Category Archives for Friday mystery object

Friday mystery object #61 answer

On Friday I gave you a bit of a respite from skulls, in the form of this rather beautiful object:

I asked you what it was made from and what function it might serve.

Dave Godfrey immediately recognised that the two halves of this egg-shaped object fold down and likely contained something inside. What the two halves were made from was hinted at by Raymond Ho and Steven D. Garber, PhD (who recognised that it was derived from molluscs) and was explicitly identified by by Dave Godfrey as being mother-of-pearl (or nacre as it’s also known). Jonpaulkaiser went a step further and identified that the nacre came from the shells of  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #61

On Monday I said I may find something different for a mystery object, so I’ve called upon the collections knowledge of Helen (our Collections Access Officer) and Rebecca and India (two of our hard-working volunteers), to help find something from the wider collections of the Horniman (we do have more than just skulls you know…).  As you might guess, I like things with a natural history spin, so I settled on this rather beautiful object that they suggested:

Can you tell me what materials this is made from and what the function of this object might be?

As usual you can put your suggestions, observations and questions in the comments section below and I will do my best to answer. Good luck!

Friday mystery object #60 answer

On Friday I gave you this skull to identify from box NH.83.1:

Unfortunately I’ve not been able to respond to comments and this answer is a little late (and short) because I’ve been at a wedding in Ireland (for anyone who knows what this entails you will understand…). I will take the time to respond to comments and elaborate on answers when I get back home and have managed to get more than a couple of hours sleep.

For now I will say that Steven D. Garber, PhD suggested that this was a petrel skull, probably for the reason posited by Cromercrox – it has a tube nose and is therefore from the Order Procellariiformes. David Craven noticed that the skull is too small for an albatross and the beak is too broad at the base to belong to a storm-petrel – both being excellent observations, but the concluding suggestion of something from the Pterodroma was slightly out – they’re a bit too big. A-M (via KateV) and Prancing Papio, FCD also went for species that are a bit too big, but Rachel managed to get something the right size and shape (and distribution working with SmallCasserole’s observation about the other specimens from the same collection). She suggested   Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #60

Mystery objects are usually items that I come across whilst working my way through the collections in storage at the Horniman Museum. This means you usually end up with a bit of mammal skull, since that’s what I’ve mostly been working with for the last year. Every now and again I stumble across a real mixed bag (or rather box) of specimens that need identification, so here’s another specimen from one of the boxes labelled NH.83.1 that provided mystery object #57 (click on the images for larger versions): 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Cack-handed Kate for the loan of her camera and particularly for including the macro lens with it, which has already proved very useful indeed!

As usual, put your observations and suggestions below – but in a break from normal form I’m afraid I won’t be able to answer any questions today, as I am at a wedding and it would be frowned upon for me to be playing with my phone!

Friday mystery object #59 answer

On Friday I gave you this mystery object dragged from the cold, dead grasp of my old camera:

It was immediately identified as an ‘insectivore’ of some sort – which narrowed it down slightly. Although ‘insectivore’ doesn’t have quite the same meaning as it used to.

Once the Insectivora was a bit of a waste-basket taxonomic group that included a wide range of small insectivorous mammals, including moles, golden moles, hedgehogs, shrews, tree shrews, elephant shrews, tenrecs, colugos and solenodons. However, the group was fragmented on the basis of molecular studies and now the Insectivora no longer exists as a taxonomic group.

Despite this taxonomic shake-up the use of ‘insectivore’ still works as a descriptive term for the numerous small invertebrate eating mammals out there. Of which this is one.

But which?

The moles were ruled out straight away by Dave Godfrey, then the hedgehogs were ruled out by cromercrox, before Prancing Papio slammed in with the correct identification of  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #59

This week I have seen an awful lot of mystery objects at work as I’ve been sorting through some of the boxes of unidentified bone with my volunteers Cat and Jahcob. Mostly we seem to have hundreds of unlabelled sheep vertebrae, but there have been some genuinely interesting objects too.

Alas, without my camera I’ve not been able to take photos of any of this miscellanea – maybe next week… However, I do have a photo of a skull, taken before the death of my camera, that I think is pretty cool (if perhaps a little obvious for some of you):

So, do you have any idea what this beastie might be?

As usual put your questions, suggestions and observations in the comments section below, which I will do my best to respond to. Good luck!

