Friday mystery object #521 answer

Last week I had a genuine mystery object for you to identify that was freshly dug out of the ground:

While there were a few suggestions of baked goods on social media, plenty of you spotted what it actually is – with a nod to Adam Yates who was first with the correct identification.

The side view is probably the most useful for setting context, as it shows the smooth curve of the head of an articular surface, with an adjacent tuberosity (or sticky-up-bit, if you prefer):

This is what you expect to see at the proximal end of a humerus (that’s bit that works with the shoulder). It’s pretty big – the scale bar is 8cm and the head of this humerus is a good bit wider across, so that also tells us something.

Another key observation comes from the underside of the humerus head:

You can just make out a rugose pattern on the underside of this piece of bone, which tells us that this is an unfused epiphysis that has become detached from the rest of the humerus. That means the animal that this piece of bone came from was young enough to still be growing, as the bones hadn’t fused.

All of that information leads us to the conclusion that the animal this piece of humerus came from was large, but still young. For me, that says that this humerus is from a Cow Bos taurus Linnaeus, 1758.

I suspect this mystery object represents the remains of a Victorian meal, based on where it was found – just under the floor of the Dead Zoo. It came to light during the investigation works on the building, which are currently underway. The building work started in 1856, so that gives us a good idea of when this beef shoulder was probably eaten.

Friday mystery object #520 answer

Last week I gave you this colourful chap to have a go at identifying:

As I mentioned in the previous mystery object answer, parrots can be hard to identify due to the large number of species globally. However, this time the specimen posed no problems for people to identify – perhaps unsurprisingly, given its importance.

Chris Jarvis was first in the door with the correct answer – a nice cryptic clue using the Seminole name for the species:

What a Puzz ila!

Other clues came thick and fast, but they all pointed to this yellow-headed, orange-faced bird being the now extinct Carolina Parakeet Conuropsis carolinensis (Linnaeus, 1758).

This colourful small parrot weighed in at around 100g and hung around in large flocks of up to 300 birds. Until the middle of the 19th Century they were commonplace in swampy forest habitats in parts of North America. The main resident population was in Florida although their range spread northwards along the marshes of the East coast (into the Carolinas) and westwards along the Gulf of Mexico just into Louisana.

A subspecies of the Carolina Parakeet (C. c. ludovicianus) also occurred in much of the Midwest and as far south as the top of Texas and as far north as the bottom of New York state. This subspecies had bodies that were more blue, but they disappeared alongside their greener sibling subspecies by the beginning of the 20th Century.

*Conuropsis carolinensis* ludovicianus by John James Audubon, 1811

It seems likely that the usual culprits played a role in the extinction of North America’s only endemic parrot – habitat loss and overhunting. Swamps were drained and forests cleared to make way for agricultural land, the birds were then shot for feeding on crops, and their beautiful plumage made the birds a target to supply the feather-forward fashions of the time.

While most of the shooting stopped before the birds went extinct, as people started to recognise the risk of extinction (especially in the context of the Passenger Pigeon that was being eradicated at around the same time), the last small wild population was vulnerable and it has been suggested that they were finally wiped out by an avian disease.

While a few stragglers likely remained living wild in the Florida swamps until the 1930s, the last known Carolina Parakeet (a male named Incas) died in Cincinati Zoo in 1918, just four years after Martha (the last Passenger Pigeon) died in the very same cage. A somewhat dismal end to colourful species.

Friday mystery object #519 answer

Last week I gave you a bit of tricky mystery object in the form of this colourful character:

Obviously it’s a parrot of some sort, but there are LOTS of parrots. With over 400 species to choose from, identifying one from a single image is not easy at all. Generally when it comes to parrot identification it’s very useful to know where it came from, and without that information this mystery is made even harder – but if I’d provided the locality it would have been way too easy!

I find a useful way to narrow down possible species when looking at parrots is to simply use a search engine and add descriptive terms of the colours of parts of the external anatomy. In this instance I searched for “parrot with emerald green wings, blue and purple chest” which offered up a few possible species, but it significantly narrowed down the options to work through. Of course, I did that with some awareness of colours likely being a little off.

