Friday mystery object #243 answer

Last week I gave you this nightmarish looking mystery object to identify:

There were lots of great suggestions about what it might be, with most of you in the right area of the animal kingdom with a legless critter in mind. In particular a fairly primitive type, with aglyphous or ‘groove-less’ teeth (as opposed to snakes characterised by having opsithoglyphous or ‘backward grooved’, proteroglyphous or ‘forward grooved’ and solenglyphous or ‘pipe grooved’ teeth).

There were several suggestions of Boa constrictor – specifically the right maxilla (upper jaw), but they have a straighter top to the maxilla and a differently shaped process that connects with the frontal and ectopterygoid bones (check out Udo Savalli’s snake skull anatomy page to see what those terms mean).

Anaconda was also suggested, but the anterior (front) part of the maxilla is not squared off enough.

Nicola Newton, rachel and Alex Kleine all suggested Python, which is what I think it is. I’m not certain of the species, but it’s definitely a big one – I’m leaning towards the Reticulated Python Python reticulatus (Schneider, 1801).

Just to give you a better idea of which bone it is, here it is compared to the skull of another large Python skull from the Horniman’s collection:

and to give a better sense of scale, here it is with my (fairly large) hand for comparison:

My very rough estimate of the length of the animal, based on other skeletal material I’ve seen, is around 5m – that’s one snake I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of!

Friday mystery object #241 answer

Last Friday I gave you this object, that I’ve been working on, to identify:

Ric Morris was straight in with the nicely disguised correct answer of occipital bone viewed from the basal aspect, correctly suggesting something bovine as the source.

This is the kind of object that you often come across from archaeological sites, where material may have been dug up from a butchery site, kitchen midden or similar assemblage.

Fragmentary bits can be quite hard to identify compared to complete skulls, but when you get a fairly complete chunk like this it makes things a bit more straightforward. In particular the hole of the foramen magnum and bordering occipital condyles provide a clear indication of where in the body it comes from. The shape and size of the condyles also helps narrow down the species.

Expect some more burnt and broken bits of bone in future mystery objects!

Friday mystery object #235

This week I don’t really have a mystery object, I have a mystery sound for you to identify from the British Library Sound Archive via the Curator of Wildlife Sounds, Cheryl Tipp.

Any idea what this is?

Patches is listening carefully

As usual you can put your thoughts in the comments section below. Have fun!

Friday mystery object #232 answer

Last Friday I gave you this nice robust skull to identify:

There was a healthy discussion about possible identifications, with the importance of scale mentioned more than once (by Jake, palaeosam, Lena and Robin Birrrdegg). Not only is this a robust skull, it’s also quite large, ruling out the British carnivores – and it clearly is a carnivore judging by the canines and the well-defined sagittal crest.

The lack of cutting and puncturing premolars and molars means that cats, dogs, hyaenas and other very carnivorous large carnivores can be ruled out, narrowing down the likely options in the right size range to the bears, as recognised by palaeosam, Ric Morris, Robin Birrrdegg, Will Viscardi, cromercrox, cackhandedkate, Lena, Daniel Calleri, henstridgesj and Carlos.

The species is a bit more difficult to work out, but the big sagittal crest and fused sutures suggests that this is not an juvenile bear, meaning it’s too small for a bear of the Brown or Polar variety. That still leaves quite a range of other possible bears, but the pronounced forehead and long square muzzle rules out the Giant Panda, Sun Bear, Spectacled Bear and Asiatic Black Bear, while the big robust incisors rule out the Sloth Bear. That leaves the American Black Bear Ursus americanus Pallas, 1780.

Ursus americanus by Mike Bender/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2008

So well done to cromercrox, Carlos and Robin Birdeggg who all got the species correct!

Bonus mystery object

I usually offer up a mystery object on Friday, but here’ a bonus object that landed on my desk this morning.

Apparently it was found in a horsefield in Kent, I have narrowed down the likely species of the animal that ‘donated’ the bone to a couple of options, but thought you might like to have a go as well, before the specimen is handed over to our Anthropologists to inspect the engraved designs.

