Author Archives for PaoloViscardi

Friday mystery object #353 answer

Last week I gave you this mystery mandible from a cabinet in my office, that I discovered while clearing things out:

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I was a hotly debated mystery, with some very interesting discussions in the comments between salliereynolds, Allen Hazen and palfreyman1414. This narrowed the identification down from carnivore, to mustelid, to otter, to a final suggestion of European Otter Lutra lutra (Linnaeus, 1758) by Allen Hazen.

European Otter by Bernard Landgraf

European Otter by Bernard Landgraf

This was the same conclusion that I’d reached and it’s always nice to get a second independent opinion that agrees. I’ve seen quite a few otter jaws (in fact I’ve had two otter mandibles as previous mystery object – one was from an Asian Short-clawed Otter and the other from the same species as this one).

This now gives me what I need to go looking to see if there’s a European Otter cranium that’s missing a mandible, so I can see if this one fits. That still might be a bit of glass-slipper type situation, as we have quite a few European Otters in the collection. Ireland is a bit of an otter stronghold and I’ve even found one dead in the road right in Dublin, near one of the canals and less than a mile from the Museum.

Sadly I’ve not yet seen a live one in the wild, and even when they are around they tend to keep a low profile and are normally only known because of their distinctively fishy spraints left in visible locations.

On that slightly fishy note I will leave you until next week!

Friday mystery object #353

I’m currently in the process of moving office, which means sorting through the cupboards and drawers of my predecessors, to try to impose some kind of order on my workspace. If you want an idea of what my office looked like, there’s a lovely video that artist Vicky McGarry did that gives a pretty good idea. In it I also mention something interesting that I found in an office drawer in a different museum I used to work at…

Now I’m moving on up (literally, another couple of flights of stairs) into a more suitable space with an office area and a separate space for working with collections.

While emptying my current office I’ve found all sorts of wonderful things, ranging from a magical* pocket sundial, to a wide variety of specimens.

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Here’s one of the specimens that was in a cupboard, with no label or associated information, that could use an identification:

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Mystery mandible with a snazzy NatSCA scale bar

Any idea what this separated mandible belonged to?

All suggestions welcome – I have my theories, but I’d be delighted to hear yours. Have fun!

 

*Not actually magical

Friday mystery object #352 answer

Last week I gave you this bird to have a go at identifying:

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I thought that some of you would find it quite easy and I wasn’t wrong, although it’s not quite as straightforward as I thought.

Our regular ornithology expert Wouter van Gestel was straight in with an interesting answer that highlights some of the idiosyncrasies of museum specimens, where the colour of features like bills and legs can fade after death. This can make identifications tricky, since colour can play an important role in distinguishing between species in the same genus. In addition, the maturity of the animal can also complicate identifications, since juveniles can have different colours and markings to adults.

That makes this specimen doubly hard to identify and jennifermacaire pointed out an additional idiosyncrasy – the glass eye used by the taxidermist. The choice of eye is an important one, since eyes play an important role in making something look as it did when it was alive. In this case I think they used an eye that was too large with too much iris showing.

Both Wouter and Jennifer identified this as a Tropicbird, and both thought it was the White-tailed species. However, according to the Museum database the specimen is a young Red-billed Tropicbird Phaeton aethereus Linnaeus, 1758.

Red-billed tropicbird (Phaethon aethereus mesonauta) with chick, Little Tobago by Charles J Sharp, 2014

Red-billed tropicbird with chick – note the yellow bill on the chick. Image by Charles J Sharp, 2014

Now I’m going to check the identification again, since it isn’t unusual for specimens to be misidentified. This is a problem in museums, since specimens come from all sorts of sources and not all of them are necessarily expert.

I recently had to check the identification of a couple of Tern specimens from Jamaica for an enquiry. If the specimens had been the species they were originally recorded as, it would have been the only record of the species on Jamaica and it may have hinted at a lost population. In the end it was a simple misidentification of a common species.

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This is part of the reason why specimens in museums are so important – they provide a primary record that can be checked to ensure information about biodiversity is correct, so we can understand things like changes in population distribution with confidence.

