I have another bird skull for you to identify this week – sorry if all the bird skulls are getting repetitive, but that’s what I’ve been working on!
This specimen had no identification and had me stumped for a little while, but I now think I’ve worked out what it might be and I’d appreciate your input to see if you agree:
As usual, you can put comments, questions and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to respond. Enjoy!
On Friday I gave you this interesting cranium to identify:
Everyone recognised it as belonging to a fish, but the species was a bit more difficult to identify. Nonetheless jackashby, hestridgesj, Ric Morris and Cody all correctly converged on it being from an Continue reading
This Friday I thought I’d share a funky specimen that I had to identify earlier this week. Any idea what this is?
As usual you can put your thoughts below, preferably in a cryptic format so that other people can try their hand at an identification. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this bird skull to identify:
Most of you managed to identify it pretty easily – Robin suggested something in the right family, while Ric Morris, henstridgesj, Matthew King and Jake all managed to work it out to species. This is the skull of a Continue reading
Another bird skull for you to identify this week:
As usual I will do my best to respond to questions, comments and suggestions – please try to be cryptic if you think you know what it is, so other people can enjoy the challenge. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this distinctive looking bird skull to identify:
On Twitter and Facebook there were incorrect suggestions of Toucan and Flamingo, but in the comments here Ric Morris dropped a heavy hint at the correct species identification within 6 minutes of the mystery object being posted, with hestridgesj and 23thorns also getting the right species a little later.
This skull was listed in the Horniman’s 1934 Natural History register as Corvultur abyssinicus, a species name that to the best of my knowledge has never been scientifically recognised. But the name suggests a vulture-like corvid from Abyssinia – or what is now called Egypt. This information plus the distinctive size and shape of the skull and bill led me to surmise that the specimen is from a Continue reading
This week I have a pretty easy mystery object for you. It’s a bird and it’s very distinctive:
You can put your questions, comments and suggestions (preferably cryptic!) below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!
On Friday morning I gave you this skull to identify:
Then at lunchtime I added this image of the underside of the skull to make the task a bit more manageable:
Before the second image was added most people were thinking that the specimen was some sort of large rodent due to the pair of incisors in the mandible and the skull shape reminiscent of a Beaver. However, the second image shows the teeth in the upper jaw, clearly showing way too many incisors for the specimen to be a rodent, not to mention the fact it has canines and caniform premolars.
At this point it became clear that the skull was from a Marsupial and the identifications started getting a lot closer to the correct species. Several people suggested that this skull belonged to a Brush Tailed Possum and it’s easy to see why – they have very similar skulls. As you might expect this species and the Brush Tailed Possum are in the same family (Phalangeridae). The main visible differences are that the Brush Tailed Possum has a narrower skull with a less well developed zygomatic region (cheek bone). They also tend to have a less well-developed caniform first premolar.
As we’ve seen before these small differences in skull shape and size can be due to differences within a species – perhaps due to age or sex of the animal. This means that there may be a chance the the specimen is a Brush Tailed Possum, but the similarity between the dental configuration of this specimen taken in consideration with the slight differences in skull shape suggest to me that this is a Continue reading
Back to mammals for the mystery object this week. Any idea what this skull is from?
You can put your observations, questions and suggestions in the comments box below – cryptic clues are appreciated if you know what it is!
On Friday I gave you this small bird skull to identify:
I though that the small size might lead you into thinking it was from a songbird – and there were a couple of you who were caught out by my cheap trick, with suggestions of Meadow Lark and Dunnock.
However, as you’ve probably worked out, it isn’t actually a songbird skull. Rhea misread the scale as being inches rather than centimetres and thought that this was a Chicken skull – which although wrong is in the right family (just a lot bigger!). The distinctive profile than Rhea spotted, combined with the small size meant that Ric Morris, palaeosam and Robin all managed to recognise this as the skull of a Continue reading
I have another bird skull for you to identify this Friday – much smaller than last week’s:
Any idea what it might be from?
I should have access to the internet this week, so I’ll do my best to respond to your questions. Good luck!
