This week I have a stray mandible for you to have a go at identifying:
I think I know what it’s from, but I’d appreciate your thoughts. As usual you can put your thoughts, comment and questions below. I can’t wait to hear which critter you think it might be from!
Last week I gave you this interestingly shaped piece of bone to identify:
Jake, Elisa, henstridgesj, Hew Morrison, Robin Birrrdegg, Daniel Jones and Daniel Calleri all made a correct identification of this being part of a sternum, a sternebrae or more specifically a manubrium from a fairly large (yet possibly juvenile) ungulate. This was all correct and the final piece of the puzzle is the species, which is actually a smaller Deer than most people were expecting. It’s from an immature male Fallow Deer Dama dama (Linnaeus, 1758) collected from Knowle Park in Kent.
Here’s what it looks like with the rest of the sternebrae (which are the individual elements of bone that make up the sternum, like vertebrae make up the spine) that I could find for the specimen:
Sternum of immature male Fallow Deer Dama dama
So it was indeed the manubrium – the top sternebra which in humans articulates with the top ribs and clavicles, but which here would only articulate with the top ribs, because ungulates don’t have clavicles (as I’ve discussed before). Here’s a human sternum for comparison:
Human sternum
So well done to everyone – I hope you enjoyed the challenge!
After a weekend of discussion about the hashtag #bonegeeks for a crowd-sourced, social media based resource for images of bones, I have come to the conclusion that you can’t please all of the people all of the time.
The nub of the discussion centres on the word ‘geek’, which is a term that some people dislike and don’t identify with. This is fair enough – how one identifies with and adopts labels for themselves is a personal thing, a point that Alice Roberts made earlier in the year.
Language evolves and so terms take on new meanings to reflect common usage. To my mind this means that the term ‘geek’ has taken on a new and (to my mind) positive meaning as “someone who is interested in a subject (usually intellectual or complex) for its own sake“, so I am happy with that description for myself – but I can understand that others feel differently.
In order to try to come up with a better hastag for a bony resource I made a poll that included a range of suggestions, the most popular of which can be seen below:
Now obviously #bonegeeks comes out on top – presumably due to input from other people who self-identify as geeks, but there are enough people voting for alternatives to raise a warning flag that several people may feel actively excluded by use of term ‘geek’. In light of this I am unwilling to stick with #bonegeeks, but the general lack of consensus on alternative names leads me to reject the other options.
Where to go from here? The obvious answer is to go back to what we are trying to achieve and to think of a hashtag that is descriptive of the outcome rather than the contributors, so I suggest we use #bonepics so that both #bonegeeks and every other brand of osteology enthusiast who doesn’t consider themselves a geek can get on with making something rather awesome…
On Friday there was a lighthearted discussion about a hashtag that could be used to compile images of bones on twitter as an identification resource. It’s always a struggle to find the bones you’re after on an image search and #bonegeeks (as it is currently called) will hopefully help to remedy that problem.
The hashtag used will be the one mechanism by which this resource will be readily found in order to be further curated, so it is important to use something short, memorable, descriptive and – importantly – something that isn’t already in use (which is why #boners was decided against). It should also be a term that people feel some sort of affiliation with – and it certainly shouldn’t put people off (another reason why #boners was perhaps unsuitable).
However, this last point raises an issue, since some people clearly were put off – and when I say ‘some people’ I mean a person whose opinion I respect.
@PaoloViscardi @AnimalBones @Hayley_Bone @Ben_garrod Can you lose the "geek"?
— Prof Alice Roberts (@DrAliceRoberts) November 17, 2013
Earlier this year Alice made an explicit statement about the use of the term ‘geek’, which puts her comment in context:
“There’s been a movement towards reclaiming the word ‘geek’ but I’d rather get away from it entirely”…”If you say: ‘It’s cool to be a geek,” where does that leave people who don’t consider themselves to be geeks? Aren’t they allowed to be interested in science? Science is for everyone.”
As someone who self-identifies as a bit of a geek (and borderline nerd) I’ve already done my bit of reclaiming and I’m comfortable with it, but Alice’s point is still valid – not everyone who might want to get involved identifies as a geek.
It’s still early days, so if any changes to the hastag are to be made, they need to be made as soon as possible in order to stop the proliferation of hashtags and increase the difficulty of finding information. Perhaps the best idea if to make a poll of unused hashtag suggestions and allow people to vote on their favourite option. Here is such a poll, with any suggestions that have been made included, unless the hashtag is already in use on Twitter.
If you have any other suggestions please add them (on the poll or in the comments) – hopefully we may be able to find a decent hashtag amongst them, that people are happy to use.
There are some great resources online for finding images of comparative material for skulls, but the postcranial skeleton tends to be quite badly represented online even for common species. I’d love to change that, but it’s a big challenge for one person.
Paramastoid process of Pig (Sus scrofa)
That’s why I’d like to set up #bonegeeks on Twitter (and maybe on other social media as well). The way I see it, people who have access to skeletal material could easily take snaps of bits of postcrania from known species (preferably with something for scale) using their phone and share the image to Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook with the name of the species and the bone (and perhaps where the specimen is held).
With the #bonegeeks tag it should be easy to collate images and hopefully start building up a comparative collection of images to make identifications easier.
It could start with a bone of the week to get the seldom depicted bones better represented and I’m sure #bonegeeks would be willing to respond to requests if there were particular bones that someone wanted to see.
I wonder if this could work… shall we give it a go and find out? Please add your thoughts on this idea in the comments section below or on Twitter using the #bonegeeks hashtag.
Oh and here’s how the idea got started: [View the story “#bonegeeks” on Storify]
This Friday I have an interestingly shaped piece of bone for you to try your hand at identifying:
Any idea what bone this is and what it might be from? You can put your suggestions in the comments section below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!
Last Friday I gave you this odd-looking bone to identify:
This specimen had originally been identified as an ossified inner ear, but the shape and arrangement of the ossified rings points to a different and quite familiar body part for someone who works with bird skeletons. The rounded bulb attached to the tube is a bit more interesting and potentially confusing.
The first suggestion from Anna Pike was cryptic, but very close indeed, with Jeanie and Daniel Jones also coming to the same conclusion.
This is the syrinx (or tracheal bulla) of a duck, with ossified tracheal rings in place – so basically the voicebox of a duck (or as I’ve heard Jake describe it, it’s the duck’s “quack“).
The shape and size of this specimen leads me to think it’s from a Mallard Duck Anas platyrhynchos, as it’s very similar to the one Jake has written about before. I find it interesting because it shows how bones can adapt to fulfil a variety of roles and how some very different species can solve problems in similar ways. Mainly I’m thinking about the similarities of this syrinx to the modified hyoid of the Howler Monkey that acts as a resonating chamber.
Thanks for all your thoughts – I hope you enjoyed identifying that odd bit of bone!
This Friday I have an odd looking object from the Horniman’s collection that had been misidentified . Do you have any idea what it might be?
I know that Jake will work out what it is straight away, as he’s blogged about this type of bone before, nut you can put your suggestions in the comments section below and I’ll do my best to reply. Good luck!
Zygoma 