This week I have a genuine mystery object for you passed on from my NatSCA colleague Holly, that was found in a rockpool in Kimmeridge by 7 year old Annie when she was out fossil hunting on the beach:
Any idea what this object could possibly be?
I don’t think there’s any need for cryptic clues this time, as it’s a proper challenge and I’d love to hear what you think it is and what it’s from. Have fun!
Last Friday I gave you this rather beautiful object to have a go at identifying:
I thought it might prove fairly easy for some of you and I wasn’t disappointed. Both in the comments here and on social media there were lots of you who managed to work out what this is, largely from images or illustrations of the model that could be tracked down online.
This is a glass model of a sea-slug made by the Blaschka father-and-son team of lampworkers, who were based in Dresden in the second half of the 19th Century. They made a huge number and variety of models of marine organisms, based on illustrations they found in a variety of scientific publications, which they adapted to enable reproductions in glass.
Design illustration of Beccaria tricolor by Leopold Blaschka. From the collection of the Corning Museum of Glass and Digitized by Boston Photo Imaging May 2011
Illustration of Caliphylla mediterranea by S. Trinchese in Æolididae e famiglie affini del porto di Genova, Pt.1 (c.1877-1879). Image from Harvard University, MCZ, Ernst Mayr Library, via Biodiversity Heritage Library
This particular specimen has the number 373 on its label, which corresponds with the number on the Blaschka design illustration above, so we can be confident that the design is for this model.
Label for the specimen – note the National Museum of Ireland – Natural History (NMINH) number which starts with the year the specimen was acquired. This specimen arrived in August 1886 and cost the fairly modest sum of 3d (for some context, an average UK farm labourer’s weekly wage in 1886 was 13s 4d*, which would be enough to buy 53 of these models).
I should probably say the design is for this type of model, since the Blaschkas produced multiple versions of each design. These sold all around the world to museums and universities, who ordered them from a catalogue to be used in display and teaching in lieu of real specimens, which would often look like nothing more than tiny grey lumps once preserved in alcohol.
To give you an idea of what these creatures look like alive, here’s an image of an undetermined species of Caliphylla
Caliphylla sp. from Réunion, by Nathalie Rodrigues, 2015
As you might imagine, as soon as you take one of these animals out of water their complex frills start to stick together like a piece of damp fancy lettuce and it becomes hard to see their leafy structure.
And they really are leafy, because Calliphyla is one of the solar-powered Sacoglossa sea-slugs that steal chloroplasts from algae, which they then store in their bodies and can use to obtain energy from the sun. So all those leafy bits are a result of convergent evolution with plants, providing a large surface area for light to reach the chlorophyll. This means they also end up being well camouflaged against predators, although they may get nibbled by the occasional confused herbivore.
This week I’ve decided to give you a mystery invertebrate from the collections of the Dead Zoo:
Now there are a variety of levels of identification for this object: species (obviously), materials, makers and if you really want to show off, you might even be able to provide a year and information about how much it cost at the time.
As always, I’d be delighted to see what you think and to hear about any similar specimens you might know about.
Have fun!
Last week I gave you this incredibly cute mystery floofball to identify:
It took approximately 10 minutes for palfreyman1414 to work out what it was and come up with an excellent cryptic clue as to the identity of the genus:
Right, best guess is that this is a genus of tiny anno domini public transportation.
Tiny (=micro) anno domini (=AD aka Christian/Common Era, abbreviated to CE) public transportation (=bus) which gives us Microcebus.
Microcebus É. Geoffroy, 1834 are commonly known as the Mouse Lemurs, a genus containing 24 currently recognised species of tiny Malagasy primates.
Lesser Mouse Lemur by Arjan Haverkamp, 2007
Normally I’d be looking for a species level identification, but that would be a real challenge, since the members of this diminutive genus are remarkably similar in appearance – especially if you only have a very faded 100+ year old specimen to work from.
In fact, before genetic analysis was available, only two species of Mouse Lemur were formally recognised, with another couple proposed but disputed. In the last 20 years there have been a further 20 new species recognised, meaning that despite the label on the Dead Zoo specimen saying it’s Microcebus murinus (Miller, 1777), it could well be something else – perhaps even a new species yet to be described.
