Is there a ridge?

[SHANK]

I had a buck mounted in '95 and it being my first mount and my biggest buck to date, I am extremely proud of it. My heating contractor came over one day and while admiring the deer he commented on the "ridge" running down the center of the snout. He said that deer have rounded snouts and the ridge is inaccurate. I looked at my other mount and that one has a smooth or rounded snout. Different taxidermist.

Not knowing a dang thing about taxidermy, I thought the form used would be anatomically correct and all features would be the same. So, why would my first have this ridge? Did the taxidermist screw up?

[Big Buck]

No form is the same, they all have some kind of defect weather it is the eyes nose.

This is why it is good to have Referance pictures and know the anatomy of the deer or animal that he is working.

But also even though the hunter knows what a deer looks like he still does not see the animal like the taxidermist does.
The taxidermist will study the deer to make sure it looks like it did when it was shot.

The best thing to do is take pictures of the animal before you take it to the taxidermist and if you see something fun when you drop it off tell him that way he can duplicate it.

As far as your mount goes now I would not worry about its 10 years old and you just now found out about it, and no one else has sais any thing so it must look good other than that.

Good luck

[SHANK]

Thanks for the info, Mike.

[Winterover]

On occasion a deer will have a ridge running down the middle of the nose. This is called a Roman nose. This is somewhat rare, I have shot 2 deer with it (out of about 30). A good taxidermist will pick up on this and actually build the ridge up on the form to account for it. I have a 22" 10 point mounted that had a roman nose. The taxidermist built it right into the mount. I had never heard of it until I took my cape to him and he pointed it out to me. It sounds to me like this is what your taxidermist did also. Instead of making a mistake, he probably caught this and built it in.

Hope this helps.
Winterover

[SHANK]

I'll go with that one. I got a rare buck!

Thanks Winterover.