This is a specimen that arrived in the Dead Zoo in 1902 and it’s been progressively fading due to light exposure over the last 120+ years. The purples here are muted and I suspect the blue visible on the breast is actually residual following preferential colour loss of red pigments (types of carotenoid) that would have interacted with the structural blue colour of the feather (structural colours being much more light-stable than pigments) to create a much more vivid and robust purple colour than we see today. With that in mind, it becomes much easier to work out what this species is.

This is the Dominican Amazon (or Imperial Amazon, or Sisserou) Amazona imperialis Richmond, 1899 – one of just three species of parrot from the Commonwealth of Dominica, an Island in the Carribean. Here’s an illustration of what it looks like when it’s not faded:

This species features on the flag of the Commonwealth of Dominica and sadly there are very few of these stunning birds remaining, with estimated numbers somewhere between 40 and 60 mature individuals – making it Critically Endangered.

While numbers had been declining due to habitat loss, hunting and the taking of wild birds for the pet trade, the population has been significantly impacted by severe hurricanes hitting the island – which are increasing in frequency and severity due to climate change.

Hopefully, conservation efforts and the relatively inaccessible mountaious areas of the island in which the birds live will allow them a chance to recover, but they breed slowly and the threat from hurricanes remains.

Well done to everyone who had a go at this – it really was very difficult, so props to Katenockles who came close with a suggestion of the Blue-headed Parrot. Of course, there were lots of comments that referenced the infamous Norwegian Blue, which for younger readers might be unfamiliar, so here’s the source:

Just to note, while there are no parrots known from Norway, there are some fossil examples known from Denmark – so perhaps there is a chance the Norwegian Blue actually existed – albeit 55 million years ago,

Friday mystery object #518 answer

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

This one is fairly straightforward to get to the superfamily level – it’s one of the Sea Turtles (the Chelonioidea). However, despite there only being seven species alive today, their skulls can take a bit of careful observation to distinguish the diagnostic features that offer the clues to a species level identification.

When attempting this kind of thing, it’s always helpful to have access to a good key or guide that illustrates and describes those diagnostic features, and for me a very useful resource is The Anatomy of Sea Turtles by Jeanette Wyneken. Alas this excellent reference only covers six of the seven species, so it’s worth also taking a look at the Chatterji, Hutchinson and Jones redescription of the skull of the Australian flatback sea turtle for the sake of completeness.

In the comments on the mystery object this became something of a mix, with a variety of options being proposed. The first, from Adam Yates was actually the correct identification, but he then second-guessed himself.

In a nutshell, you can tell that this is a Green Turtle, Chelonia mydas (Linnaeus, 1758) based on the broad U-shaped curve of the upper jaw (other Sea Turtles have a more pointed bill).

There are plenty of other features as well, such as the configuration of the bones of the palate, a pair of ridges in the maxilla – which are admitedly a little hard to make out, so I’ve indicated them in red below to help you spot where to look:

Another useful feature visible from the palate is the lack of pterygoid processes, which rules out the Australian Flatback Turtle.

I also happen to know that this specimen was collected from Ascencion Island, which is slap bang in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and is renowned as an important breeding site for Green Turtles.

So thanks to everyone for your thoughts on this one – I hope you had fun investigating, and I hope you find the references above useful if you stumble across more turtle skulls in need of identification.

I should probably add that I picked this specimen because I spotted it during the install of some displays in the new Dead Zoo Lab, which I’ve been working on intensively for the last few weeks. This is a space where we will be displaying some of our collections, and working with collaborators and our audiences on how we’ll be using our objects in the future redisplay of the Dead Zoo when the building has been refurbished.

The Dead Zoo Lab is now open to the public, so I’ll add a photo of the space below, and you can read more about it in this article in the Irish Independent in case you’re interested. I hope you get to visit sometime – and if you do, be sure to let me know!

Friday mystery object #517 answer

Last week I gave you a close up of a specimen from the Dead Zoo to have a go at identifying:

I don’t think this proved too much of a challenge, since Chris Jarvis responded with a correct identification within the hour:

This one’s sent me into a spiral, kudyu show a bit more,. bucky?
^{chrisjarvise8da89e10d says: July 18, 2025 at 8:44 am}

In case you missed the cryptic clues here (after all, I suspect that not everyone is as much of an antelope aficionado as Chris), this is a male Greater Kudu Tragelaphus strepsiceros (Pallas, 1766).

These handsome, large, spiral-horned antelopes have a distinctive white chevron that runs between their eyes – presumably the clue that Chris spotted to identify this specimen so quickly.