I say that because even though researchers have been busy finding new species, they are mostly working in the field and several of the species being discovered are incredibly rare due to habitat loss in Madagsacar. When our specimen was collected it could easily have been from an area that was logged before researchers had a chance to do genetic work on the Mouse Lemurs present, so there may have been species there that were never discovered before they were lost.
This idea of species being lost before they’re discovered is a depressing, but very real one. Most taxonomists agree that there are around ten times as many species on Earth as have been described by science so far. More are being discovered all the time, but they tend to be from areas with fewer scientists (unsurprisingly), but not necessarily areas with less human impact.
Rainforests are a good example, where species diversity is incredibly high, but dams, logging and slash-and-burn agriculture to support soy, palm oil and cattle farming are gobbling up huge swathes of habitat before biologists have ever seen it.
To put that into some kind of perspective, England and Wales are much less diverse than a rainforest environment, but new species are still being found despite having a couple of centuries of extensive and systematic recording and collecting. The perspective comes from the fact that an area of rainforest the same size as England and Wales is destroyed every year, before it’s ever had a chance to be studied.
I talked about some of the issues of extinction on the Mooney Goes Wild radio programme recently, which you can listen to here if you’re interested.
More mysteries next week!
This week I’ve decided to give you a mystery squee from the Dead Zoo:
Any idea what this fuzzy little critter might be? As usual you can leave your questions, thoughts and suggestions in the comments box below.
Last week I gave you this new acquisition for the Dead Zoo to identify:
It’s a detail of something large, and it had a lot of you stumped because it looks like a cross between a marble worktop and pork terrine.
However, if you look closely at the bottom left of the image, you may just be able to make out the shape of a sucker-covered arm, because this – as spotted by palfreyman1414 and jennifermacaire – is a big cephalopod.
When I say big, I mean it’s the second largest species after the Colossal Squid (that I’ve talked about before) – that’s right, it’s a view of part of a large ice cube containing a Giant Squid Architeuthis dux Steenstrup, 1857.
Squid holding sailor by Alphonse de Neuville & Édouard Riou, from Hetzel edition of 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, p. 400.
This individual isn’t actually particularly giant, measuring in at a meagre 5.8m, including its long thin feeding tentacles – quite big, but hardly Kraken-esque. It was caught 118 miles off the Kerry coast after it found its way into shallower waters than the abyssal depths they normally inhabit. You can see details of how it was caught and a photo of the specimen on the Irish Times website.
I haven’t started the process of preserving for the long term yet, as it will require a bit of time to release the kraken from the ice, a large tank and some nasty chemicals – namely a 10% formalin solution and various strengths of Industrial Methylated Spirits (IMS – which is adulterated alcohol), stepping up to 70% in 10-20% increments. I may also need include an alkali buffer in the tank (marble chips are commonly used) since Giant Squid use ammonium chloride in their tissues to increase their buoyancy and that can acidify the solution, leading to accelerated bleaching of the tissues and long-term damage to the specimen.
Even with good preservation it’s unlikely to ever go on display as a full specimen. I can probably find a big enough jar, but the specimen has been dissected and isn’t really looking its best. However, it may be worth showing some of the elements, like an eye, the beak or maybe an arm or tentacle. These may be in good enough condition to use on display to explain some of the interesting features of these denizens of the deep. The rest of the squid will be there for researchers interested in these large, but elusive, molluscs.
I’ve not had an unusual mystery object for a while, so lets see how this one works out:
Any idea what this identification of this recent acquisition might be?
As always you can leave your thoughts, questions and suggestions in the comments box below. Have fun!
Last week I gave you this fuzzy object from the stores of the Dead Zoo:
It’s a slightly generic looking creature and I’m not surprised a few ideas for identification were mooted, because it lacks any single distinctive feature in this image (partly because the characteristic grizzled facial hair is a bit indistinguishable due to historic soot). That didn’t stop Wouter van Gestel, Mike Shanahan, RobinBirrrd, James Bryant, and jor from recognising it though.
