Last week I gave you this mystery object from the Dead Zoo as a way to kickstart 2024:

While it does indeed look a bit like an old Roman shoe (thanks Adam Yates – I will never unsee that now), these are in fact the gill rakers from a Basking Shark Cetorhinus maximus (Gunnerus, 1765).

This was spotted early on by Dennis Nieweg and several other people worked it out, both here and on social media (Mastodon, Bluesky and LinkedIn). However, there were also a lot of suggestions of whale baleen, which is not surprising, since they perform the same function in filter feeding on plankton.

Basking Sharks are the second largest fish on the planet reaching around 8m in length, although they trail behind another far bigger filter feeding cartilaginous fish, the Whale Shark, by quite a margin (the Whale Shark can be twice as long). These two species have little overlap in their ranges – with the Whale Sharks in tropical waters and Basking Sharks in the temperate marine zones:

Basking Sharks occur in the waters around Ireland, where this specimen was collected. The Dead Zoo also has a full taxidermy specimen collected off the coast near Galway in 1870, which has pride of place hanging from the ceiling in the Ground Floor Irish Room:

At the moment this specimen appears to be wearing a nappy – and this isn’t intended to capitalise on the popularity of the “baby shark” earworm, it’s an emergency stabilisation of the specimen. This became necessary after the rudimentary taxidermy (the skin is basically nailed to a barrel-built internal frame along the top of the specimen) failed in last summer’s unusually humid conditions and the skin started to fall off.

A proper repair will eventually be undertaken, but that will require lowering the specimen from the ceiling and transporting it offsite so it can be fully assessed and conserved. This is a big job, and this year we will be kicking off the next stage in a major capital project in the Museum, to deal with lack of physical access and problems with the environment – including the high humidity issue, so it’s just one big job alongside many, many others.

As the project gains momentum I hope to be able to share some of the work that takes place here on Zygoma, as well as through social media channels – so be sure to watch this space for updates. Here’s looking forward to an exciting 2024!