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Project Noah Nature School
Syncerus caffer
The horns of an African buffalo are wonderful indicators of its age and gender. A large adult male has a hard shielding, which protects the base of its skull.
This was a strange experience. We were in a quiet area in the Kruger NP and drove this road late the afternoon with no skull in sight. Early the next morning, this skull was lying on the side of road. It is definitely not fresh, and had that fungi or moss growing on it? Some teeth came loose and was lying sprinkled around. I don't know what animal will move this skull, as I believe there could have been no human interference on this occasion. This area is known to have 2 male lions and 1 leopard. Other than that, I cant tell you what happened here.
Spotted on Nov 10, 2011
Submitted on Aug 7, 2012
3 Comments
Wow, thanks Jean! Finally and answer, I often wondered about this skull with the tubes.
These curious tubes are made by the larvae of the horn moth Ceratophaga vastella (Lepidoptera Tineidae, the same family as clothes moth)
Wow, what a bizarre story! Spooky! Almost as bizarre as the story is that crazy fungi growing on the horns, whoa! I could only assume that one of the large predators in the area moved it while playing with it. That being said, I have heard of American Buffalo moving bones and skulls of old heard members around. Are there other Cape Buffalo in the area that could have moved it I wonder? Is there a human playing a trick on you? Thanks for joining the Osteology mission, great spotting!