This is the wonderfully weird Bearcat or Binturong Arctictis binturong Temminck, 1824 which is a South and Southeast Asian carnivore in the viverid family (those are the civets) that is one of only two carnivores with a prehensile tail (I’ve talked about the other one, the Kinkajou, in a previous blogpost).
Like the Kinkajou, the Binturong isn’t a very carnivorous carnivore. It eats more figs than meat and it lacks the restless dynamism of the average predator, plodding flat-footedly on the ground and climbing well, albeit in a much slower and more measured way than other arboreal carnivores that take killing a bit more seriously.
Binturong displaying characteristic levels of activity. Image by Greg Hume, 2017
Apart from the unusual prehensile tail, the living Binturong has one other unusual characteristic (as pointed out by RobinBirrrd) – it smells like popcorn. This is due to the emissions of its musk gland, situated conveniently near the genitals and anus. Sadly our specimen smells more like a half-washed dog that’s been rolling in mothballs.
More mysteries next week!
This week I thought I’d give you a break from the bones and offer up a fuzzball for some Friday fun:
Any idea what this (slightly dusty looking) critter from the collections might be?
It’s probably a bit too easy for some of you, so cryptic clues and subtly veiled hints would be appreciated in the comments section please. Have fun!
Happy New Year everyone!
Last week I gave you this skull to identify from the collections of the Dead Zoo in Dublin :
I also included the label, since it offers an interesting taxonomic twist.
If there’s one principle that I hope I’ve managed to convey over the last eight and half years of doing the Friday mystery object, is that you should never fully trust the label.
For starters, the number NMINH:2006.12.1698 could be misleading, as it reflects the year the specimen was catalogued rather than the year it was acquired. To explain, the NMI uses a very sensible numbering system that starts with the collection (NMINH = National Museum of Ireland Natural History) the year of registration (usually the year of acquisition) which allows you to know which register to look in, followed by the lot number (a sequential number reflecting how many acquisitions have come in that year), followed by the individual object number (the sequential number of that individual item in a particular lot). This system can have additional numbers added if necessary, such as if a piece of an individual object is removed for sampling.
However, some older objects were not registered when they entered the collection and as such they get a number that reflects the year they were documented rather than the year they were acquired. In this case the specimen was registered in 2006, but purchased from an auction of the collections of van Lidth de Jeude who died in 1863, as Nigel (the Dead Zoo Keeper) helpfully pointed out in the comments.
If the specimen had been accessioned and numbered on entering the collection back in the 1860’s then issues with the name would be expected since taxonomy constantly changes and old names are often wrong, but because of the new label and the 2006 date, you’d generally expect the name to be more up-to-date. However, it appears that the information on an old label was directly transcribed without being updated.
This is relevant because the name Orogyps auricularis is what we call a junior synonym, which means it has been used to describe a species that already has an older valid name. When this happens the older name takes precedence. In this case, Orogyps auricularis is a name applied in 1867 by Degland and Gerbe to a species that had already been named Vultur tracheliotos by J.R. Forster in 1796 and which is now placed in a different genus, giving the name Torgos tracheliotos (Forster, 1796) – where the parentheses around the author name indicate that the scientific name has changed from the original version that was published by Forster.
These taxonomic and documentation twists are however rendered redundant as soon as you realise that this specimen is from a totally different species. In fact it’s not really anything like Torgos tracheliotos the Lappet-faced Vulture:
Lappet-faced vulture
In fact, the only real similarity lies in the tip of the beak, which is a functional feature for tearing meat and which is convergent between the Old World Vultures and the New World Vultures. The Lappet-faced Vulture is an African species, while the mystery object has the distinctive deflection of the bill in the nasal region that indicates it’s a species from the Americas. This discrepancy in region was noted by palfreyman1414 and Gerard van den Brink.
Once you focus on the New World Vultures it becomes quite easy to make an identification, since there are only seven species and at 121mm this specimen is the third largest species after the condors – something easy to check on Skullsite. So well done to everyone who recognised the skull as belonging to the King Vulture Sarcoramphus papa (Linnaeus, 1758), especially palfreyman1414 who got there first.
King Vulture by Eric Kilby, 2008
As you can see, not only was the taxonomy very out of date for this specimen, it was also completely wrong, because it was misidentified 150 years ago. This is why you should never fully trust labels – they will often be wrong and if you base research on misidentified specimens, that will be wrong too.
