Northwest Dive Club

Last night at mukilteo a guy came up that found this interesting "bone"

Bovine?

D

Looks like a vertabrae from a cow or something.

Possible partial seal humerus?

Based on shape, its the lower (distal) end of a femur. The large groove is for the patella to track in. The broken end (facing the viewer in pic 2) was rounded off by wave action. I can't think of any marine mammals with a femur & patella structured for weight bearing like this. e.g. Whales have femurs but without a tibia they don't look anything like a land mammal femur. So based on size of the condyls (the rounded surfaces by your thumb in pic3) its probably a cow.

Generic mammalian land femur end

I wonder who put it under the dock at mukilteo. Long way for a cow bone to travel.

Emilyrc wrote:I wonder who put it under the dock at mukilteo. Long way for a cow bone to travel.

Possibly used as crab trap bait at one time, when there was meat on it. Or was some dog's bone.

Emilyrc wrote:I wonder who put it under the dock at mukilteo. Long way for a cow bone to travel.

... not if it had meat on it when it got there ... crab bait, perhaps?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)