There are other species in the Genus Tragelaphus that look similar to the Greater Kudu, but they have different colouration and subtly different patterns on their faces.

I had the photo of this specimen because I’ve been working with my colleagues in the National Museum of Ireland team on getting objects ready for display at another of our Dublin sites called Collins Barracks. Obviously this is one of those objects.

The Dead Zoo has been closed since last September, while we’ve been emptying the space of collections for a major and much needed refurbishment. Of course, we want to make some of the collection available to the public while the Dead Zoo is closed, hence the work we’re doing now.

However, the display we’re working on is a bit weird – but it’s not intended to be an exhibition. I want it to be more of an iterative experiment for myself and my team to work out how we’re going to deal with redisplaying and interpreting the collections when the refurbishment works are done and we reopen the main Dead Zoo building on Merrion Street.

We’re calling the temporary display the “Dead Zoo Lab”, because of the experimental approach we plan to take. We want to involve the public in a conversation about how what we’re doing works for our audiences. I’m excited to see how we can build dialogue in this space to help inform our work over the next few years.

I am getting a bit ahead of myself though, as we still need to finish installing objects over the next week or so, before we can open the doors to the public. Once we get to that stage I’ll be sure to share some photos of the space for the Zygoma community – and I’ll be excited to hear your thoughts!

Friday mystery object #515 answer

Last week I gave you this fuzzy little fella to have a go at identifying:

It’s a very distinctive caterpillar and I had a feeling it wouldn’t prove much of a challenge (correctly it turns it). Those tufts of hair, “horns” and bristles are a dead give-away.

As everyone who commented recognised, this is the larva of a Vapourer Moth, also known as a Rusty Tussock Moth Orgyia antiqua (Linneaus, 1758).

This day (and night) flying moth is fascinating, as the adults demonstrate quite extreme sexual dimorphism, with the female being almost wingless and the males flying around seeking her out by detecting her “vapours” – the pheromones she secretes that give these moths the name “Vapourer”.

The name Orgyia is apparently meant to derive from the ancient Greek word “órgyia” meaning “outstretched arms” – referencing the front legs of these moths, which splay out in front of them. However, knowing how much taxonomists enjoy a bit of wordplay, I wonder whether the clouds of males attracted to the vapouring females inspired the name for a different reason…

These moths are quite widespread, occurring in Ireland, the UK, across Europe and they are well established in America. They feed on a wide variety of different plants, but generally don’t cause many issues for gardeners as they tend to not be around in very high densities.

This may be a bit surprising, considering the flightless females can carry and lay large numbers of eggs, since they don’t have to worry about maintaining flight weight. But, numbers of moth eggs laid rarely equate to the number of surviving offspring, due to predation and the actions of parasitoid wasps.

I hope you enjoyed working out the identity of this mystery object, and maybe finding out more about a pretty interesting insect.

Friday mystery object #514 answer

Last week I gave you another guest mystery object from regular contributor Andy Taylor FLS FBNA:

This proved to be a tricky challenge. The large size and the lack of a halux (the rear-facing small toe found in many birds) makes this seem like the feet of some sort of Ratite, which is the group of birds that includes a variety of flightless examples, including Ostriches, Emus, Cassowarys, Rheas, and Kiwis – many of which lack the hallux.

However, these feet do not belong to a Ratite – and in the comments, many of you seemed to notice that there was something funky with the arrangement of the toes and bones that may have offered a clue to indicate that fact. Even though they’re not from a Ratite, there are some useful pointers that can be taken from the similarities, since form follows function and if we know Ratite feet can look similar to these, then perhaps it’s worth asking “why is that?”

Many (although not all) Ratites have three forward-facing robust toes, although the Ostriches are a bit of an exception, as they only have two toes per foot. In the evolutionary push to be fast on your feet, too many toes can make you slow – just look at how horses have lost all but one of theirs.

Ratites also lack a hallux, and their claws don’t curve. These features all reflect the fact that Ratites don’t perch on branches, they’re heavy, and they spend most, if not all, of their time walking around on dry grasslands (actually, this isn’t true for Kiwis or the extint Moas that have more scrubby or habitats, but these Ratites do have a hallux). These are all useful things to consider when thinking about potential species that these feet could be from.