Another mystery specimen next week!
I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas break!
This week I have another specimen from the Dead Zoo to identify – this one has an identification already, but the taxonomy is rather archaic and I think that once you’ve investigated the modern version of the name, you’ll realise that it’s wrong.
Skull length = 121mm
So, any idea what this name should actually be and, more importantly, what the identification actually is?
As always, you can put your thoughts, questions and suggestions in the comments box below – have fun!
Last week I gave you this unidentified skull from the Dead Zoo to have a go at identifying:
It seems that everyone recognised this as the skull of a gull straightaway – the scars from the salt-glands on the top of the head and the shape of the bill combined to make it a bit of a give-away.
However, working out which species of gull is a bit more tricky, since many are remarkably similar in morphology, making size an important factor for consideration (I’ve talked about this before).
Now size is always a somewhat tricky thing to use for identification, for a variety of reasons. One is that there may be an overlap in size between species, another is that there will often be sexual dimorphism within a species that means you can’t just compare the length against another specimen of a species without considering sex. Then of course there’s age – if it’s not fully grown, it’s going to be smaller. Of course you also have to consider whether the bill sheath is present or absent, as this will add a few millimetres.
On top of all these issues, there’s the problem of how you actually measure the length in the first place. This is something I’ve researched in the past (link to pdf) and it’s a more significant problem than you might think. For example, when looking at the image I originally provided for the mystery object, it looks like the skull measures around 125mm, but if I chop the scale bar from the image, reduce the transparency to 50% and lay it directly over the centreline of the image of the specimen, it turns out to be around 128mm.
Length is apparently 128mm
Add to this the fact that in the original image you can see a shadow under the scale bar, it becomes clear that the scale is somewhat elevated. This is because I raise the scale to be near the vertical midline of the specimen, to help keep everything in focus and limit the effect of parallax error. Normally this is good, because it allows a more accurate estimation of the length of a 3D specimen with a longest axis near the vertical midline, but in this case the longest part of the specimen is actually at the lowest part of the skull, so the elevated scale will make it look slightly shorter than it really is (due to the parallax error I was hoping to avoid…). This means that the specimen is probably closer to 129mm or 130mm in length.
With this in mind, the discussion about the lengths of various gull skulls between Wouter van Gestle (of Skullsite fame), Ric, Tim Dixon, Richard Lawrence, Gerard van den Brink and jennifermacaire needs to be reconsidered.
Richard Lawrence reported skull lengths for a variety of gulls as follows:
6x GBBG: 129 to 141 mm
2x LBBG: 117 mm
6x HG: 111 to 117mm
9x YLG: 111 to 126 mm ( larger with beak sheath though so would be smaller without).
So factoring in a length of 129-130mm for the mystery object it seems to fit well into the range for the Great Black-backed Gull Larus marinus Linnaeus, 1758. So well done to everyone who went for GBBG – this does seem most likely to be a skull from the largest gull species.
Great Black-backed Gull by Andreas Trepte, 2010
This week I have another unidentified bird skull from the Dead Zoo for you to have a go at identifying:
As usual, you can put your thoughts, questions and suggestions in the comments section below. Have fun!
Last week I gave you this bird skull from the Dead Zoo in Dublin to have a go at identifying:
It’s a fairly distinctive looking specimen with that massive bill, immediately narrowing down the possible families to two likely contenders – the Toucans (Ramphastidae) or the Hornbills (Bucerotidae).
On closer examination it lacks the serrated bill margins and remarkably long medial (in this case that means ‘towards the midline of the skull’) process of the quadrate bone (a part of the jaw in birds that I’ve blogged about before) that you see in Toucans. So, it’s a Hornbill – as everyone correctly spotted in the comments – but then we have the question of the species.
There are around 60 Hornbill species, with most of them sporting quite distinctive casques which make them quite identifiable (I’ve blogged about several before):
Black Hornbill Ceratogymna atrata
Great Hornbill Buceros bicornis
Northern Ground-hornbill Bucorvus abyssinicus
However, this specimen seems to be lacking a casque. This could be due to a few reasons. There are some casqueless species, such as the Sri Lanka Grey Hornbill, it could be a young female adult from a small casqued species with sexual dimorphism in casque development, or it could be a young juvenile from a species that has a small casque that grows as the animal matures.
