This week I have a bit of an odd object for you to identify:
Any idea what this is?
You can put your comments, questions and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to reply during the day. Good luck!
Zygoma
Adventures in natural history collections
This week I have a bit of an odd object for you to identify:
Any idea what this is?
You can put your comments, questions and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to reply during the day. Good luck!
Zygoma 
Mmm. awkwardly cut baguette…
When bones are together like this it is usually bones or teeth ?
In this case, bones.
I meant “spine” !
Aha, well these are neither teeth nor vertebrae!
A sequence of vertebrae from Thoracic to Lumbar? Trying to think where else you get the inverse of (Miss) Anne Elk’s theory.
Nope – these aren’t vertebrae!
Gastralia, then? Wait, you said not arranged as they would be in a living animal. Hmm…
Gastralia is a good suggestion – not right, but good!
Hmmm… I’m not even in the right league to guess what this might belong to, but I get the feeling that the abscence of any obvious processes in these vertebrae (if that’s indeed what these are) “must” be diagnostic… Maybe it’s a bebe?*
*Ok, I meant foetus, but “bebe” is nicer…
Just read Paolo’s comment above, d’oh! 🙂
Could this be an artefact then? A necklace/wristband of bone beads maybe? It’s hard to tell if they’re meant to be strung together…
It’s not a man-made artefact, although it is arranged for display in a way that it wouldn’t be seen in a living animal.
Bony plates from the back of a crocodilian?
Nice idea, but nope.
You can’t see if they are a set of rings or plates, but my thought was ossified cartilage rings from some animals t******. Dried Beef t****** are sold for their apparent medicinal properties.
Good suggestion, but not tracheal rings.
Pareidolia rules – they look like they fit together pretty well! They could be widest in the middle and tapering towards both ends, but I’m going for starting widest and tapering to a point and suggesting an armadillo’s tail or something like that.
Unless it’s something to do with reindeer…..
Nothing to do with Reindeer! Or Armadillos or tails. However, you’re absolutely right when you say that they fit together well and that the taper doesn’t necessarily follow what is shown in this specimen… although what is shown isn’t wrong, it just isn’t the only way of representing the taper… which raises interesting questions with a useful answer.
R***** s****?
Not sure what R***** s**** stands for, but I don’t think it’s right…
Are they ribs?
Nope, not ribs
Something exhibiting hyperphalangy (and these are the phalanges) like an ichthyosaur or a plesiosaur, but then they don’t look very fossily
You’re right – they’re not fossily and they’re not phalangy either!
Bone core of a horn (or two)?
Nothing horny about these
After much deliberation and consultation with HT we have decided that it could be horn cores sectioned longitudinally, snapped rather than cut. The curve at the top and bottom edges, and the differenciated materials were our clues.
I like the detail, but I’m afraid not. This object hasn’t been sectioned, just disassembled along naturally occurring joints.
OK we are now trying to follow the clue of gastralia being a good guess, I have suggested something Ch****ian and HT dug around the internet and after looking at some carapaces we are now leaning towards scutes.
Not scutes and not from a Chelonian I’m afraid!
*the mind boggles*
Running out of bones! It (they) seem to have a groove along the top edge. Baculum?
Nope. There is a groove of sorts, although it’s not a groove in the living animal – it’s an artefact of the way the bones have been laid out.
sclera ?
If these bones were pushed together they would at least form an arch if not a ring.
I tried a cut and paste with your photo .. and I think it is a sclerotic ring. What about S*******c******
It has even made a 3D model!
I think you have it! That would explain the groove. I’ve no idea what S.c. is, so I’ll take a guess with a favourite large animal, V.k.
I think that 14 plates is a factor when looking for the species but then the size may be a better indicator.
3cms
Something quite large then
Was the organism from which these bones derive deformed in any way? Was the animal a ‘normal’ member of its species, or physiologically unusual in some way? Was it adult or immature? I’m trying to think outside the box here.
No, the animal was normal for its species
so maybe one of the family S********
because not all of the creature needs to be large.
… perhaps B*** b***
Amazing!