Friday mystery object #58 answer

On Friday I gave you this skull as a mystery object, dredged as it was from the memory card of my severely concussed camera:

This was a slightly sneaky object, because I had a feeling that quite a few of you would make the same mistake as I did when I first saw this skull, by assuming that it’s from a large rodent. The large front teeth (the incisors) support this, since enlarged first incisors are a feature of the rodents.

Rodents also have a large gap behind those incisors called a ‘diastema’ – which this skull has for the lower jaw (or mandible), but you may notice that the upper jaw has three incisors in the pre-maxilla (that’s bone in the front bit of the upper jaw) before the diastema. This is easier to see in a side (or lateral) view:

You might notice that there’s a small tooth behind the third incisor in the upper jaw – that’s a canine. You might also notice the faint wiggly line in the bone of the jaw just above the canine – that’s the junction (or suture) between the maxilla and the pre-maxilla bones. The canine is the first tooth in the maxilla and all the incisors are in the pre-maxilla (this is the same for all mammal teeth).

Rodents only have two teeth in the pre-maxilla, not six. They also have no canine teeth in the maxilla. That means this mystery object cannot be a rodent. Here’s what a rodent’s diastema looks like (the suture between maxilla and pre-maxilla is really clear in this photo):

Lagomorphs (rabbits and hares) have teeth similar to rodents, except they have an extra pair of incisors behind the front pair in the maxilla – these are called ‘peg teeth’:

Rabbit_peg-teeth

Peg-teeth in a Rabbit skull

Clearly the mystery object has more incisors than this, plus those canines, so it can’t be a lagomorph either.

So what beastie has six upper and two lower incisors? Several of you worked out that this was a marsupial from the dentition (namely Cromercrox, jonpaulkaiser, David Craven and Zigg), but only Prancing Papio and Jamie Revell managed to get it to species, namely the  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #58

Alas, my camera died after receiving a bit of a knock, so the mystery object I had planned for this week has been replaced by one of the last specimens I took a photo of:

Any idea what this specimen is, where it lives or what it might eat?

Put your suggestions, observations and questions in the comments section below and I’ll do my best to answer as the day goes on. Good luck!

Friday mystery object #57 answer

On Friday I gave you a specimen that I had to identify myself earlier in the week:

The first steps of this identification are quite straight-forward – in the words of Jake it “Looks a bit sheepy and a bit deery” which pins this firmly in the order Bovidae. Dave Godfrey neatly summarised what makes it look sheepy and deery – “Diastema, lack of upper incisors, and the shape of the teeth“. Rob went a step further and ruled out deer, sheep, goats and camelids – coming to the conclusion that this is an African bovid of some kind. Then David Craven blasted through the narrowing-down process and hit upon the same species as I had concluded it was, namely a  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #57

This Friday I’m taking the mystery object back to its roots, with unidentified specimens that I’ve found in the collections at the Horniman Museum where I am a curator. Yesterday myself and my trusty volunteer Cat came across two boxes labelled NH.83.1, which between them contain twenty unidentified skulls from a variety of different animals, ranging from fish to birds and mammals. This box had been in the collections since the 1930’s and there was little information to help make identifications – perfect material for mystery objects! Here’s one of the specimens I managed to identify – I’d like to see what you come up with…

As usual, put your observations, suggestions and questions in the comments section below and I’ll do my best to give you what information I can. Good luck!

Friday mystery object #56 answer

On Friday I gave you this object to identify:

I must admit that I thought it would be a tricky one, but I was surprised by the number of correct answers that came in, with the first by Prancing Papio who immediately got it to species. Neil made a subtle comment (“Looks like it could go both ways“) that almost passed me by, but which indicated that he knew which group this skull belonged to (see below for elucidation), whilst David Craven and Jamie Revell both pinned it down to species as well. That identification was  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #55 answer

On Friday I presented you with this anthropological mystery object:

I wanted to know what it is, what it’s used for and where/what culture it’s from. Since there are skulls on it I thought it would be a good idea to ask you to identify them while you were at it. No small task then.

Alistair was first to notice that the skulls belonged to monkeys, then Smallcasserole made the comment:

It’s the Predator’s earthly trophy bag with human skulls!

