The mammal worker will often find a skull or random bone in the course of a field survey or country walk, but due to a lack of identification skills these discoveries may be ignored or discarded instead of potentially yielding a valuable mammal record.

During this unique two-day course, Ric Morris will explain bone identification techniques especially suited to mammal recording, enabling delegates to confidently identify the majority of their bone finds.

The workshop will cover;

· Types of animal support structures

· The structure and naming of the parts of the skeleton

· Cranial and post-cranial bones

· ‘Laying out’ a skeleton

· How to differentiate mammal bones from bird, amphibian, reptile and fish bones

· How the skeleton affects the way mammals walk and run

· How to distinguish insectivores, herbivores, carnivores and omnivores

· An introduction to owl pellet analysis

· Primary skeletal features of every Order, Family and most species of native and introduced wild UK mammals and some domestics

· Ageing mammals from their bones

· Identifying bone fragments

· A brief look at bone pathology, including abnormalities, deformities and healed fractures

There will also be an opportunity to examine, handle, draw or photograph specimens from a very extensive collection.

Places on this course are limited to 12 delegates.

The course will start at 10am on the Saturday morning and finish around 4.00 pm on Sunday.

The course fee includes overnight accommodation, meals and refreshments, at FSC Preston Montford.

Accessibility:
We are committed to ensuring the accessibility of our training courses. If you require accommodations or have any accessibility concerns, please contact Fiona (training@themammalsociety.org) in advance, and we will be happy to assist you.

For booking terms and conditions click here.

*Please note - If not enough delegates book on to this course it may be postponed with two weeks notice, this is because we are a small charity and need to make sure our events are viable.