As usual can can leave your comments below. Have fun!

Friday mystery object #225 answer

Last Friday I gave you this felid skull to identify:

As with the other cats over the last few weeks, it’s been difficult to find really clear diagnostic features.

The size helps narrow down the possibilities and the lack of divided auditory bullae rules out some of the species of Lynx, as does the presence of the small first premolar.

However, beyond that there isn’t much to really differentiate this cat from other species, apart from general features of relative proportion (height vs width vs length) and perhaps the angle of the rear part of the sagittal crest (which will probably vary between individuals).

Nonetheless, henstridgesj managed to correctly identify this as an Ocelot Leopardus pardalis (Linnaeus, 1758), one of the largest of the small cats in South America.

My challenge is going to be find a way to pull together the variety of cat skulls we’ve had for the last few weeks, to help make cat skulls a little easier to identify in the future – if that’s even possible. No pressure…

Friday mystery object #223

I hope you’re not all fed up with cats yet, because here’s another:

I have concerns about the identification attached to this one, so let’s see if your thoughts agree with what I have written on the label.

As always, you can put your thoughts below and they will be very welcome!

#MuseumSelfie

Today is #MuseumSelfie day as part of #MuseumWeek, so here are few selfies of me trying to recreate the look of specimens from the Horniman’s natural history gallery.

Utterly ridiculous, but fun nonetheless. If you have some similar selfies why not link to them below in the comments section? After all, I don’t want to be the only one looking silly!

Friday mystery object #219 answer

On Friday 7th Feb I gave you this mystery skull to identify:

The post got lots of activity from both regulars and biology students from the University of Chicago Laboratory School, which means there were lots of helpful comments!

The specimen was quite clearly from a rodent, due to the paired incisors, but there are a LOT of different rodents out there.

The type of rodent was narrowed down by bugblokenz who suggested the skull was from a squirrel of some sort and Jake pointed out how we know that is the case – the specimen has a spiky postorbital process:

The presence of a spiky postorbital process (see top skull) suggests that it was from a type of squirrel. Most other rodents either lack this process (see bottom skull), or the process is more stout and blunt.

Narrowing it down to a squirrel is helpful, but there are still around 285 different species to choose from and many squirrels have very similar skulls. This is where the real challenge lay, especially since it clearly wasn’t the British Red Squirrel Sciurus vulgaris or the more widespread Eastern Grey Sciurus carolinensis, as I showed you on Friday 14th. Other suggestions included the Southern Flying Squirrel Glaucomys volans (which is a bit on the small side) and Eastern Fox Squirrel Sciurus niger (which has a really interesting method you can use to identify it).

The relatively narrow zygomatic breadth, combined with a relatively wide breadth between the orbits suggests a ground squirrel of some sort, which many people recognised, leading to suggestions of Poliocitellus franklinii, Spermophilus sp., Otospermophilus sp. and Tamias sp. – for which this useful reference provides some great comparative specimens (huge thanks to Crispin for sharing this).

However, none of the North American ground squirrels quite matched up, with the closest suggestions of Otospermophilus variegatus or Poliocitellus franklinii still being different in a variety of ways, particularly in relation to the width of the skull, relative zygomatic breadth and shape of the postorbital process.

After much consideration it came to me that we may be looking on the wrong continent and it turns out that African ground squirrels are more similar to this specimen. Fortunately, there is a very useful resource providing images of specimens of African rodent species available through the Belgian Biodiversity Platform. This fantastic site has enabled me to make a reasonably confident identification of Striped Ground Squirrel Xerus erythropus (Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1803).

Striped Ground Squirrel (Xerus erythropus) by BOISSEL Philippe

I’d still like to get my mystery skull to a comprehensive physical collection, just to make some fine detail checks (there are some issues with the shape of the posterior margin of the palate I’m not 100% happy about), but overall I’m happy with this – but please let me know if you think I’ve missed something!