Assuming it’s one of these, it’s easy to check the few casqueless species by looking at the overall bill shape, the position of the nares (nostrils) relative to the orbits (eye sockets) and checking the structure of the jugal and quadratojugal (the thin bones on the side of the skull under the orbit) – this last only if you can find a reliable skull image for comparison.
Using Skullsite and images on the internet it’s time-consuming, but straightforward to rule out a lot of possibilities, since most Hornbills have a fairly robust jugal/quadratojugal and nares located much further away from the orbit than you see in the mystery specimen. In fact the only Hornbills with a similar nares/orbit position and gracile (skinny) jugal/quadratojugal and in the right size range (that I was able to find) were in the genus Rhyticeros L. Reichenbach, 1849.
Unfortunately I’ve not found good skull images of juveniles for all of the species to make a final comparison and you can’t just compare the skull of a juvenile with an adult and expect to see the same configuration and development of features, as there’s still growth to happen (something else I’ve talked about before).
So based on the information it looks like jennifermacaire was the closest with her suggestion of Wreathed Hornbill, although I’m leaning slightly more towards the Papuan Hornbill Rhyticeros plicatus (J.R.Forster, 1781).
Hope you enjoyed the challenge!
Another bird skull for you this week, from the drawer of unidentified specimens: 
It’s fairly distinctive, so I doubt you’ll have a problem narrowing down the family, but I’d be interested to hear what species you think this skull belonged to in the comments below.
Have fun!
Last week I gave you this unidentified bird skull from the Dead Zoo to try your hand at identifying:
It seems that everyone recognised it as being from a charadriiform, and one of the waders at that. The first response was from Chris, who made reference to Lewis Carroll’s poem the Walrus and the Carpenter in which the eponymous characters eat an enormous quantity of oysters – hinting that this is an Oystercatcher.
There were some other suggestions that it could be from one of the birds in the genus Tringa, which includes the ‘shanks’ (Redshank, Greenshank, etc.), but the morphology fits one of the Oystercatchers better – in particular that weird constriction about halfway down the mandible when you look at the skull in profile.
This mandibular ‘waist’ is quite unusual and it doesn’t even seem to occur strongly in all of the Oystercatchers, which helps narrow down the likely species within the genus Haematopus, especially when you factor in things like the relative bill proportions, although you have to be careful doing this as there is some sexual dimorphism in the shape of the bill, with the females’ being longer.
The three closest species are the American Oystercatcher, the Sooty Oystercatcher and the Blackish Oystercatcher, but unfortunately I’ve not been able to find good reference skulls all of these species to be able to look for any distinguishing cranial characters. Based on bill morphology I’m leaning towards this being the skull of the American Oystercatcher, Haematopus palliatus Temminck, 1820.
American Oystercatcher by DonaldRMiller, 2010
My next step will be to check through our collections to see if we have comparative material to check the identification (once I get some time – a sadly rare commodity). If I can’t confirm I’ll just stick with Haematopus sp. on the label.
If you’re not familiar with Oystercatchers, they walk along the tideline either prying or breaking open bivalves. In my experience they seem more fond of mussels than oysters, but what do I know?
Another mystery next week!
For this week’s mystery object I’ve decided to stick with my favourite subject of skulls. This time it’s a bird from the Dead Zoo’s collection, that was in a drawer labelled “Unidentified” – let’s fix that!
Any idea what species this skull belonged to? I have my suspicions, but I’d love to hear what you think.
As always, you can leave your clues, questions and suggestions in the comments section below. Have fun!
Last week I reverted to my favourite topic of skulls for the mystery object, with this specimen:
Everyone recognised this as a member of the dog family, but surprisingly few of you pursued it much further than dog or maybe fox.
A distinctive doggy forehead
The small size and lack of a distinct forehead (don’t mistake that bump at the top of the nasal region the head for a forehead by the way, it’s in the wrong place for a dog – see above) says it’s most likely one of the foxes or ‘weird’ dogs rather than a domestic type. By weird dogs I mean Raccoon Dog or Bush Dog type things.
