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!
Zygoma 
*t****m, obviously. Looks like the top bit, nearest the *ec*. Looks quite thin. I know pig’s are thick and deer and thinner and this looks thinner and bigger too.I would say something slightly bigger than a C.elaphus.
Not fused, either, so maybe a younger animal.
Brilliant – although it’s not from something bigger than a Red Deer…
The top bit of a sternum? From something which isn’t a bird? Or is a flightless one?
You’re right – it’s not from a bird!
From a sheep?
Not from a sheep.
Upper part of a Sternum from a Moose or an Elk?
Pretty close, although not quite there on the species.
*an***ium. Immature. Species? I got nothing. Will leave that to Jake. 🙂
I was really shying away from any sternal process on account of the thin bit to the right appearing like the distal-most tip of the vertebral spines on some artiodactyls. Now back to sternal bones, if it is the manubrium, excellent dinner party word by the way, of an animal then I’m lost as to which one. There seems to be no jugular notch. Which vertebrates do not posses a jugular notch on their manubrium? Don’t know. Clearly I will be studying this point more closely in the near future. Could it instead be the penultimate plate before the xiphoid process? I’ll still try to work out whose later. Good stumper this time Paolo! Jake, you’re my newest hero!
I agree! Jake rocks the calcified internal skeletal world!
Do artiodactyls with particularly pronounced necks lack a jugular notch? There are those two notches on the upper margin. Then there’s the juvenile looking nature of the thin end. Hmmm. Paolo has me stumped too.