Postmortem animal depredation is a substantial part of the taphonomic processes a body undergoes after death. While the occurrence and presentation of such injuries are well known to forensic pathologists, the morphological appearance of these injuries may be misinterpreted by police officers or members of other investigating authorities. The individual in the images received the injuries postmortem by a domestic dog, cause of death unknown. No further info on the case.
Fig.1 Postmortem injuries inflicted postmortem by a domestic dog.
A broad range of carnivores can be involved in the postmortem destruction of corpses located in open spaces or indoors (e.g. wild animals such as foxes and big cats or domestic animals such as dogs and cats). The wound margins caused by carnivores often appear more regular than those caused by rodents and V-shaped or rhomboid punctured wounds are often seen upon the intact skin in the immediate vicinity to the actual wound margins. Such stab wound-like defects represent canine tooth marks of carnivore origin. An additional criterion for animal depredation by carnivores is the presence of claw-induced linear scratch-type abrasions in the vicinity of the damaged skin areas.
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