Friday mystery object #351 answer

 

Last week I gave you this unusual object to have a go at identifying:

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There were a variety of clues and suggestions (some beyond my ken) but they tended towards identifying this as the nest of a Tailorbird. In fact salliereynolds even provided a video of the Common Tailorbird in action:

This was pretty darn close (excuse the pun), but the nest structure isn’t quite what I would expect from a true Tailorbird in the genus Orthotomus, plus I had a bit of extra information on a secondary label suggesting that this nest is from Sierra Leone (although the quality of the handwriting on the primary label made it indecipherable, so I’m not sure if it mentions the species or something else entirely):

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It’s worth noting that most of the true Tailorbirds are in Asia (mainly the Philippines), but in Africa there are some closely related birds that build similar nests that are a little more similar to the mystery object. A birds in the genus Cisticola is the most likely culprit in Sierra Leone, and I’ve seen Red-faced Cisticola Cisticola erythrops (Hartlaub, 1857) nests that match the structure, leaf selection and construction technique used here, so I think it will be something along those lines, but I simply can’t be sure.

This is a great example of why good, clear handwriting is really important in a museum setting. A bit of time spent with examples of Capt. H. W. Long’s writing might help decipher the original note, assuming such examples exist. Or, it may be that there’s a talented palaeographer who can read the original  note – if you have any thoughts your suggestions would be welcome!

Friday mystery object #350 answer

Last week I gave you this mystery bird as my 350th specimen for identification:

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It wasn’t particularly easy, although that oddly preserved crest did help narrow it down.

As Wouter van Gestel pointed out, the general shape of the bird, particularly the legs and sternum, suggest that it’s a passerine. There are quite a lot of crested passerines, from Crested Tits to Crested Jays, but the bill shape on this specimen only matches a few.

Bob Church worked it out and left a nice cryptic clue:

Well, I could be wrong and might bomb this one, but perhaps if I wax poetic, I could wing it a bit.

Taking bomb, wax and wing clearly relates to the waxwings in the genus Bombycilla.

For the full species definition there was a response on Twitter from the Scarborough Museums Trust Collections Team:

“Chattering silk-tail” is a direct translation of the scientific name Bombycilla garrulus – which is spot on!

They get their common name from the waxy red tips on their secondary feathers and their ‘Bohemian’ lifestyle – in the 19th Century sense of them being wanderers. They migrate thousands of miles and have a huge distribution across the Northern Hemisphere.

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Bombycilla garrulus by Andreas Trepte, 2012

I find their silky plumage and rich but quite blended colouring particularly beautiful – something that is a bit lacking in the mystery specimen.

Friday mystery object #350

This week marks a minor milestone for my blog – the 350th mystery object. Thanks to everyone who comes to take a look at the specimens I’ve been sharing from the various museums I’ve worked in over the years. I hope you’ve enjoyed them!

This week I have a funky specimen from the Dead Zoo for you to have a go at identifying:20170213_113309-01.jpeg

It stands around 17cm high, including the crest, which is a particularly striking feature to be preserved on a skeleton.

Any ideas what this is? As usual, you can put your questions, observations and suggestions in the comments below. Most importantly, have fun!

Friday mystery object #349 answer

Last week I gave you this long, pink, wrinkly specimen to have a go at identifying:

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There was a lot of discussion about whether it has limby bits, fins, flaps left over from damage during preparation or some other unnamed and dubious appendages. I’m relieved to confirm that it has limbs – albeit rather reduced limbs.

 

The limbs are important, since they allow us to rule out all the legless groups of similar critters, like Caecilians (limbless amphibians), Synbranchidae (swamp eels), Amphisaenidae (worm lizards) or of course snakes (not that any self-respecting snake would have a face that looks like it belongs to a poorly made sock-puppet).

The state of the legs, especially the very reduced state of the front limbs, also allows us to rule out a variety of Olms, Sirens and other Salamanders – except for one odd little genus called Amphiuma.

There are only three living species of Amphiuma – the One-toed, Two-toed and (believe it or not) Three-toed. Someone in the past hedged their bets and labelled the mystery specimen as follows:

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Since the Three-toed salamander is Amphiuma tridactylus Cuvier, 1827 and the Two-toed is Amphiuma means Garden, 1821 this label is misleading.

The Three-toed salamander does have three visible toes on the forelimb and this specimen clearly doesn’t – with just a vestigial wriggly bit (that doesn’t make it the One-toed salamander however, as they are smaller and they have an even more reduced hind limb). So this is the Two-toed Amphiuma means.

 

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Amphiuma means, Virginia, United States. Image by Brian Gratwicke, 2010

 

Finally, it might be a bit confusing that the mystery object is a pink thing, while the living animal is a mottled muddy colour. That’s just an artefact of it being preserved in ethanol for the last 125 years. Trust me, no-one looks good after that much exposure to alcohol.

