This week I have something a bit weird to have a go at identifying:
Any idea what this zoological object might be?
No need for cryptic clues and subtle hints for this one methinks… Enjoy the challenge!
Zygoma
Adventures in natural history collections
Zygoma 
Budding hydra on a sponge (bleached).
No, scratch that: sausage-inna- bun.
OK, no: invasive crab lip parasitical crustacean isolated.
I’ve got it! Sneak preview of Ridley Scott’s vision for the XVIIth Alien/Prometheus film.
(Unless it’s a carefully dissected cancerous heart-of-mouse…)
funny, I thought ‘heart’ at first as well! 🙂
It’s Groot! 🙂 Love the tiny “face”” on it! It’s hard to see on a specimen if it’s naturally shiny – if it’s plant, animal, or mineral…but at first glance it looks vaguely like a member of the Dacrymycetaceae family.
Since Paolo said it’s zoological, I’m avoiding fungi for now, tempting though that guess is. Slime moulds, on the other hand, may be fair game, although I’m not sure how large they grow. 🙂
Salivary gland of some sort?
Oooooh.
Someone who knows their stuff!
I shall hush from now on* and read rather than play the jester. (Heads off to look for google** images of salivary glands and hopes they won’t prove NSFW.)
*Shortly.
**duckduckgo actually.
It might be a bit drooly, but not a salivary gland – in fact, I’m not even sure if this animal has a salivary gland…
Slightly literal but is it an upside down brain from something like a lobster?
Nope – it’s a pretty much intact animal!
Probably start by floundering around before deciding to gad about. When will we ever lern?
Is it a flounder brain? Pleeeeease? Paolo said no cryptic clues were needed.
I’d say this is a no-brainer!
Flounder being the operative word on this object I think 😉
It’s a whole organism…
Some polyp-y thingy then. My hydra guess might not be too far off.
If it is an organism, where oh where does it keep its brain?
Hmmm, the cod reference suggests you could be on to something…
It’s my granddaughter’s silly-putty sculpture of a dancer. It’s obvious!
Sounds reasonable 😉
Be still my heart? Or “a” heart? Part of a heart?
There’s probably a heart in there somewhere, but it’s an entire animal!
There are three stems spouting three fingers – could it be something like a tuatara brain (three eyed creature?) or something going to a three lobed lung?
It’s a whole organism, not just a part!
Is it a wax model ?
I went to the compared anatomy gallery of the Muséum in Paris to get some inspiration but I didn’t find anything resembling. Could it be a fish pyloric cecum ?
Nope, it’s a real animal – and it’s complete!
Bottom looks like a stomach and coiled-up intestine. But there can’t be 3 esophagi.
Nudibranch, but not a very symmetrical one.
My other guess would be a microscopic animal,
I know it’s not much, bu I’ll venture it’s a worm of some sort. Probably not a hemichordate.