Apologies for a late and rather short answer to last week’s mystery object, I was in Scotland for the wedding of a very good friend this weekend and haven’t had much time for writing.
On Friday I gave you this skull to identify:
It’s pretty distinctive and I wasn’t surprised to see the correct identification popping up in short order. The big scars above the eye sockets indicate that this bird had large glands for extracting excess salt, which means it was a marine bird. The shape of the bill, particularly the mandible, is also quite characteristic and the wide triangular pterygoid bones of the palate are a give-away for this group.
Pterygoid bones highlighted
Ian managed to get the correct species identification within the first hour with Barbara Powell and Robin reaching the same conclusion after some comparison at the very useful Seabird Osteology website. This is the skull of a Continue reading
Over the last week or so I’ve been going through some of the bird skulls in the Horniman’s collection. Here’s a nice one that you might enjoy identifying:
As usual you can put your suggestions, comments and questions below and I’ll do my best to answer. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this mystery object to identify:
It proved a bit more tricky that I had expected, but given its fragmentary nature I suppose I should’ve expected it to pose a challenge.
As it turns out henstridgesj managed to identify it on the basis of it looking like roadkill – an unusual diagnostic feature, but in this case it was spot on. Robin, biologycurator and Jamie Revell also agreed with the identification of Continue reading
This week I have a fragmentary bit of critter for you to identify:
Any idea what this might be?
You can leave your suggestions, observations and questions below and I’ll do my best to reply. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this mystery skull to identify:
It’s not particularly complete, but the bill is very distinctive so most of you got the correct identification. Well done to Ric Morris, Barbara Powell, Jake, biologycurator, henstridgesj and Robin for spotting that this is the skull of a Continue reading
Today I have this bird skull for you to identify from the Horniman’s collections:
I think it’s a pretty characteristic one, but it’s not very complete, so let’s see how you do.
You can put your suggestions, comments and questions below and I’ll do my best to answer. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this very distinctive object to identify:
As I suspected, everyone correctly worked out it was a half mandible from a Sirenian – probably a Manatee. So well done to Barbara Powell, henstridgesj, Robin, Ric Morris, Rhea, rachel, Jake, Andrea and Jamie Revell for getting the main identification.
Of course, it got a bit more difficult when it came to making a species level identification, as is often the case. There are three well recognised species of Manatee – the West African, West Indian and Amazonian. There is also the Dwarf Manatee, which is a potential species in its own right or perhaps subspecies of the Amazonian Manatee.
Several people plumped for the Amazonian species or the Dwarf Manatee based on the fact that the jaw doesn’t look robust enough for the other species. However, this mandible is from a juvenile, so that was a bit misleading. Based on the hook of the coronoid process (the highest bit of the lower jaw where the temporalis muscle attaches) and the angle of the mandibular symphyseal region (the bit where the two halves of the lower jaw would have joined together) I think this is most likely to be what Barbara Powell first suggested, the Continue reading
This week I have a specimen that is pretty distinctive for you to have a go at identifying, so it should prove pretty straightforward for anyone who has seen one of these before:
Of course, if you haven’t seen one of these before it may be a bit more of a challenge!
You can put your suggestions, observations and questions below and I’ll do my best to reply. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this fragment of an object to identify:
Many of the key features we look for when making an identification of a skull are in the facial region. The teeth are the most useful feature, but the relative proportions of the rostrum (muzzle) in the context of the whole skull and the particulars of the various elements that interconnect to make a skull all contain useful information.
It’s rather similar to recognising a person in fact – it’s much easier when you can see their face than it is when all you can see is the back of their head.
So how did everyone do? Well, there were various suggestions as to what it might be, but it was basically a guessing game, relying mainly on scale, gross morphology and the shape of the auditory bullae (aka the bulbous bit containing the ear bones). Most guesses focussed on the carnivores although there were some large rodents suggested.
I thought henstridgesj might have worked it out when he asked ‘Are the bullae double-chambered? Possibly, I can’t really tell, but if they are then it’s in the suborder Feliformia‘ and I answered in the affirmative, but the most obvious answer was somehow missed.
This object is almost certainly the rear part of the skull of a Continue reading
Zygoma 