Friday mystery object #348 answer

Last week I gave you this mystery object to try your hand at identifying:

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It was both a bit tricky and a bit easy. It was tricky because it’s the skull of a cat, and as I’ve discussed before, cats are a morphologically conservative group that are quite difficult to differentiate between, due to their relatively recent divergence as a group. It was easy because of the context provided by the previous mystery object, as commented on by Wouter van Gestel who immediately worked out what this skull came from.

This is the skull of a large male Clouded Leopard Neofelis nebulosa (Griffith, 1821). These beautiful, elusive and rare big cats from Asia have the longest canines in relation to body size of all the modern cats – making them an occasional comparison for the sabre-toothed cats of prehistory.

Clouded Leopard in Cincinnati Zoo, Charles Barilleaux, 2012.

Clouded Leopard in Cincinnati Zoo, Charles Barilleaux, 2012.

Although they may look adorable, they use those long canines to take down a variety of vertebrate prey, including monkeys, deer and even armoured snack-beasts like Asiatic porcupines and the overly-put-upon pangolins. They are one of the few truly arboreal cats, able to climb head-first down trees and even scoot along the underside of branches, giving them an advantage as an ambush hunter in forest environments.

So well done to everyone who figured that the mystery skull belonged to this fantastic feline!

Friday mystery object #347 answer

Last week I gave you these teeth to have a go at identifying:

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It was a bit mean of me to only show the incisors, but I thought it would be way too easy otherwise and I thought that some of you would manage to get it. I was not wrong.

Despite the sparse information, James Bryant, Jennifer Macaire, Allen Hazen, sallie reynolds, Michelle Tabencki, Kaitlyn, Rémi and a tentative few others leaned towards one of the sabre-toothed cats, with most people opting for Smilodon. That is indeed what these teeth belonged to and if you want to be specific they’re from Smilodon fatalis Leidy, 1869.

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Reconstruction of Smilodon fatalis skull. Image by Bone Clones, 2000

The mystery specimen and I go way back as it’s the one in the Geology Department of Bristol University, where I did my undergraduate degree many years ago. It inspired me to do a project on Smilodon, which sent me around a variety of UK museums in search of specimens to measure.

That was the start of my behind-the-scenes experience in museums and I met some fantastic people, including the legendary Andy Currant at the NHM, London, who was so helpful, knowledgeable and welcoming that it left an indelible mark on my attitude to collections access and curation.

I still have a soft spot for Smilodon and of all the palaeontological questions that I’d love to see resolved it’s how their bizarre canines worked. I never considered the “Akersten canine-shear-bite” [opens as pdf] as being biomechanically plausible, not least because it requires the jaws to close during the bite, which would in turn require these incisors to penetrate the skin and some (or all) of the underlying tissue of the prey.

While these incisors are robust, they’re just not the right kind of shape for that type of action as the straight and fairly level row would dissipate force quite evenly during a bite, rather than allowing the high point loads well suited to penetration.

There are other, more plausible methods proposed (e.g. Brown, 2014), but without seeing Smilodon in action it’s one of those mysteries that may never be satisfactorily resolved. And who wouldn’t want to see something as terrifying as a gigantic, sabre-toothed feline in action?

Smilodon californicus and Canis dirus fight over a Mammuthus columbi carcass in the La Brea Tar Pits. By Robert Bruce Horsfall, 1913

Smilodon californicus and Canis dirus fight over a Mammuthus columbi carcass in the La Brea Tar Pits. By Robert Bruce Horsfall, 1913

 

Friday mystery object #346 answer

Last week I gave you this funky fossil from the National Museum of Ireland to have a go at identifying:

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Everyone in the comments immediately recognised that this is the fossil of something that flies, thanks to the slender bones. The general consensus from the outset was that it was Archaeopteryx, but I wonder how much of that is because this specimen is preserved in the same Middle Jurassic lithographic limestone from Solnhofen that preserves the first bird?

The Berlin Archaeopteryx

The Berlin Archaeopteryx

However, Allen Hazen noticed the long slender finger that marks the mystery object as something different, when he correctly suggested that it was a pterosaur, winning over palfreyman1414 and sallie reynolds. On Twitter, @Robertgagliano1 went one better and got the correct genus when he suggested Germanodactylus.