Big thanks to everyone who has contributed their ideas on this specimen – let’s see what I can find for you to identify this coming Friday…

[Further information available in this species description PDF]

Friday mystery object #215 answer

Last Friday I gave you this perplexing specimen to identify:

It was labelled as a Crab-eating Raccoon, but the facial region is much longer and narrower than other examples I’ve talked about, and it’s much less robust:

Now the gracile build could just be because it’s the skull of a juvenile (which is what it looks like), but juveniles have shorter and relatively broader facial regions than adults, so that doesn’t work. Even the less robust jaws of the Common Raccoon are too short and wide for the mystery specimen (which I think may discount Robin Birrrdegg’s suggestion).

Another crab-eating option was suggested by Daniel Jones who thought Crab-eating Fox. Now the overall proportions are a good match for this species, but there’s a problem. If the mystery object had teeth this would be much easier, but there are the holes in the maxilla to give us clues about the shape and size of the molars and as Allen Hazen pointed out:

Three triple-rooted teeth. Are these three molars, or is the last premolar triple-rooted? If it’s three molars… Canids (usually) only have two upper molars…

This is indeed the case and so this skull can’t be from a Crab-eating Fox.

On a different tack, henstridgesj suggested that it might be a civet of some sort, pointing us in the direction of mystery object #143 for comparison:

But again this really doesn’t look right – in particular the civets have a narrow constriction behind the orbital process, which is lacking in the mystery specimen. This was noticed by henstridgesj and he suggested that the closest option he’d been able to find was a Coati:

Now the specimen of Coati above is a mature male that was mystery object 54 and it doesn’t look much like our most recent mystery object, but on checking the skulls of juvenile and female Coatis I realised that this is probably the best option so far.

I still want to check some more specimens, but I’m really grateful for everyone’s input on this specimen – it’s been a challenge and you have all helped immensely!

I’ll be back with another mystery object next Friday, but until then I’d like to wish you all a thoroughly enjoyable festive season!

Friday mystery object #214 answer

Apologies for the lateness of the FMO this week, my excuse is a rather apt bout of illness, where some of the alveolar bone of my mandible has been lost due to an infection, leaving me feverish and thoroughly miserable.

But enough about my me, this is the mandible I’m supposed to be talking about:

There was a fascinating discussion about the possible identification in the comments last week, so a big ‘thanks!’ to all of the contributors who provided their informative observations (too many to mention everyone by name!). A mustelid of some sort was quickly agreed upon and the general consensus moved towards an otter of some kind, before starting to drift away again.

Two comments in particular were particularly pertinent. The first was from Daniel Jones:

Alright . . . instantly the foramina on the mandible anterior to the premolars scream Otter! However, the incisors don’t. The incisors just lateral to the canines should be larger and longer than any of the other incisors among the otters (even the Asian Short-clawed Otter).

Now my identification for this specimen was indeed Asian Short-clawed Otter Aonyx cinerea (Illiger, 1815), so this comment made me a bit concerned. However, on checking some images online I realised that the long lateral incisors are present in the premaxilla, but not the mandible – an easy detail to miss.

The second comment was by Allen Hazen:

Anyway… The talonid on the first molar of the one in the picture is BIG.

The reason I found this comment useful was that the long and broad talonid (that’s the flatter grinding section on the molar) is what confirmed the Asian Short-clawed otter identification for me (although the small size was a good first clue). This became quite clear from an image on the Otter Specialist Group webpage.

The Asian Short-clawed Otter presumably has this large talonid because it has a diet mainly composed of crustaceans rather than fish, and it needs the extra crushing area on the molar to crack open tough exoskeletons.

Who would think you’d get teeth as formidable as these on such an adorable little critter?

Friday mystery object #214

This week I have a stray mandible for you to have a go at identifying:

I think I know what it’s from, but I’d appreciate your thoughts. As usual you can put your thoughts, comment and questions below. I can’t wait to hear which critter you think it might be from!