If you think of large and heavy birds that don’t perch and have a grassland habitat the list of possible options gets narrowed down quite quickly. Sereimas and Secretary Birds are out, as they have a hallux and more curved claws. Storks, Megapodes and Galliformes all also have a hallux. But one type of bird matches the description very well – the Bustards (or Otididae if you prefer).

The size means it must be one of the larger species of Bustard, but I suspect that it would be difficult to confirm the identification to species level without good quality reference material, since there are quite a few species. But in this case we’re luck to know the species, since Andy has the information – these feet belonged to a Great Bustard Otis tarda Linneaus, 1758.

It’s a species I’ve talked about before in a previous post and I really appreciate Andy sharing the images and information from his collection, and all the thoughts and comments that came in about the mystery object from the community here on Zygoma. Thanks for taking part!

Friday mystery object #513 answer

Last week I gave you this mystery object found by the family of one of my colleagues to have a go at identifying:

Adam Yates got the ball rolling with some key observations about this skeletal element that provides a handy set of clues to look for when assessing vertebra:

The element is easier than than the taxon. It is a thoracic vertebra from a mammal because it has zygapophyses (so therefore not a fish), flat centrum faces (so therefore not bird or reptile), and rib articulation facets (so therefore not from the neck, lumbar or tail regions). Which mammal is less easy, I’m pretty sure it is isn’t a relative of flipper, but that’s all I’ve got now.

Adam was also right in flagging that it’s not from a cetacean – their transverse processes are longer and less robust than we see in this mystery specimen. However, this bone was found on the beach on Achill Island, so there’s a good chance it’s from a species that’s frequently in the water.

Then Joe Vans, Kat Edmonson and Adam got stuck in with consideration of the possible species and specific thoracic vertebra, and as part of that there was reference to images from John Rochester’s Flickr pages. As far as I’m concerned, John’s pages are some of the best resources available for osteological comparison and I use them regularly.

The discussion ended up converging on the 5th thoracic vertebra (or T5 as it would be commonly referred to) of a Harbour Seal, based on specimens imaged by John here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jrochester/14181517647 – best compared to this image of the mystery specimen:

This could well be correct, but I personally think it may be from a different species of seal. The size is fairly large (based on the hand that provides some scale), yet the epiphyses of the articular surfaces are not fully fused, suggesting that this is from a subadult animal:

This suggests to me that the animal had some more growing to do before reaching full size, which may impact on some of the features, but it also makes me think that the vertebra is probably on the smaller end of the size range for the species.

For me that would suggest a Grey Seal Halichoerus grypus (O. Fabricius, 1791) and looking at another of John’s pages: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jrochester/24441096790/in/photostream/ I would expect it to be in the T6 or T7. This also tracks for me in terms of the shape of the neural canal, which seems narrower and taller (generally more square) in the Grey Seal compared to a broader and perhaps more triangular neural canal in the Harbour Seal.

I suspect a measurement of the size would help confirm one way of the other, so I’ll see if I can get that to be sure. I hope you enjoyed the challenge of working this out, and I’d love to hear your thoughts if you think it could be something else!

Friday mystery object #512 answer

Last week I gave you this guest mystery object to try identifying, from the collection of Andy Taylor FLS FBNA:

Andy had brought this particular specimen along to the NatSCA Conference, which was held in the Manchester Museum this year. It’s not the only one he brought – there were several fantastic specimens from his incredible collection, my favourite being the Bathynomus Giant Marine Isopod:

Me holding a Giant Marine Isopod from Andy Taylor’s collection

It was great to see these specimens, and it’s surprisingly rare to be able to see specimens like this at a conference these days, since UK museums have very strict controls on how accessioned collections are transported and used, which can make it hard to support use in outreach. While this is good for the care of the collections, it does reduce their ability to be used to educate and inspire.

Andy doesn’t have this limitation, since the specimens are from his own collection, which has been built up over 40 years of interest in natural history and through a network of contacts researching life in the deep seas and a variety of other environments. Andy does this because he’s passionate about nature, and his collection is available for use for research, loans to support exhibitions, and use in training and outreach activities.

Many natural history collections in museums came from the activities of passionate naturalists like Andy – in fact quite a lot of local and regional museums in the UK were originally founded to house the collections of local naturalist organisations, that sprung up to support the learning of working people who didn’t have the opportunity to follow an academic route into the natural sciences, but who made huge contributions to our understanding of local biodiversity in the areas in which they were active. These people were true amateurs – doing this work for the love of it, rather than for profit.

