Come face-to-face with a pug and you’re likely left wondering what type of bone structure could support such an oddly dome-shaped dog head. Well, researchers at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University have the answer to not only the shape of pug skulls but the skulls of 152 dog breeds. A pug’s skull (seen below) is more rounded with a shorter upper jaw compared to other breeds, which is the result of a genetic mutation.
The team at the university in Budapest, Hungary spent decades gathering and digitizing hundreds of dog skulls. Using a computed tomography (CT) scanner, researchers captured high-resolution images that show the skulls in stunning detail.
“The digital skull database can be used for comparative anatomical and evolutionary studies, in the education of veterinarians and biologists, and even for the development of machine learning algorithms for automated species identification and veterinary diagnostics,” Enikő Kubinyi, head of the MTA-ELTE Lendület Companion Animal and ELTE NAP Canine Brain research groups, said in a statement. The database was published in the journal Scientific Data and also includes CT imagery of domestic cat and wild species skulls.