Which although not entirely accurate, is correct in identifying what this object is used for – it’s for carrying trophies. Moreover it’s for carrying the same trophies that the Predator might be out collecting…

Jonquil and Dave Godfrey worked out that it’s a basket rather than a bag and then Jonquil came through with a tribe in the right culture and place. I can’t be sure of the particular tribe this is from, but the culture is that of the Naga from the Northeastern part of India (Assam in this instance), who were renowned for the practise of head-hunting (and I don’t mean in the recruitment sense) until quite recently.

As to the monkey skulls, jonpaulkaiser suggested one may be from a Macaque and Jonquil suggested Gray Langur, while Dave Godfrey suggested Macaque and Gibbon. David Craven then provided a remarkably coherent and accurate answer:

Looks like a head-hunting bag, as used by the Naga (I couldn’t give a specific tribe). Still a very fraught part of the world unfortunately.

So, what sorts of monkeys do we have in that part of India?
Loads of Macaques, but others have said Macaque without being censored. Unless that’s too general to be censored…

Okay.
I’ll say Capped Langur on the left (I also considered Hoolock Gibbon).
Macaque on the right? Hard to find good images of macaque skulls for some reason, so I have to shoot in the dark a little. Stump-tailed Macaque.

I think this is about as good an answer as I could hope for, partly because it reflects the levels of uncertainty that we are often stuck with in the museum world. The basket/bag came from Assam and it entered the collections around 1903 judging by its label. There was no tribe name associated, so that information would prove difficult (if not impossible) to track down. The primate skulls are damaged and they are attached to the bag, making them difficult to inspect in the kind of detail needed to make a certain identification.

I was personally leaning towards the skull on the left being that of a Hoolock Gibbon Hoolock hoolock (Harlan, 1834) based on the distance between the eyes, but I’m not convinced that this is reliable and the shape of the nasal opening (long and heart-shaped) doesn’t quite fit with this idea. It could indeed be a female Capped Langur Trachypithecus pileatus (Blythe, 1843) but probably not a Gray Langur Semnopithecus sp. Desmarest, 1822 because their range doesn’t quite fit. It could even be a female Macaque of some sort (although the width between the eyes looks too big for that).

The skull on the right looks like a male Macaque, probably a Rhesus Macaque Macaca mulatta (Zimmermann, 1780) or a Stump-tailed Macaque Macaca arctoides (I. Geoffroy, 1831) – with my preference being the more common and widely distributed Rhesus (compare 1 & 2). I am keen to see David Craven’s reasoning, to see what I may have missed.

Many thanks to everyone for their comments and suggestions. I particularly liked the idea by cackhandedkate that the basket was one of Lady Gaga’s costumes – something that I would not be surprised by.

Friday mystery object #55

For this week’s mystery object I am going to try something for everyone – a bit of Anthropology with some Natural History thrown in. So what is this, what’s it used for and where/what culture is it from – your bonus question is of course what species did the attached skulls belong to:

As usual questions, suggestions and observations in the comments section below, I’ll do my best to answer as the day goes on. Good luck!

Friday mystery object #54 answer

On Friday I gave you this skull to identify:

I was impressed by the efficiency with which the possibilities were whittled down and the correct species identified, since this isn’t an animal that’s very well known by most people (in the UK at least). Dave Godfrey immediately recognised this as being a member of the Carnivora and a dog-like one at that, an opinion supported by Matthew Partridge’s observations.

This line of investigation was somewhat derailed by Gimpy’s suggestion that this was a Tasmanian devil skull, an observation that was incorrect, yet very pertinent, since there are quite striking similarities between this and a Tasmanian devil skull as a result of convergent evolution. It’s strange to think that two species can look so similar and yet be separated by at least 124 million years of divergence (check out the placental-marsupial divergence node using the awesome University of Bristol Date-a-Clade webpage). That’s what similarities in environment and lifestyle will do to organisms with similar ancestral skeletal bodyplans.

Debi Linton then came to the rescue with some astute observations about the teeth of this animal and after trawling the Skulls Unlimited site (which appears to be much-used by people hunting for the answer to the FMO) she hit upon the correct answer of Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #54

The Friday mystery object for this week is a skull specimen from the Horniman collections. Some weeks ago I suggested that I put together a guide to help with identifying skulls, which I have been doing as the opportunity arises (it should be ready soon). Since this guide will hopefully make it easier for you to identify skulls I thought I should make the most of my last opportunity to get one past you. So here it is:

As usual, you can put your suggestions, questions and general musings in the comments section below and I’ll do my best to respond. Meanwhile I will be thinking of a more anthropological object for next week (in line with suggestions made last week – see I was listening).

