LesTension

By LesTension

SKULL

This is the skull of a beaver (Castor canadensis)....it's not really that "tiny" but, since all things are relative, this is quite tiny compared to a Great Blue Whale. This is another series of separate shots combined by photo stacking into a single image. I used Helicon Focus for the job (highly recommended). This technique allows for images with lots of depth of field issues to mitigate the problem. 

Being a true rodent the beaver skull shows typical tooth arrangement with 4 large incisors, a wide diastema (a space separating teeth with different functions), and molars for grinding before swallowing. 

The large incisors never stop growing and require constant chewing to keep them from becoming so large the animal can no longer eat. They are self sharpening....the hard outer layer grinds against the softer inner layer while chewing to maintain a sharp edge. You can't see it here but those incisor teeth are almost a semi-circle and extend practically to the back of the skull.

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