Death brings life underground, originally uploaded by Mic2006.
It would seem that one night in the middle of one of those incredible storms that blow off the lake, one hapless creature stumbled over this narrow crevice in the grass and slid down to become wedged between the back and the front of it’s skull; it was as good as dead the instant that it disappeared beneath the surface. There was no returning from the crack and as it’s head became wedged the creature would have hung for days before it died of suffocation, hypothermia or thirst.
Now moss is starting to grow on the skull and the remainder of it’s bones are likely scattered beneath it. Next time I visit the area I am bringing a hook to try and retrieve the skull. This is by no means a rare sight in caves and cavities beneath the rock of Ontario,, especially in systems with precipitous entrances, like shelburne, G-Lake and a new cave that we’ve just found this past weekend.
to see the video on this macabre find click here … ‘video – Death brings Life Underground’
Good picture Mick – I would have passed that by without even thinking what brought that poor creature to its end…
Hi Mick, IMO you should just leave the skull as is. Something for future cave explorers to come across. I would guess it’s not that old because it may still be effected by frost at that depth. Old bone are usually deep enought to not be in reach of freezing each year. I thought the NSS has some like, ‘take nothing but pictures, kill nothing but time, and leave nothing’.
Not sure whether I’d call that a cave – maybe a crevice with the potential for caves in the area.