Various organisations still support the activities of passionate naturalists (both amateur and professional), such as the British Naturalists’ Association and the Linnean Society of London (of which I am a Fellow) and I think they have huge value for furthering our understanding of natural science and supporting the activities of taxonomists and conservationists who do the vital work needed to protect our threatened natural world.

However, none of this offers an answer to last week’s mystery object, so let’s get to that.

The photos I provided weren’t great, but that didn’t stop the Zygoma regulars from figuring it out. Chris Jarvis indicated that it was a type of mussel, Sallie Reynolds got the clue I offered in last week’s post (“you may need to dive deep to work it out”) and figured it was from very deep in the ocean, and Adam Yates suggested the wrong species in the right genus, and then dialled in on the correct species after a helpful comment from Andy.

This is a specimen of Bathymodiolus thermophilus Kenk & Wilson, 1985 a type of mussel that lives around hydrothermal vents. This particular specimen was collected at a depth of 2.2km from a hydrothermal vent on the East Pacific Rise by Alvin Deep-Submergence Vehicle (DSV) as part of research by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The distribution of specimens like this to a variety of people and organisations is an important activity, since it helps ensure examples of species can be made more available for interested parties around the globe – decentralising collections so local events (from earthquakes to funding cuts by anti-science governments) stand less chance of taking specimens out of circulation for research into our global biodiversity.

I would like to offer up my thanks to Andy – his support for this blog has always been enthusiastic and I appreciate it greatly!

Friday mystery object #511 answer

Last week I gave you a particularly mean mystery object to try to identify:

This would be difficult if it was an accurate representation of the eye of the living animal, but I suspect it’s pretty much impossible (unless you’re familiar with this specimen), considering how different this eye appears from the eye of the actual animal. This is something that katedmonson spotted and commented on:

The problem I can “see” with this eye is that we are relying on the skill of the taxidermist to have correctly chosen the exact correct glass eye: pupil, color, shape of the iris, for the animal is is supposed to represent. And did the preparer accidentally strip the eye of any eyelashes, (sus scrofa as many have indicated) or does this animal not have any. Which is fairly unusual as far as ‘eyes’ go. Unless it was cetacean, which the fur would indicate it is not. Not seal either.

Kat made the point I was planning on making when I chose this mystery object – the eyes of taxidermy specimens are a choice made by the taxidermist who does the preparation, and that choice might be accurate – or it might not be. However, there is one point Kat makes that isn’t quite on point – this is in fact a type of seal:

This is a Hooded Seal Cystophora cristata (Erxleben, 1777) – a species that I have talked about before on the blog, in fact I think the specimen I used in that instance may have been the skull that came from this taxidermy example:

I should probably offer my apologies at this point, for going with such a difficult mystery object, but sometimes it’s nice to pose a puzzle that even the crack community of commenters on the blog have trouble with. Thanks to you all for your thoughts on this – I hope the search for an answer wasn’t too frustrating!

Friday mystery object #510 answer

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

This came to light when we were clearing out cupboards in the Dead Zoo, and it may have been an ill-considered option, considering how tricky vertebrae can be to narrow down to species and how little time I’ve had to research this particular specimen.

I was hoping that someone in the comments might spot something I’d missed, and Adam Yates certainly spotted everything I’d noted from my inspection of the specimen:

Clearly birdy (pneumatic foramina and saddle-shaped posterior centrum face). The odd short anterior of the pair is probably the axis, and the one behind, Ce 3. I can’t do better than that right now, but will return to this puzzle later…

He also added a useful comment about size which I hadn’t really considered fully:

…The first few cervical vertebrae of birds are surprisingly small and I judge this axis to be about 25 – 30 mm across the postzygapophyses, using Paolo’s thumbnail as scale. That would suggest a raft of large species. I’m going to guess this one rhymes with “he knew”.

I’m assuming that’s a reference to Emu, and the size of the vertebrae certainly seem to be in the right size range (at least according to this paper by Baranowski et al, from 2018). However, I’m not entirely convinced that the shape is quite right, Rheas might be a little more similar, and there was a hint at a pouched animal by katedmonson, which I suspect is a reference to a Pelican.

