This Friday I’m at a conference in sunny Newcastle, so I might not get to answer questions on this post until a bit later in the day, but I have a feeling you won’t need my help on this one! Any idea what this object from the Horniman collection might be?
Please do feel free to ask questions and make suggestions below – I will do my very best to respond. Good luck!
Zygoma 
I don’t know what it is, but I think I can see teeth and nasal cavities.
Is it a cross-section from a dugong skull ?
You can indeed see teeth an nasal cavities – not a dugong, but you’re in the right sort of area!
Elephant seal?
Again, in the right area, but not quite…
I bet Newcastle is sunnier than Cromer. I think Jake’s right. Looks like the cross-section of the schnozz of something with very dense bones indeed, so I’d say dugong. Or manatee. Creatures where pachyostosis is the dish of the day.
I’m thinking along similar lines, but leaning towards a Walrus skull.
Okay, I think this too. It has been cut in front of the big eye arches, and the tusks are taken out.
The teeth don’t look manatee or dugong to me…
You’re not wrong…
Hydrurga leptonyx (leopard seal)?
In the right ball-park…
The teeth don’t “look” right for elephant …
Having been at the same conference as Paolo, where he told a bunch of us what his FMO would be, I have to recuse myself with a merry goo goo g’joob to you all.
Oh drat it is, isn’t it? That’s embarrassing given how I have been spending my Mondays and stupid bloody Tuesdays. Very tricky angle. I’m crying.
I am the egg man. We are the egg men.
Going with walrus on this one. Teeth are wrong for an sirenia