Happy Friday everyone! Here’s a fishy mystery object from the Dead Zoo for you to have a go at identifying:
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below – have fun working it out!
Friday mystery object #504
Zygoma
Adventures in natural history collections
Zygoma 
Mola mola or related
from the moon to the sun, an odd fish indeed.
A definite sun-lover that has me grinding my back teeth molar to molar.
I’ve actually found one of these once on a beach. I ran, zany with delight!
…was the scale bar omitted on purpose? I’m pursing my lips over that little problem!
I agree with Adam. A slender, prettier version of its huge cousin
Ranzania laevis. Nice species of Mola…
Can’t be that easy. What am I missing?
It seems too easy, and agree with Adam, et al… I’m also thinking like sallie… what am i missing?
Those black stripes boing down into the light-coloured belly area at the front end of the animal… I don’t see any sign of such decoration in photos (on the WWW) of Mola mola. They look like a crude artistic representation of the throat furrows of a balaenopterid whale. Did someone paint them on this specimen (or model?) to make it more puzzling?
…and, yes, the body shape is more reminiscent of Dennis’s Tanzania than of its bigger cousin. But the stripes son’t look natural for that species either. **I** think it’s a poisson d’avril.
R. l. does have stripes that look like this, although perhaps less strongly contrasting and not truncated by the dark dorsal half as in this specimen. There were a few comments linked to this photo, over on Mastodon, on how bad museum fish display paintjobs can be. Not that I’ve ever tried, but I guess fish don’t taxidermy well, and quite often a painted cast is made for display.
Adam Yates has commented on my comment (somewhere!), saying the fish DOES have stripes — though not looking much like the ones shown: fish are hard to taxidermy, and museum displays are often painted casts.
Which supports the identification and explains WHY the stripes were painted on.
Thanks, Adam!
Grr… As between me an auto-correct, who do you thing wrote “T” for “R” in the generic name I quoted frpmdennisjs post?
Grrr…. As between me and autocorrect, who do you think changed “Ranzania” to “Tanzania” in my last post?
Autocorrect seems to have gotten even worse recently.
Thanks, Adam! That supports the identification and explains the, um, artwork.
Another vote for Mola/Sunfish of some description. 😊