I think these are a little bit too short for a Pelican, but I’ll certainly keep that identification in mind as I try to find where these came from. However, without spending a good bit more time trying to find comparative specimens, it’s going to be a challenge. It may be that the easiest way to work out what this is will be to search for a large mounted bird skeleton that’s missing these vertebrae, since there are not too many such specimens in the Dead Zoo.

But before I start a wider search, I have a hunch that I want to check out. There is a King Vulture specimen that I’ve blogged about previously (way back in 2018) that is large and consists of a partially dismounted skeleton. I think I’ll make that my first port of call, as (if memory serves) it has similar levels of soot build up on the bones, and I suspect it’s in the right sort of size range, as vultures have fairly large and robust cervical vertebrae for their size.

So my thanks to everyone for their suggestions and observations – if I eventually discover the identity of these bones I’ll be sure to update this post, and if you think you know what it is, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Oh, and if you celebrate Easter, I hope you have a great one!

Friday mystery object #509 answer

Last week I gave you these fuzzy chicks to try your hand at identifying:

Their speckled camouflage is perfect for pebbly beaches and it’s just what you’d expect from a member of the Gull Family (the Laridae). This is something that everyone picked up on, with a variety of excellent clues.

pleasantly78f070d606 was first in the door, with a great clue identifying the correct species in three words:

Silvery chip thief

The chip stealing (both in the UK and USA meaning of chips) encapsulates one of the more familiar and frustrating behaviours of this commonly kleptoparasitic species:

The “silvery” references the species name argentatus (which in tern references the silvery shade on back of these cheeky birds). So this is the chick of a Herring Gull Larus argentatus Pontoppidan, 1763.

It can be tricky to distinguish between the chicks of various different gull species, but you may notice that these look a bit like they’ve gone for, what I can probably best describe as an eyeliner flick. This bar behind the eye is variable, but occurs frequently in Herring Gull chicks, but less so in the similar looking chicks of other closely related species.

These chicks are from a particularly nicely done diorama in the Dead Zoo, which we’ve been in the process of preparing for transport out of the building. We’ll be sharing some of the progress on the project on some social media platforms (Bluesky and Instagram) soon – so I’ll be sure to share some of those stories from our hard-working team here as well.

Friday mystery object #508 answer

Last week I gave you a St Patrick’s themed mystery object in the form of this snake:

It was a really difficult ask – the skin is faded and the specimen has been chopped into several pieces, making identification very tricky. I did provide a clue with the location of where this specimen is from, to offer a little help in narrowing down the possibilities (it’s from Venezuela).

Unfortunately, as Adam Yates spotted, I managed to leave in another more obvious clue that I thought I’d removed – the name of the species, which appears in the photo of the full specimen. I cropped the image in WordPress, not realising that if you click on it the original uncropped image opens. Not my finest moment!

However, specimen identifications need to be taken with a pinch of salt until they’re verified, so let’s do that as best we can.

The side view of the head of this specimen gives a useful clue that Adam picked up on:

It has a sensory pit between the eye and the nostril, indicating that this is a type of Pit Viper, which does help reduce the options from around 50 Venezeulan snake species to around 15 or so. It’s also consistent with the identification of Bothrops venezuelensis Sandner-Montilla, 1952.

Most of the other Pit Vipers are fairly distinct from this specimen in terms of colour and pattern, but there are a couple of members of the Genus Bothrops (the Lanceheads) that are similar to this.

You may just be able to see a hint of a stripe behind the eye that terminates just above the last scale above the mouth, which can be useful in distinguishing between B. atrox (where the stripe touches the last three scales over the mouth) and B. asper (where it just touches that last scale as we see here), but this feature is less relaibe for B. venezuelensis, which can be distinguished from the other two species by having a more rounded rostrum:

This specimen’s rostrum (snout) is a little pointy, but for a type of snake called a Lancehead, you expect them to be very pointy. Of course this specimen is a little imperfectly prepared, so the rostrum shape may be misleading. As a result, I’d be a bit unwilling to differentiate between B. asper and B. venezuelensis based on the images.

What we do know is that this was certainly a venomous snake, since it bit a farm labourer working on a hacienda who required two doses of antivenom, but they thankfully survived. I suspect that this is why the head is separated, since the snake was killed and presumably identified to assist with administration to the appropriate antivenom.

This specimen is one of several from the same collector, who I plan to talk about more in future posts, since we have great information about a fascinating life.

