Tag Archives for answer

Friday mystery object #23 answer

I hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas, apologies for the late posting of the answer to Christmas Friday’s mystery object, but better late than never. I must admit that this was a bit of a cheat, because I have posted one of these before, but this time it had antlers and it was gift wrapped:

Without antlers it proved tricky before, but this time only a few of you got to see it at all (I assume due to Christmas). Jim is the only one to have identified it this time, although KateKatV took this opportunity to remind me about a bit of silly season science from a few years ago – something that might merit a blogpost all to itself…

With no further ado, here is the unwrapped object:

This is a Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #19 answer

On Friday I presented you with this delightful looking creature’s skull:

Total length 2.5cm

and asked you what it was. SmallCasserole and Jim vied to reach the correct answer, with the physicist narrowly beating the biologist to the solution using brute force of reasoning (rather than attempting a comparative approach). However, Jim did step up and suggest a more specific answer – which despite some research over the weekend I am still not able to confirm. I need access to some more comparative material.

We know it is a Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #18 answer

Happy Monday one and all! Last Friday was a busy day for me as it was the day of the prize-giving event for the winners of the photographic competition that was part of the series of Darwin bicentenary events I have been heading up at the Horniman. I expect I will blog about that in the very near future, but for now I will drop links to the BBC news and Guardian websites which are hosting slideshows of the winning and commended entries. As a result of all my busyness I had little time to field questions, but thankfully I didn’t really need to, since most people worked it out without much trouble.

This little fella is indeed a Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #15 answer

On Friday I gave you a palaeontological mystery object and asked you to choose what you thought it was from a poll:

mystery15.jpg

As it turns out, you did pretty well, with 60% of you selecting the correct category (with a couple of you making comments which went into greater detail). The object in indeed a piece of fossil  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #14 answer

On Friday I gave you a bit of a change from museum specimens and presented you with this:

mystery14bEveryone managed to get the identification to at least within the Order level (it’s in the Orthoptera), which is good going when dealing with insects. The hard bit came down to whether it was a cricket or grasshopper. Now, the photo does not show the most important feature for distinguish between these two types of orthopteran: it’s the antennae length that gives it away (grasshoppers have short antennae, crickets have long antennae). Colour is not really important (sorry KateKatV).

That said, the vivid green colour, speckled appearance, lack of wings and characteristics shape of the ovipositor (curved bit at the back which means this is a female) are a give-away for those who are familiar with this particular beastie (and for those who use Google image to help with their identifications). It is in fact a Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #13 answer

Crumbs, it appears that last Friday’s object stumped everyone! Harrison certainly chose a difficult one…

mystery13aSmallCasserole came closest, asking:

Is it antler or horn?

but my response:

Antler or horn that thick?

was perhaps too ambiguous – because there is a horn out there that is this thick, that of a Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #12 answer

Still no internet, so this is drafted on my phone. Well done to those of you who worked out that Friday’s object was indeed a rattle-snake’s tail.

I will expand on this answer, once I can use a computer to type comfortably!

Right, internet is finally working again, so here’s a (slightly) fuller answer to what this is:

mystery12b

As was mentioned before, this is indeed a rattlesnake’s tail. Rattlesnakes have a bad reputation for being aggressive and dangerous, but it should be remembered that they have a rattle in their tail to warn off predators and large unwary animals that might trample them – so at least they give fair warning.

There are quite a few species of snakes that make use of a rattle on their tail and this one comes (apparently) from Crotalus durissus, a South American pitviper that is quite dangerous due to their powerful neurotoxic venom (unlike the cytotoxic venom of the North American diamondback rattlesnake).

The rattle is formed when the snake sheds its skin – a section of the old skin Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #10 answer

On Friday I presented two mystery objects after a frantic search through the photos on my phone whilst at the SVP conference in Bristol:

Name the source of this leather seat cover

Name the source of this leather seat cover

2009-09-04 10.21.29

 As it is you performed remarkably well, SmallCasserole spotted that the leather was Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #7 answer

Here’s what I said on Friday, just before 7am:

Just posted the Friday Mystery Object. Not a skull, no options and just one clue (for now): http://wp.me/pvJGH-6M You’ll never get it! #FMO

[PaoloViscardi on Twitter, Friday 4th September]

Of course, I was hoping to be proved wrong, but Gimpy managed to prove me wrong in record time (about an hour). So well done to Gimpy, although I now can’t help but hate you just a little bit for ruining my fun… (is this how the woo merchants feel?). Clearly the clue I left was far too much of a give-away (I should have listened to Melissa).

The question was “what is it and what’s it made of?” and it referred to this:

Scale in cm

Scale in cm

If you read the comments you probably worked out that it is indeed a Continue reading →