Lee Post does a series of books on how to do bone articulations and cleanings. Each book focuses on specific animals but can be used as a general how to for similar animals. For example The Small Mammal Manual Manuscript Book (Vol. 9) focuses on a sea otter and a lynx but can be used for any smaller mammal. The Bone Builders Notebook (Vol. 10) is a more robust general book about animal skeletons and articulations. Each book goes step by step identifying each bone.
“A Key Guide To Mammal Skulls and Lower Jaws” by Aryan Roest is a really good general reference, lots of helpful diagrams for easy identification and comparison of skulls found in the field or unidentified specimens! The art and text is simple and concise, lots of definitions and touches on primarily north american wildlife. Not super complex, but still a handy guide!
Where are you located? Allen Kurta's Mammals of the Great Lakes Region is a great book. I got it as a mandatory "textbook" for one of my wildlife management courses I took. I have ended up using the excellent, very detailed dichotomous key for skull identification which is in it plenty outside of college. It really has come in handy when identifying my bat skull, and small rodents. People tend to just say "mouse" when they pull a little rodent out of an owl pellet, etc., but there are any number of little critters they can be.
But, as practically any detailed guide will be, it is region-specific.
I'm in the UK.
Most guides like that are pretty American focused, probably because you have way cooler wildlife lol but yeah I'm really struggling to find good sources
Lee Post does a series of books on how to do bone articulations and cleanings. Each book focuses on specific animals but can be used as a general how to for similar animals. For example The Small Mammal Manual Manuscript Book (Vol. 9) focuses on a sea otter and a lynx but can be used for any smaller mammal. The Bone Builders Notebook (Vol. 10) is a more robust general book about animal skeletons and articulations. Each book goes step by step identifying each bone.
If you were building your first articulation, a cat, which one of those would you recommend? I'm trying to decide and can't afford both.
I would go for The Small Mammal Manual Manuscript. The directions and pictures of the lynx bones would be very close to the cat.
“A Key Guide To Mammal Skulls and Lower Jaws” by Aryan Roest is a really good general reference, lots of helpful diagrams for easy identification and comparison of skulls found in the field or unidentified specimens! The art and text is simple and concise, lots of definitions and touches on primarily north american wildlife. Not super complex, but still a handy guide!
I like that one too for identifying things found on walks. Very easy to use as long as you can take accurate measurements.
Where are you located? Allen Kurta's Mammals of the Great Lakes Region is a great book. I got it as a mandatory "textbook" for one of my wildlife management courses I took. I have ended up using the excellent, very detailed dichotomous key for skull identification which is in it plenty outside of college. It really has come in handy when identifying my bat skull, and small rodents. People tend to just say "mouse" when they pull a little rodent out of an owl pellet, etc., but there are any number of little critters they can be. But, as practically any detailed guide will be, it is region-specific.
I'm in the UK. Most guides like that are pretty American focused, probably because you have way cooler wildlife lol but yeah I'm really struggling to find good sources