This is indeed a fossil of Germanodactylus cristatus (Wiman, 1925). These small Jurassic pterosaurs were about the size of a raven and it is thought that they may have fed on marine crustaceans and molluscs, based on their fairly robust teeth.

This particular specimen is currently on display in our Jurassic Skies exhibition (that I talked about a fortnight ago), as it helps represent the successful group of flying reptiles that were already in the air 150 million years ago, when feathered dinosaurs first took to the skies.

In an unexpected twist, research was published just a week after we opened the exhibition, describing the first evidence for feathers in pterosaurs. This was unexpected, although fur-like filaments had already been recognised in the group. This means it’s possible that feathers originated in a common ancestor of dinosaurs and pterosaurs – which may have even included the group that is today represented by the crocodiles.

This means it’s possible that the ancestors of crocodiles would have been feathered and modern crocodiles have lost this covering, possibly thanks to their specialisation for living in water. I find it quite interesting that a reticence to add feathers to representations of dinosaurs (in things like Jurassic Park) has been influenced in part by the scaly skin of modern crocodiles (the nearest living relatives to dinosaurs that are not birds), but now we find out that crocodiles may have had feathers and lost them, making prehistory a much more fuzzy place than we ever dreamed!

Friday mystery object #345 answer

Last week I gave you this squee squamate to have a go at identifying:

As usual the comments were insightful and bang on target, with a correct identification by Chris, jennifermacaire, sallie reynolds and Allen Hazen. In the comments there was even a link to a very useful paper provided by jennifermacaire and a mention of the value of the tail-tip shape as a way of distinguishing between species of flying gecko.

Unfortunately the end of this specimen’s tail was hidden behind a label, so it wasn’t visible in any photos, but if it was it would show that this is a Common Flying Gecko Ptychozoon kuhli Stejneger, 1902. Distinctive tail-tips aside, the comments also picked up on some very interesting points about gliding replies. As Allen Hazen mentions:

… So gliding with a patagium along the side of the body (not supported by the arms and legs as it is in typical mammalian gliders) has evolved at least FOUR times in reptiles (reptilia sensu very lato): these guys, Draco, Kueneosaurus, and another fossil form I can’t remember the name of. …

Which is both interesting and pertinent to the main reason I picked this object, as it’s one of the specimens I selected for the temporary exhibition Jurassic Skies we just opened at the National Museum of Ireland at our Collins Barracks site, which is about the origins of flight in dinosaurs (i.e. birds).

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Gliding lizards don’t have much to do with the origin of birds directly, but the high frequency with which they seem to pop up is a good indicator that there’s a clear benefit to being at least partially air-worthy.

Escaping predators, reaching inaccessible food and exploiting otherwise hard-to-reach habitats can all play a role in tempting animals into the air. The interesting thing that I’ve realised from doing this exhibition is that we’re currently in a bit of a dull patch when it comes to flying critters.

In the Jurassic the pterosaurs dominated the skies, with birds arising and finding a niche despite being newcomers to the aerial scene. By the Cretaceous both birds and pterosaurs were very diverse, with giant Quetzalocoatlus pterosaurs the size of a small plane and toothed and toothless birds living in a variety of habitats.

The K-T boundary mass extinction seems to have wiped out a huge amount of vertebrate diversity in the skies and despite the huge number of bird species alive today, the diversity of forms seems lower than it has in the past.

If you happen to be in Dublin before 24th March 2019 I suggest popping over to the Collins Barracks museum site to take a look at the exhibition. It’s free and it offers a chance to see some of our specimens that have never been on display before, plus a rather lovely new model of Archaeopteryx that we commissioned for the show.20181211_162925

Friday mystery object #344 answer

Last week I gave you this impressive insect to have a go at identifying:

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No scale for this, but it’s probably safe to say it’s bigger than you’d be comfortable with.

By not giving the scale I was being a bit mean by holding back a useful clue. This fly (as recognised by palfreyman1414, Richard Blackmore and joe vans) is around 45mm long, making it one of the biggest of its kind – its kind being one of the Asilidae or robber flies.

The species is from Australia and it’s called the Giant Yellow Robber Fly Blepharotes coriarius (Wiedemann, 1830). They’re active hunters that prey on other insects, grabbing them in flight and carrying them off to a perch where they suck out their victim’s internal organs. Nice.

Apologies for the short answer this week – I’m just in the process of installing an exhibition and this specimen is one that is going on display to represent the Diptera. Hopefully I’ll be able to share some images of what I’ve been working on next week.