Friday mystery object #213 answer

Last week I gave you this interestingly shaped piece of bone to identify:

Jake, Elisa, henstridgesj, Hew Morrison, Robin Birrrdegg, Daniel Jones and Daniel Calleri all made a correct identification of this being part of a sternum, a sternebrae or more specifically a manubrium from a fairly large (yet possibly juvenile) ungulate. This was all correct and the final piece of the puzzle is the species, which is actually a smaller Deer than most people were expecting. It’s from an immature male Fallow Deer Dama dama (Linnaeus, 1758) collected from Knowle Park in Kent.

Here’s what it looks like with the rest of the sternebrae (which are the individual elements of bone that make up the sternum, like vertebrae make up the spine) that I could find for the specimen:

Sternum of immature male Fallow Deer Dama dama

So it was indeed the manubrium – the top sternebra which in humans articulates with the top ribs and clavicles, but which here would only articulate with the top ribs, because ungulates don’t have clavicles (as I’ve discussed before). Here’s a human sternum for comparison:

Human sternum

So well done to everyone – I hope you enjoyed the challenge!

#bonegeeks

There are some great resources online for finding images of comparative material for skulls, but the postcranial skeleton tends to be quite badly represented online even for common species. I’d love to change that, but it’s a big challenge for one person.

Paramastoid process of Pig (Sus scrofa)

That’s why I’d like to set up #bonegeeks on Twitter (and maybe on other social media as well). The way I see it, people who have access to skeletal material could easily take snaps of bits of postcrania from known species (preferably with something for scale) using their phone and share the image to Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook with the name of the species and the bone (and perhaps where the specimen is held).

With the #bonegeeks tag it should be easy to collate images and hopefully start building up a comparative collection of images to make identifications easier.

It could start with a bone of the week to get the seldom depicted bones better represented and I’m sure #bonegeeks would be willing to respond to requests if there were particular bones that someone wanted to see.

I wonder if this could work… shall we give it a go and find out? Please add your thoughts on this idea in the comments section below or on Twitter using the #bonegeeks hashtag.

Oh and here’s how the idea got started: [View the story “#bonegeeks” on Storify]

Friday mystery object #210 answer

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

Jake was in like a flash, correctly identifying that the bone was a humerus – not an easy thing to spot considering the very strong curve and the deep groove at the head end. Jake also noticed that the humerus was adapted for something unusual, hence the weird shape.

There was a suggestion of pig by henstridgesj, which would have fitted the curve of the bone, but it was too small and the deep groove is at the wrong end.

Newcomer to the mystery object, Rute Branco, suggested that the object was the humerus of a (young) tortoise – a suggestion that I agree with (as does Daniella).

Tortoises have weird legs that need to carry quite a lot of weight, thanks to their bony carapace. They also need to get their legs inside their shell, so they have to be shaped for efficient retraction.

One of the differences between a terrestrial tortoise and an aquatic turtle humerus is the shape of the groove in the head, with terrestrial tortoises having a very steep and deep groove while swimming turtles have a slightly shallower and wider groove to allow a wider range of movement.

I can’t find enough comparative material to work out a species, or even genus of tortoise for this specimen, but I will keep my eyes peeled! Thanks for everyone’s input.

Friday mystery object #209 answer(ish)

It seems like an age ago that I gave you this mystery object:

There were fantastic comments from everyone, but I’ve been bad about responding and writing an answer because I’ve been pretty swamped recently. Also, there are several things that confuse me about the specimen and I’ve not had the chance to take a really good look at comparative material.

The function of the object was correctly identified by Daniela, Paleotool and Jeanie – it is a bone whistle, in this case a fairly modern Navajo example. Our Keeper of Musical Instruments was keen to know if this was from an eagle and whether it might be covered by CITES.

At first I thought it might be the femur of one of the large American eagles, but it is far too long. If it was from any bird of prey it would be a Californian Condor based on the size but the tapering shape is wrong. I then considered the humerus – which is a better match for size, but the position of the groove for a tendon path on the underside is wrong. So it doesn’t seem to be from an eagle.

