Photo of the Day #666: Saiga

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A saiga (Saiga tatarica), photographed at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.


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#666, with horns, with that grin, you clever devil!

By natural cynic (not verified) on 09 Aug 2009 #permalink

I didn't catch on to the satanic joke right away (I'm a little out of it this morning.) But the photograph does demonstrate how hard it can be to guess an animal's appearance by it's skeleton, because you'd never know about these animals and their huge Jimmy Durante noses from the bones alone.

By Raymond Minton (not verified) on 10 Aug 2009 #permalink

Actually you probably could tell that they have huge noses, because the nostrils are right at the back of the skull, rather than much further forwards as in animals which lack skulls. If you didn't know they were tundra dwellers you might give them a trunk however.

By Dave Godfrey (not verified) on 13 Aug 2009 #permalink