Good luck!

Friday mystery object #53 answer(ish)

This will be my first (an hopefully only) mystery object answer that doesn’t really provide much of an answer. As I mentioned on Friday I am currently researching the construction of this object:

So far I have made good headway in working out what it’s not made of, but there are still a wide range of possible materials that could make it up. The specimen was CT scanned in an effort to get to the bottom of this issue, but it takes time for data to be processed and we may be waiting another week or two before I have the snazzy results needed to reconstruct how this is put together. Needless to say I will provide a full detailed post once the results are in.

Nonetheless, I have been able to work out some things about the specimen, much of which has been picked up by my eagle-eyed readers. The specimen is a Feejee mermaid (or a Japanese Monkey Fish) as spotted by Jake, these gaffs have been in circulation for a long time, although I’ll have more to say on their history when I dedicate a full-blown ‘blessay’ to this bizarre object. For now I will simply say that the tail is indeed from a fish (species yet to be ascertained) and the torso and skull are not from a monkey. I think the jaws may be from something like a wolf fish, based on the structure of the front teeth, but the 3D model derived from the CT scan will hopefully provide the information to make a more confident identification. Needless to say it’s not a real mermaid.

I apologise for not having a more informative answer this week, but rest assured that I will more than make up for it once the CT data come through. All that remains for now is to thank everyone for their comments, which are incredibly heartening and helpful – I will certainly be following up some of your suggestions, so this will be a bit of online community curation when finished. Please feel free to keep making suggestions – I will make sure that due credit is given where I follow up on an interesting observation.

More generally I will keep the Friday mystery object running and I’ll certainly try to include a broader range of objects. Thanks for all of your support!

Friday mystery object #53

Well, it’s been a year. Fifty-two mystery objects have been and gone with varying levels of confusion, information and interest. The first anniversary seems like a good opportunity to reassess the Friday mystery object, in particular whether it should continue and if so should it change?

Obviously the information for that reassessment needs to come from you – my audience, so please give me feedback in the comments section below – particularly about what needs to change to make the mystery object more interesting for you (a bit about yourself might be useful too – what kind of background do you have, what are you interested in and what other blogs do you follow)?

On to the anniversary object I have for you, it’s one of the Horniman’s more bizarre objects and it’s a favourite of mine for its sheer repulsiveness (click pictures for bigger images):

Now, I’m pretty sure you can all work out what it’s supposed to be, but the question that’s bugging me is what is it made from? In fact, in order to answer that question we recently took this object to the Saad Centre for Radiography where it was CT scanned so we could take a look inside without damaging the specimen. It was an awesome experience, which I will report for you in the answer to this object, although I am afraid that the answer may have to wait until a bit later than usual whilst the images are processed and I seek other expert opinions on what we’re seeing.

Of course, the keen eyes and vast brains of my audience are valuable resources that I would love to exploit, so please take the time to leave your thoughts, ideas and anecdotes in the comments section below. Whilst researching this sort of thing it’s the human responses, more than the materials, that make it fascinating for me – I hope you think so too!

Friday mystery object #52 answer

On Friday I gave you a different mystery object to the one I had originally planned, after my memory stick let me down. Nonetheless, it seems to have been an interesting one given the number of questions.

The first correct identification by Robert Grant was cleverly phrased, so as not to give the game away. Indeed, it seems as though the allusion to the song Alouette led many people off down the wrong track, due to its reference to skylarks. This combined with the object’s similarity to the shape of a whistle, identified early on by Jake, brought many of you to the conclusion that the object was a used as a musical instrument, whistle or game calling device. The string attached to the specimen certainly offers support that this object served a functional role for humans, although it may simply be part of the mounting for the original display of this object.

As it turns out, the reference to Alouette was a phonetic rendering of the taxonomic name for the genus to which this specimen belongs, which is Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #52

I was getting excited about this being the first anniversary of the Friday mystery object, but I just realised that will be next week with number 53 (and I have something made of awesome lined up for that). Instead I will see my first year of mystery objects out with something hastily chosen from some old images I had on my hard drive, because my USB memory stick let me down. Don’t get me wrong though, this is an elegant structure that is deceptively simple and is worthy of mystery object status. So here it is:

So, do you have any idea what this is?

As usual you can put your suggestions, thoughts and questions (and random guesses) below and I will do my best to answer. Good luck!