The slight curve and taper rule out a hollowed deer metapodial, which are very straight and uniform in width.

My best guess is that this may made from a section of the humerus of a species of swan – a guess partly informed by the opinion of the anatomical knowledge of Wouter van Gestel and the archaeological knowledge of Paleotool. The shape and few remaining anatomical features are about right, but there are other large birds that haven’t been ruled out.

Perhaps an unsatisfactory answer, but sometimes a good solid “I don’t know, but it’s reasonable to think it might be this” is the best answer you can get. Thanks for everyone’s input!

N.B. Here’s a side view:

Friday mystery object #208 answer

Last Friday I gave you this mystery object to have a go at identifying:

I wasn’t sure if it would be too easy but it turns out that no-one managed to identify it, so I guess not!

Lots of suggestions were made, from a bum (thanks Jake) or coco-de-mer to the join in a lip to the cleft between toes – but the closest suggestion came from newbie Daniela, who suggested an armpit.

The reason I thought you might find this easy is because it’s the armpit (or perhaps flipperpit is more accurate) of the Horniman’s infamous Walrus Odobenus rosmarus (Linnaeus, 1758). This fine, if portly, specimen will be back from his hols in Margate soon.

I expect the presence of the hair may have thrown people off the scent, as we don’t tend to think of Walruses as being hairy – but as we can see, they are. A bit.

Friday mystery object #208

Things are still very busy at the moment, but I managed to find this perplexing image in my camera, that I thought might make an interesting mystery object. Any idea what it is?

You can put your comments, questions and suggestions below – but please keep them decent!

Friday mystery object #206 answer

Apologies for having such a belated answer to the belated mystery object from last week.

Things are really busy at the moment – I’m researching mermaids for a paper due to be submitted at the end of this month, curating an exhibition that’s due to open in September, double-checking the scientific accuracy in Jake’s book, doing talks, running PubSci, involved in recruitment for NatSCA, working on elements of the Horniman’s Bioblitz project and trying to write a grant application, on top of my more usual day-to-day work. That means I haven’t been able to spend the time on my blog that I would like. Hopefully everything will start getting back to normal in the next couple of weeks!

On to the answer – I’m afraid it will be brief… I asked what this bone was:

Carlos recognised this as a rib and there were a variety of suggestions about what it might be from, ranging from a cetacean to a mammoth. Some good ideas, but Lena came closest with speculation about dinosaurs.

This is in fact the rib of a Triceratops Marsh 1889.

There is a lot that could be said about Triceratops and other horned dinosaurs, but since I’m pushed for time I will just leave you with a link to an article by Darren Naish who knows more about such things than me and this brilliant stop-motion video from the 1925 film of The Lost World, which is simply iconic:

Friday mystery object #205 answer

Last Friday I gave you these tiny bones to identify:

Several suggestions were put forward with soph coming close with the suggestion of a broken furcula and Lena and henstridgesj correctly suggesting the clavicles (or collarbones) of a Cat Felis catus Linnaeus, 1758.

Cat clavicles, like the clavicles of a variety of other animals, are much reduced and are no longer connected to the scapulae (shoulder blades). This allows the scapulae to move much more freely during running, which can increase stride length and in the case of Cats it allows the animal to fit through holes big enough to get their heads through (assuming the Cat isn’t a bit too portly).

These sorts of vestigial structures are interesting from an evolutionary perspective, since they serve little or no direct function, but they still develop as a result of inheritance from ancestral forms that did use them.

In the case of Cats that form would have been around quite some time ago (probably 61.5 – 71.2 million years ago) since the closest related group to the Carnivora with a well-developed clavicle (that I can think of) would be the Chiroptera (bats), where it plays an important role in flight.

Since that divergence of the Chiroptera and the lineage giving rise to the Pangolins, Carnivora and Ungulata the clavicle has been pretty much completely lost, so it’s interesting that even a vestigial form occurs in Cats.

It’s funny to think how such small bones can raise questions that lead us through millions of years of evolution in search of answers, but that’s the nature of studying nature!