This week I have a mystery object from the Dead Zoo for you to have a go at identifying, that might be a bit on the easy side for some of you:
Despite the fact that I don’t think it will be much of an identification challenge, I just wanted an excuse to feature this specimen, simply because I really like it. Perhaps you can share your thoughts on what it could be using some suitably subtle clue, or perhaps through the medium of rhyme, or even haiku?
Have fun with it!
Zygoma 
Thanks Paolo, I’ll be singing that damn Peter Kay tune all day now!!! (giant of a song, though!)
😆
Damn! It’s a real earworm!
The surprising alternative to Dime bard, crunchy on the outside, smooth on the inside (I’m showing my age with this one)
Dime bars not bard 😀
aardly enough, i’m confused by the scapular shape…
I’m confused by the teeth.
And I’m confused by the front feet!
Yes! I can’t really see the details on the front feet.
A toothless challenge….
a dented edent?
She got a set of false choppers.
Is it from a monotypic order? Did Bernard Heuvelmans write a thesis on the classification of its teeth?
Well, it is montypic as the only member of its Genus, but Bernard Heuvelmans wasn’t as excited by the teeth of this species…
Dear Paolo– Thank you for comment! As regards Heuvelmans… I was (possibly mis-) remembering something from a half century ago: I thought I remembered seeing, when I read “On the Track of Unknown Animals” as an adolescent, that H. had written a thesis on the classification of O.a.’s teeth “hitherto thought unclassifiable.” The AMNH in New York at least used to have on display a skeleton of a Miocene (?) aardvark: much smaller than the extant specs, but in form almost identical. Be well, Allen
Dear Paolo– I hope this doesn’t make you think of me as a nuisance correspondent! I found my source for the Heuvelmans suggestion. The dust jacket (back flap) of the first American edition of “On the Track…” (New York: Hill and Wang, 1959()) has a paragraph about the author (with a photo of him with his pet monkey), which includes “…at the Université Libre of Brussels he received a doctorate of zoology with a thesis on the aardvark’s dentition Hitherto thought to be unclassifiable)”. Hmmm. Of course, maybe I misidentified the specimen: second guess would be some sort of armadillo! Be well, Allen () Reverse title page says “Printed in Great Britain.” For a long time — I think the rules have been changed, but I’m not sure — there were legal restrictions on the sale in the U.S. of English-language books published elsewhere. British publishers that did not (like Oxford and Cambridge University Presses) have American offices would find an American co-publisher, and often part of the same print run would be produced with a different title page for marketing in the U.S. So this first American edition is probably much the same as the first British edition, but I’m not sure about the dust-jacket.
Aha! Your second guess is what I was after!
Always interested to hear more about people’s experience with the subject of Natural History – I think I probably drew on some of Huevelmans’ work when writing the answer to mystery object no. 304.
The Tubilidentata are very odd indeed. I did a post about them, their teeth and their unexpected relationship with cucumbers a few years back – I can totally see why Heuvelmans was perplexed!
Ummm… O.k., I think I was wrong about the Earth-pig suggestion. As in, wrong side of the South Atlantic. I now think it is a member of a New World group of “crunch on the outside, smooth on the inside” critters (the crunchy layer having been removed from this specimen). A South American one: the North American representative of the clade has a more prominent coronoid process on its lower jaw (and doesn’t belong to a monotypic genus). Maybe a giant of its group?
A giant indeed! So large that the scale bar is a little hard to spot 😀