This week I have another unidentified bird skull from the Dead Zoo for you to have a go at identifying:
As usual, you can put your thoughts, questions and suggestions in the comments section below. Have fun!
Zygoma
Adventures in natural history collections
Zygoma 
Oh good grief! I hotfooted it here, all hopeful, and all I can see is something that looks like a pigeon that was steamrollered in its youth. Bother! Must get better.
Bah! I was about to come back, after a revelatory experience, and scream “Alas poor Kehaar, I knew him Horatio”, but Wouter has pre-empted my minor discovery.
Must look further into this.
Well, best I can do is agree with Wouter – sure, grant us A-Alt.
Final (?) thought. Given the shape of the three holes in the skull I am wondering if it’s from the Smithsonian…
The family is clear to me, those noisy, agressive loudmouths we see along the coast. At 12,5 cm it is one of the larger species but not one of the very largest. My guess would be L. ar.
definitely coastie, a salty chap.
a side question: how does your cataloging system work? is that skull from 1901 or is that item #1901?
We actually switch the numbers around these days and add the initials of the museum and register the accession is recorded in, plus provide an individual specimen number to differentiate between items from the same accession, so this is now NMINH:1901.482.1 meaning it was the 482nd item accessioned in 1901.
Seems much bigger than I’d expect for a typical L. ar********. Why don’t you think it’s the largest of the family, Wouter?
http://i0.poll.fm/js/rating/rating.jsI think it’s bigger than the big male Gorilla. Which I guess narrows it down to 2 if it’s European – but is it the one with the dark back or the one with the pale back? Not sure I would know how to tell.
I looked the biggest species L. mar en L. hyp. up on my website an those were bigger, over 13 cm. However, these were large males, a smaller (female?) individual of these two biggest species is very well possible.
Looks like one that’s named after what I love to eat – (pickled and in sour cream) – & it’s not a brexit bird!
From the data I have available it is too large for lesser and too small for greater which leaves a choice of three round these parts. There seems no way to tell between those from the skull alone so we would be relying on location data to get a closer ID based on the assumption that it wasn’t wandering from its normal haunts. Shame we don’t know the colour of its legs…
These messures are without bill sheat. The L. ar skull from skullsite meets 124mm. Got 2 myself meassuring 125 adult and 124 juvenile. The one with yellow legs meets 129, on skullsite 119.All do have bill sheats. The one’s from the seabird osteoligy site meets 118mm and 120mm for the one with the yellow legs. L hy is a bit larger, skullsite meets 133mm. Got an Alaskan subspecies myself 131mm and one from Scandinavia 136mm all with bill sheat. Could it not be this one?
Published data I have (tracks and signs of birds etc 2nd ed) gives L by as 121 to 145, L mar as 131 to 145 mm and L at as 111 to 118. It doesn’t have the others it might be but L fused alive is given as 117 to 124 so is unlikely to be larger than that… I’ll have to measure mine. I’ve not found measurements for Casper.
That might be more cryptic than intended due to auto correct!
http://i0.poll.fm/js/rating/rating.jsLarus fuscus?
Larus marinus seems closer in size perhaps?
6x GBBG: 129 to 141 mm
2x LBBG: 117 mm
6x HG: 111 to 117mm
9x YLG: 111 to 126 mm ( larger with beak sheath though so would be smaller without).
No G or C available. So this one doesn’t quite seem to fit those I can measure so I’d go for G as the only one that it fits into the range of data available to me.
It’s a bird not a plane !