This week has been busy in the Dead Zoo, so I’ve not had much chance to find a really challenging mystery object, but here’s a taxidermy specimen for you to try your hand at identifying:
As it’s an easy one perhaps you could use a cryptic clue or perhaps a bit of verse to show off your knowledge? Have fun!
Zygoma 
She may run on coal and hot water, but was the first to travel around the world
I get steamed up just thinking about this one.
Nice hints from Wouter and James, and I don’t know enough to judge whether their identification is right or not. What I noticed was that the wings seem to be smaller than I would expect… so I’m willing to believe it’s a creature that spends more time on the surface than in the air.
I think Wouter and James are pointing to a genus with four species. Wikipedia has pictures, and only one of the four seems to have an orange beak. (Just a fugitive thought!)
This is the famous feathered platypus. When naturalists in the UK first saw this stuffed specimen they thought it was a hoax, with a platypus bill sewn onto some kind of penguin. Only in time did they recognise that this was an actual bird that flies, and swims, and walks. So they called it the platypus-billed duck, later shortened to duck…
Follow me for more recipés.
Or the fast-rowing feathered one, if you’re getting technical. (It’s certainly not the Whitehead, the Patagonian or the Wingbranch(?) One.)
I’m not too familiar with water fowl that don’t appear in the US, so I’m going to ask a dumb question. Is this a hybrid?
Not a dumb question at all, but no, not a hybrid – that would just be mean!
Thanks, Paolo.
Off-topic, but the non-white areas of the body have an interesting “chain mail” effect. It looks a if the feathers have dark margins surrounding a lighter gray area. (And this is confirming evidence for the identification hinted above: at least some photos show a similar “color” scheme.)