The ‘weird’ Raccoon Dog
In fact, the bump in the area where the frontals and nasals meet in front of the eyes is not too disimilar to the shape of a Dhole skull (see below), but the size and robustness aren’t right.
Dhole skull, with its inflated frontal/nasal region
After looking through the various dog skulls I could find it became clear that the mystery specimen is smaller than the smallest of the non-weird canids outside those commonly referred to as foxes (which includes canids other than the ‘true’ foxes in the genus Vulpes).
So that helped me narrow down the options to around 20 species which, after checking a variety of online resources, I was able to trim down on the basis of the profile of the skull (especially that frontal/nasal region), the breadth of the muzzle (rostrum if you prefer) and the dentition (the upper second molar is a little smaller than usual and the protocone on the upper 3rd premolar is quite well developed).
In the end there was just one species left and I was delighted that it matched both my expectation and michiganmeetsnewmexico‘s suggestion of Arctic Fox Vulpes lagopus Linnaeus, 1758.
For me the inflated frontal/nasal region hinted at an animal with large nasal turbinates, which are an adaptation to dry and cold conditions, creating a large area in which to heat air that’s being breathed in (to help prevent water in the lungs from freezing) and trap water that would otherwise be breathed out.
If you’re interested in how I narrowed down the species and the resources I used to do it, take a look at my spreadsheet here, which contains my notes and links to fox skull images.
I hope you enjoyed that challenge – there will be another mystery next week!
Back to bones this week, with a mystery skull for you to identify. Any idea what species this skull belonged to?
I don’t think it will prove too much of a challenge for the bone geeks among you, so please try to be a bit cryptic with your answers to keep it fresh and fun for those who are not so familiar – and that’s a cryptic clue about what it’s not right there 🙂
Have fun!
Last week I gave you this big bug to identify:
I had a feeling it would be fairly straightforward for some of you, since insects as big as this are reasonably distinctive, and I was therefore not disappointed with the flurry of correct identifications.
The first with a correct identification in the comments was Chris, who hinted at the scientific name with this suggestion:
Trying to identify this Cic-sac? Tho phar, Tho good! (Excuth the lithp!)
On social media people made suggestions relating to the common name for the species, mostly pointing out that it’s very loud. Putting the various hints together gives you the Double-drummer Cicada Thopha saccata (Fabricius, 1803).
Cicadas are weird. They’re in the Order Hemiptera (the true bugs) and the Suborder Homoptera (although that’s disputed and it’s probably safer to say Auchenorrhyncha). Best known for being noisy and having some species with synchronised emergence times that vary between every year and up to every 17 years, or somewhere in-between depending on species and environment. They have widely spaced eyes and a blunt head that is pretty distinctive.
As jennifermacaire pointed out regarding cicadas:
According to Plato, “[This species] used to be human beings who lived before the birth of the Muses. When the Muses were born and song was created for the first time, some of the people of that time were so overwhelmed with the pleasure of singing that they forgot to eat or drink; so they died without even realizing it. It is from them that the race of the [these insects] came into being; and, as a gift from the Muses, they have no need of nourishment once they are born. Instead, they immediately burst into song, without food or drink, until it is time for them to die. After they die, they go to the Muses and tell each one of them which mortals have honored her.”
– Phaedrus
The implications of this is that adult cicadas have a general inability to feed, although this isn’t quite true, since adult cicadas may still feed on sap.
This particular cicada is Australian and is one of the loudest insects on the planet, able to produce a call of over 120 decibels – loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage if right up against a human ear.
The abdomen is fairly hollow in the males of these insects, creating a resonating chamber, but sadly the last segment of this specimen has fallen off, making it hard to be sure of the gender on the basis of the genitals. However, the males have a couple of resonating sacs behind the hind-wing that is missing from this specimen, suggesting that it’s a female.
As far as noisy neighbours go, these insects are an occasional disruption, popping up every 4-6 years and making a noise that is apparently similar to high-pitched bagpipes.
It doesn’t sound great to me, so I’m (not so) secretly glad that I only have to deal with dead examples of these fascinating insects.
More mystery object fun next week!
Zygoma 