Vertebrate? ID: Cattle or Bison

[Prairie_Anthropocene]

Found this in the bottom of a river bank the other day and was wondering what it was. It was buried pretty deep in the bank, but the river has moved a lot in the past decade and had been grazed by cattle since the 1930s. 

 

Watonwan River. Cottonwood County, Minnesota

[Petalodus12]

I can't help with species ID, but what I can say is that this is the atlas vertebra, or C1, of a large mammal. The cup like anatomy present in pictures 3 and 4 are actually where the vertebra connects with the back of the skull, and attaches to two structures called the occipital condyles. These allow for the skull to move up and down or "nod". Nice find. 

[Thomas.Dodson]

I'll take a stab at this. I would guess this is Equus for the following reasons.

 

1. Equus has 2 large pairs of foramen viewed dorsally. Although this is broken the smooth edges at the bottom of the break seem to match a second pair of foramen.

 

2. The shape of the neural canals and surrounding looks more like Equus than Bos or Bison. Instead of trying to explain the difference here's some pictures to view. I've linked directly to the websites since they offer excellent resources and other views.

 

Horse C1 Link

 

Bison Link(scroll down to Cervical Vertebrae 1, Dorsal View)

 

Bos is rather similar to Bison so I don't feel the need to link a pic of the C1 to Bos. The large size rules out most Cervids and the general form and foramen doesn't match moose either. Moose Link

 

 

 

 

 

[Creek - Don]

This is the bison atlas vertebrae I found in 2019.  Here is the comparison between yours and mine.  Doesn't look like bison to me. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 23, 2021 by Creek - Don