Identify this skull?

[JahJahwarrior]

IMGP1903 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
IMGP1900 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I was walking on some trails tonight at my college, UCF, which is located in the heart of central Florida, the southeast of the US. It's a very marshy area, but tonight I managed to find a dry way around this large puddle of water, and managed to walk about another 3/4 of a mile on these trails, seldom used, before a bigger puddle stopped me. It was just before this puddle that I found this skull....and I want to know what it was. I don't want to be out there at night if there's things that are dangerous, you know?

It had a rather thick backbone which you can see some of, but also that round scaly thing.....around the skull were more scales, but other than those, this was the only part of the animal in the region. I moved it with a stick so I could take better pictures, this is a few feet from where I found it.

I thought maybe it could be a turtle, but it looks nothign like the turtle skulls google found for me.

Can anyone help me figure out what this might be? Thank you!!!

 

[Walter]

I'd love to see other angles on it. I'd especially like to see the teeth. How big is it? From the scales, I'd guess some type of reptile, but I'm not finding anything similar.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

There weren't any teeth, that I could see. There wasn't much of anything....I should have switched to a wider lens and taken the time to get better shots, but I was antsy to get out of this freaky, marshy forest area, as the sun was going down I had hoped to take this path all the way to another area of campus which I think it leads to, but ended up having to backtrack instead. I'm fairly certain another 1/4 mile would have taken me to a path at the end of a lake, backtracking half a mile took me to another lake, one lake over. I guess really they are just huge retention ponds....

 

[krawdady]

The shell kind of makes me think armadillo, although the skull makes me think you should stop walking out there at all. Whats the deal with the fin things on top of the head? Be afraid. Be very afraid.

 

[H2Andy]

i think it's the skull of a maitre d'

 

[Walter]

Go back and retrieve it.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

I just might....it's a little bit of a walk to get there. Takes atleast an hour.

 

[do it easy]

I think it's a chupacabra!

 

[Tom Smedley]

Or a juvenile Hodagg. What you are seeing may not be a skull but another part of the skeleton. The shell looks reptilish like an iguana. Post the pictures here on scubaboard so we can enlarge them and study them proper.

I think it's a chupacabra!

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

I think it's a chupacabra!

:11:

That's got my vote, too!