This week I have an object from the mysterious box NH.83.1 for you to identify:
What do you think this skull belonged to?
As usual you can put your comments, questions and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to answer.
Good luck!
Zygoma
Adventures in natural history collections
Zygoma 
Maxwell’s Duiker?
Oooh, very similar, but not quite there.
Might it be the gray kind?
Grey fits, but it’s not a Duiker.
You must be kid-kidding me !
I’ve changed my mind. I think it looks a bit grimm.
Some great puns there Jake – but it isn’t something beardy!
Dad gave me those cryptic clues, but they were rubbish ! I didn’t mean a goat, I meant a dik-dik (kid backwards), then a sylvicapra grimmia.
The cryptic clues were took cryptic for me! I too kid as baby goat and Grimm as a reference to the Three Billy Goats Gruff – but of course that story wasn’t by the Brothers Grimm!
Still, Dik-dik and Duiker are not quite there… very close though!
Bah! Something with horns anyway …
Absolutely right about the horns, but you may be a bit sheepish when I tell you it’s not what you think it is…
Dik-dik
It’s a bit big for a Dik-dik
Steenbok?
Warmest so far
Well, at the risk of working through the entire list of small antelopes, I’ll have another guess: Grysbok.
If Jake’s wrong about Grimm, is it because it’s something grimmia?
Like it! But no. Not a Duiker.
There are way too many antelopes in the world.
Raphicerus melanotis?
Can I narrow it down by continent and say Africa?
Africa it is – the great motherland of the antelopes.
a Kob of some sort?
It’s a unicorn!!!
Is it a gazelle?
A museum?
Sorry.
I have to be honest and say my first thought was a dikdik, too, but both that and duiker have been ruled out. That doesn’t leave a lot, especially if its *smaller* than a dikdik. Some new part of the ear, perhaps, or is that rather too small?
Oh, I suppose the other option is… um… the sharp needle-horned beastie. (Or its black-eared friend). Although I thought they were similar in size to a dikdik, to be honest.
The teeth give it away as a deer or antelope. Large eyes, by the look of it, which made me think dikdik, but, as the comments above show, that’s not it.
I think Stephen J. Henstridge got it. Grysbok, I presume? I actually ran out of antelopes I knew and had to start looking some up.
While we await the final revelation, those not familiar with Dutch/Afrikaans might be interested in the origin of some of these names.
Bok translates to ‘goat’, and gives us the English word ‘buck,’ but has been widely applied to any small horned beast. Thus we have Grysbok (Grey-Goat), Springbok (Jumping-Goat), and Steenbok/Steinbok (Stone-Goat).
Duiker means ‘diver’ and relates not to water but to their habit of diving into undergrowth when disturbed.
The Dutch ‘Hert’ is the equivalent of the English hart (stag) and changes its spelling, too, in Afrikaans. Thus Hartebeest is stag-beast.
Meanwhile, the English word ‘deer’ has its origins in the Dutch “dier” or German “tier,” both of which have the wider meaning of ‘animal.’
Other names of Dutch origin include Wildebeest (wild-beast), Aardvark (earth-pig), Meerkat (lake-cat), Klipspringer (rock-jumper) and Boomslang (tree-snake).
Dik-diks are, however, named for the sound they make: “zik-zik.”