Spinning Skulls
 Dorsal-Ventral View |
 Lateral View |
 Upper Tooth Row |
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Quicktime VR Skulls and Anatomical Features
We have hundreds of QuickTime VR object movies and close-up images of mammal skulls and teeth which we digitized for advanced college mammalogy classes. These are scattered in the mammals section. Here are five examples:
- Canis lupus lycaon (Gray Wolf)
- Gorilla gorilla gorilla (western lowland gorilla)
- Erethizon dorsatum (common porcupine, North American porcupine)
- Tachyglossus aculeatus (Short-nosed echidna)
- Dugong dugon (dugong)
The goal of this project was to make previously restricted specimens accessible on the Web. With these digital movies, students can study detailed images of skulls, teeth, and other important structures whenever they want regardless of a designated laboratory period. They can virtually grab skulls on the screen, spin them around, view them from above or below. Skulls that were previously off-limits to students, such as the rare black-footed ferret or the delicate ghost bat, are now available for study at close range.
Courses at other schools which do not have a suitable teaching collection of skulls can use these resources, too. In fact, these movies are available even to people not formally registered in any course, along with the rest of the Animal Diversity Web.
Other universities using the spinning skulls resource include: Emporia State University, Michigan State University, Arizona, and Ohio University.
Note: QuickTime VR objects require you to have QuickTime installed.
Contributors
Spinning Skulls Team: Toni Gorog, Sharon Jansa, Bruce Worden, Phil Myers, Alejandra Chiesa, Peter Knox (QTVR tech support), Tom Bray (QTVR tech support), Roger Espinosa (web support), Tricia Jones (web support).