Friday mystery object #505 answer

Last week I shared this specimen from the collections of the Dead Zoo, as it’s a good example of the type of specimen that will often turn up for identification:

If you didn’t recognise it, this is the braincase of a seal.

It’s not usual for seal skulls to be found in sections like this for a few reasons. One is that marine mammals tend to have quite open sutures in their skulls, presumably to help prevent issues with pressure during diving. Another is that young animals (with unfused skulls) will often be the ones that succumb to the rigours of nature. Finally, beaches are high energy environments, so skulls will often be rolled and broken up by wave action.

Knowing it’s a seal is useful, but there are over 30 species to choose between. However, Adam Yates spotted some useful information written on the specimen:

‘It looks like “Yellow Slrank 20/9/92” ???? I’m guessing a location and date, but Slrank? WTF is that?

Got it! Yellow Strand. It is a beach in Ireland.’

This really helps, since there are only a couple of species that are likely to be found in Ireland – the Grey Seal and the Harbour Seal.

It’s about the right size for a Harbour Seal, but the shape isn’t quite right. In particular, the frontals (that pair of bones that forms the skinny section that’s sticking out) aren’t skinny enough. There’s also a hint of muscle scars and unfused frontal-parietal sutures that suggest that the animal may be juvenile.

If that is the case (and I think it is), then I think this is most likely the skull of a young Grey Seal Halichoerus grypus (O. Fabricius, 1791). This was Adam Yate’s suggestion, supported by Kat Edmonson, so well done to them for picking up on that detail.

I hope you enjoyed that challenge – more to come next week!

Friday mystery object #504 answer

Last week I gave you this lovely fishy from the Dead Zoo to try identifying:

I think everyone recognised that this specimen is a member of the Molidae – that’s the family containing the Sunfish. But the tricky bit was working out which of the five living species it might be.

I didn’t include a scale, because it would have made it a bit too easy. Most of the Sunfish are very large – on average well over 2m long, with some over 3m. They’re also heavy – most weighing in at over 2 tonnes and with a specimen of the Southern Sunfish recognised as the biggest bony fish on record at 2,744kg.

However, the mystery specimen is a lot more svelt, as it’s from the smallest species – the Slender (or Truncated) Sunfish Ranzania laevis (Pennant, 1776).

So I offer my congratulations to everyone who managed to work it out, with Adam Yates making the first comment to indicate the species. It’s worth noting Allen Hazen’s observation that the paint job on this specimen is not really very accurate. – although this isn’t unusal for fish taxidermy.

All that’s left to say on this is that this Slender Sunfish was a much easier object to move than its Ocean Sunfish cousin, who was much bigger and even less slender than me…

Friday mystery object #502 answer

Apologies for the late posting of the answer to last week’s mystery object, I lost all track of time over the Christmas break!

Last week I gave you this boring object to identify from the Dead Zoo:

Of course, by boring I mean it bores into materials, as it’s actually a pretty interesting type of mollusc, and by looking at the comments, it’s clear that everyone has a good idea of what it is.

I had hoped to trick a few people into thinking it could be a type of shipworm, by pointing out that this specimen has bored into pine, when this species much more commonly bores into softer rocks, like mudstones and chalk. They do this by using their muscular foot to attach themselves to the substrate and then they twist their shells into the surface.

The shell has multiple tiny rasping teeth all over the surface, which you can see on the specimen above, and this grinds away the rock (or in this case wood). You might expect the shell to be thick in order to achieve this, but actually it’s very thin – which is partly why the mollusc bores itself a hole in a hard substrate for protection.

This specimen is a type of Piddock and it was collected in Ireland, which can certainly help with the identification since there are only a few species of Piddock that have been found in Irish waters, although it does have a fairly characteristic feature readily visible – the beaked anterior end (which sits at the bottom of the bored hole, so this one is upside down).

This feature is seen in the Common Piddock, Pholas dactylus Linnaeus, 1758 while in species like the White Piddock and American Piddock the anterior end doesn’t form the same beaked shape. Well done to everyone who worked it out!

I did mention in the original post that it may not be very festive-looking, but the Common Piddock could be considered one of the most festive molluscs, since they bioluminesce, giving off a bluish green glow and an alternative common name for them is Angelwings due to the thin shell, shape and white colour. So not a boring boring mollusc by any means!

