While I understand your frustration, I think this was good exercise. Keeping in mind the old adage “there’s no such thing as bad press,” I think events like this can only help Cryptozoology. When confronted with an unknown, you applied science and reason, and came up with the right answer. A raccoon. If and when something washes up in Loch Ness, or a large furry body is found in the Cascades, people are more likely to accept the possibility of the unknown, having listened to a professional in Cryptozoology like yourself solve the “mystery” of strange looking but known species. Great work.

Like always if one tries to identify such a carcass, it’s important to look on all available anatomical data (as well as the geographical location of course), because many people just look at the superficial look to make their decision. Many people thought this particular carcass was a pig, dog, a rat or some other kind of rodent. It’s all wrong. I will try to show what this animal was and what it was not.

Let’s start with the pig. That’s a big problem with unusual carcasses and unusual animals. Many people look only on superficial traits like pink hairless skin in this case. That’s enough for many to conclude this is a pig. A quick look at the feet shows this animal had finger-like paws on the front and long pawed feet at the back, so it´s obviously no ungulate of any kind.

Many people suggested it’s a squirrel, a rat or a nutria. Luckily there is a good photo which shows the dentition very well:

This is obviously no the dentition of any kind of rodent. Rodents have long incisors and a typical toothless space. Take a look at this nutria skull to see how a typical rodent skull looks:

http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei%3ANutriasch%C3%A4del.jpg&filetimestamp=20051006064136

This clearly rules out any kind of rodent as well. One of the most often suggested animals was a dog, and that’s surely closer than the already mentioned species. But it’s also no dog. Again the teeth are the best thing you can use for anatomical comparisons. Take again a look at the dentition of the carcass, it has small molars and a big premolars, all of equal size and comparably broad. Now look at a dog´s dentition:

Dogs have highly enlarged first molars in the mandible, and together with the last premolars in the upper jaw, this carnassial teeth work to cut meat. You can see the big size, laterally compressed shape and shearing areas on this teeth:

So the dentition also rules out a dog as well. But there are some other traits on the carcass you can see. If a normally hairy animal lose its fur, it can look quite different, as the fur often conceals the real shape of the body. To get a comparison it´s often good to look at taxidermy polyurethane forms, which are used as inner body for hides. So you can see a comparably stocky body, its hind legs are longer than the front legs, and the tail is quite thick on the base. This fits very well with the body shape of a raccoon:

There are also some other anatomical traits which are important. If you look at the hind legs, you can see they are plantigrade, i.e. the animal used its whole foot to walk (like ourselves or bears, and -surprise surprise – raccooons), unlike dogs which walk only on the tips of their feet. You can also see the paws. The toes are long and finger like, and there are five of them. This is also exactly like those of raccoons:

In contrast the toes of dogs are shorter and thicker, and there are only four of them as well as a small dewclaw:

To take again a look at the dentition of the carcass, please take the time to look at the number and shape of the teeth:

And now compare their number and shape to those of raccoons:

http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs4/i/2004/228/c/4/Raccoon_Skull__Side_View_2.jpg

http://courses.washington.edu/vertebra/452/photos/mammals/raccoon_skull_ventral.jpg

Raccoons are highly omnivorous and consume only very little meat, for this reason they have no big carnassial teeth, but broad and comparably small molars and a similarly shape 4th premolar.

The snout of the carcass is missing, and the lower canines seems to be broken, possibly the animal was roadkilled. But the data from the molars and premolars is anyway much more important. Looking at all data from this carcass, it is next to sure this was nothing but another dead raccoon. I am quite sure other people (who have probably not read what I have written because they are too lazy…) will again make comments and say it’s yet a dog or something else.