" muscle that you will see on a lot of forms that comes off the base for the ear butts and attaches on the neck. It passes over the parotid gland, which is a salivary gland. If you have ever cut into one, it is the brownish-grayish cheesy textured looking thing. If you see a llama suckin' in it's face like this doe is doing, you had better spit and get because he is getting ready to hock one on you that he has pulled from this gland.
4. Eye. Notice this particular eye has more of a round shape. How much white is being shown on the actual eye? Note that a triangular fat deposit behind the lower back corner of the eye does not show, there is also a lack of a heavy brow, and the muscles over the lacrimal gland are small. Look close, and you will see that there is just the beginning of a skin fold starting to develope at the back of the eye. It continues the curve of the upper eye lid, and ends just below the bare skin area below the eye. Speaking of bare skin, check out how much is displayed below the eye and at the front corner of the eye. I would have to think this doe to be a two year old.
5. The protruding bone under the eye is the zygonator bone. This doe's zygonator is fairly pronounced, something of a high cheek bone equivalent in humans. You can see as to how the zygonator bone can affect the downward cant of the eye, or lack of the same. A lower zygonator bone will also yield a more downward cant to the eye. By lower, that doesn't mean a bigger dip towards the ground, but from one side of the head to the other a lower zygonator would yield a more narrow head in that area, everything else being equal. You will find these same variations in zygonator heights and eye cants in horses. These variations will show up in even closely related horses.
Below the zygonator you will see a long "V" groove that runs from behind the eye to half way down the upper lip. The "V" is formed by the top side of the zygomaticus muscle. Follow the backward curve of this muscle back behind the eye and you will see where it originates. That more or less horizontal bone which creates the widest point behind the eye is none other than the zygonator arch.
This doe is making a suction with her tongue to cause these definitions to show up quite well.
6. Right behind the mouth corner you can see a "dent", that is right in front of the premolars. The dental arcades are the foundation that form the convex shape that goes all the way back to the cheek, or masseters.
7. Notice the mouth corner has a "scissor shape" to it. The same deer can also display "even" at the mouth corner.
8. Notice how the cheeks angle in toward the throat latch.
9. This is a good reference for nose pad location and placement.
10. This photo is really good for hair patterns . You can see that the hair has different lengths and diameters every place that there are changes from one muscle group to the other or definitions formed by skull shape. Note the little swirl of hair on top of the head at a roughly eleven o'clock location above the eye. This marks the corresponding place where the pedicle would be located on a buck.
Here's the address. I will do another installment covering the second photo on this page in a thread below this one.
http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek040101.html
First Installment:
The crown of the last deer is domed shape. The distance across the crown appears to be much shorter and the front of the skull also has a domed shape to it. (If I didn,t know better I would say the first row deer was a rectangle shaped animal due the crown shape). The upper row deer has a concaved crown that makes the appearance that the occiput would be more of a gradual slope to the union of the back of the skull and the atlas. (although I have the understanding that all short necked deer are hammer heads). The upper roew deer appears to be a older more mature deer, with the pdicles larger creating the illusion of a concave skull? The heigth of the pedicles of the last row deer seem to be more straight up from the skull to the horn or maybe a square shaped animal can have both, but typically all are hammer heads.
The top line of the top row deer does not seem to be as level at the other deer on the thumbnails (maybe because of the pose it is in)? The top row deeer just seems different to me. I see the difference on the back of square framed as compared to the Indiana deer.
my spelling is something else above-
I finally looked up Mendalian Principle- now that I see it is about genetics -- I really feel like an idiot! You are soooo smart Glen.
Now don't confuse me like that again. lol
I will get this under control!