When Chickasha Lumber Company employee Jeannie Douglas opened a shipment of gloves for the store Tuesday morning, she expected to find 480 pairs of gloves.

Instead she only found 48 pairs of gloves thrown on top of what is believed to be the skull of a hippopotamus.

"They've sent us wrong stuff before, but I never expected something like this," Douglas said.

After removing it from the box, Douglas said she had to get her boss because she didn't think he would believe her if she told him what she had found.

Store manager Steve Smart said customer Brannon Bordwine helped identify the skull. In his experience with big game hunting, Bordwine said he thought it was the skull of a hippo. He later brought a photo of a complete hippo skull, which strongly resembles Douglas' find.

Douglas said Bordwine estimated the skull's value between $1,000 and $2,000 because it is missing its lower jaw. If complete, Bordwine reportedly said the skull could be worth $5,000.

The only identifying mark on the skull, however, is a small handwritten sold sticker on the back of the skull.

Smart said the shipping company has requested the entire shipment be returned in the original box for investigative purposes. Douglas said the box should have contained a cardboard display filled with gloves.

Instead the bottom of the box had been removed and was replaced with a layer of packing tape. Also inside the box with the skull was a cylinder off of an office chair.

While the gloves are made in China, Douglas said the package came in from shippers in Dallas.

Smart said the company has issued a ticket for the return of the box. He said the boxed would be shipped as soon as that ticket arrived here, which could be as early as today or tomorrow.

The company has reportedly promised to replace the missing gloves.

Hippo skull headed home
By Jason Clarke
Staff Writer

The owner of the hippo skull has been found. Chickasha Lumber Company manager Steve Smart said the news coverage surrounding their shipment of gloves that included the skull of a hippopotamus has connected them with the organization that sold the piece. Smart said the skull belongs to Skulls Unlimited International out of Oklahoma City. According to his contact with the company, Smart said the skull shipment was on its way to Hawaii via FedEx when it was lost in Arizona on Feb. 2. He said the company had already gotten parts of the lower jaw back in pieces, but had not found the top of the skull. A FedEx representative is supposed to appear in Chickasha today to hand carry the skull back to Oklahoma City. Smart said he was informed by Skulls Unlimited that the complete skull was sold for $2,400. Skulls Unlimited International began as a hobby for company president Jay Villemarette and became a successful retail and mail order business 1990. Villemarette said the company has earned a reputation with prestigious museums and educational facilities around the world for have the largest variety of bone specimens with the best quality and most professional service. The company is currently building a museum of their own in Oklahoma City. Phase two of the Museum of Osteology is set to be complete in the summer of 2006, with the third and final phase to be constructed after that.