This week I have nice skull from the Dead Zoo for you to have a go at identifying:
I don’t think it’s going to be much of a challenge for some of you, so please keep your answers cryptic to not spoil it for other people. Have fun!
Friday mystery object #401
Zygoma 
A ninja reptile named after another large reptile from the Florida swamps
“Waiter, bring me an alligator sandwich – and make it snappy!”
Turtally awesome! Nice snap of this specimen.
We were told as children that if this critter bit us, it would not let go till sundown. Not native to Ireland, though!
Alli-oop! So sorry, i can’t type so well while i’m eating my pizza! Cowabunga!
A heavy-weight beast with a big over-bite
Hunting sometimes by day but mostly by night
From the US I come, from the lakes and the pools
And fishes I trap for they really are fools
When they follow my mouth worm they’ll wind up dead
But please don’t confuse me – I’m not Loggerhead
Seems this skull has lured quite a few punsters, giving tongue to their senses of humor.
The solid skull tells me what group of creatures this is from. And that beak like front to it upper jaw. I have to say I am going with all the punsters here. 🙂
Off topic (but inspired by) — a couple of decades back, when Catania was starting his research on Star-nosed Moles, the Journal of Experimental Biology had a cover photo on an issue containing one of his papers that looked amazing like (this species, if the punsters are to be believed)… or maybe like a Mayan sculpture of it. Turned out it was a s.e.m. photo of an embryonic Star-nosed Mole, and what looked like the (…)’s eyes were actually the nostrils, surrounded by the embryonic rudiments of the star.
Well, if the overbite is a reliable spotting feature, I think the punsters have it. … Live specimens of the whole animal have dramatically sculpted ridges on the back: Wikipedia has a photo of a skeleton that doesn’t show any sign of them! So they must be entirely a feature of the outer, keratinous, layer.
The relevant Catania article is in J.E.B. vol 202, issue 20, from 1999. I couldn’t get the cover photo from my library’s e-journal collection, but the article itself (pp. 2719-2726) has some s.e.m. embryonic portraits: more informative but less dramatic than the one I remember on the cover. Imagine the most mature embryo shown in the article, but seen from directly in front, with the actual eyes out of sight. And think about (…) rather than about moles when you look at it.
(As for guessing the mystery object: I thought the ORDER was obvious enough, but without the aid of the punsters, I wouldn’t have thought of the SPECIES.)
When you want to comment with a gif of Buckbeak the hippogrif from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
This guy (or girl) would seriously give shredder a run for his money.