Friday mystery object #501 answer

Last week I gave you this piece of bone to have a go at identifying:

I have to admit, it’s even harder than I thought it would be, so I should probably apologise about now! Adam Yates got as close as I think is really achievable from just this photo, dropping the clue:

He was very stern and he flipped me the bird when I suggested it looked like a ship: galley-form you could say.

This of course is a hint that the bone is a sternum from a bird in the Order Galliformes. Adam then followed up with:

I’m grousing because its proving difficult for me to identify beyond tribe level

This points us in the direction of the Tetraonini – the tribe within the Galliformes that contains the various species of Grouse. I’m entirely in agreement with Adam. Bird sterna are quite characteristic, as you can see from the gallery of different sterna below:

The chicken sternum in the images above (first one pictured) is the closest in form to the mystery object. The Galliformes have a tiny flat section to their sternum, with long processes coming off to support the pectoral muscle, unlike most other birds which have large flat sections to accommodate the muscle. This likely reflects the low use that the flight muscles tend to get in the Galliformes, which generally (although not exclusively) avoid flying if possible.

The fact that the sternum is showing its ventral side and it’s broken in several places, it’s really not feasible to definitively identify it to species based on the available information.

However, I have some additional context, because this piece of bone is actually just a small piece of set-dressing in a diorama from the Dead Zoo, depicting a Peregrine Falcon nest:

In this diorama the Peregrine chicks are being served a tasty portion of Red Grouse:

Since the bones of the Red Grouse would have been removed as part of the taxidermy process, there’s every chance that some of those bones used in the dressing of the diorama may have come from the specimen, although I’m sure there would be plenty of bones from Pheasants and other Red Grouse available in the taxidermy studios of Williams & Sons, where this was made.

So well done to everyone who got as far as Galliformes – I promise it won’t be quite so difficult next time!

Friday mystery object #500 answer

Last week I hit the 500th mystery object milestone, with this skeleton from the collections of the Dead Zoo to identify:

This specimen came to us from the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, and Emma Murphy, our curator responsible for the terrestrial zoology collections has been checking the identification. At the moment this is listed as being a “Baboon”, but there are 5 (maybe 6) species of baboon – so which could it be?

Just to complicate matters, Emma suspects that this may be a specimen referred to in an 1834 catalogue as a “pig-tailed baboon”, which may be where the “Baboon” listing came from. That’s not a recognised species anymore, they’re now called Southern Pig-tailed Macaques – or Northern Pig-tailed Macaques, since the Pig-tailed Macaques were split a decade or so ago.

Looking at the anatomy is always a good place to help work these issues out, but that requires comparative material – which is never as easy to find as you might like. However, there are some useful resources out there. A particularly good one is the Mammalian Crania Photographic Archive, and there are other useful sites like Skullbase and the Animal Diversity Web.

Looking through these various resources it becomes a bit easier to start picking out features to assist with identification, but it takes a bit of work and close scrutiny of a lot of different individuals within each species, to get a better idea of variation.

In profile the mystery specimen has relatively small canines and no sagittal crest, which suggests it’s a female. The face (or rostrum) is quite long, which rules out a lot of Macaque species, especially since the females tend to have shorter faces than males, and the females only develop the longer face when they are fully mature.

However, the baboons all have very long faces (even the females), so this specimen seems a little short for some of them. The Chacma Baboon is the closest I could find in proportion, but when viewed from above, the mystery specimen doesn’t seem to have the extremely well-defined cheek ridges that stand out in all baboon skulls (here’s a link to an example from the Animal Diversity Web).

Good cheekbones, but not the razor-ridges seen in baboons

After considerable comparison, the skull of the mystery specimen looks most similar to the skull of a Southern Pig-tailed Macaque featured on the Mammalian Crania Photographic Archive, although I feel that I want to look a little more closely at the confiuration of the nasal bones in relation to the frontals before making a final call, since photographs can sometimes be misleading.

My thanks to everyone for your suggestions – there were plenty that all fell in the same general area of the monkey family tree, with baboons and macaques all being suggested. Your thoughts helped me narrow down a list of likely candidates and on balance I suspect this is most likely the Southern (or possibly Northern) Pig-tailed Macaque specimen that Emma found the old entry for in the catalogue. It would probably have been much easier to figure out if the tail had survived intact!

Hopefully I’ll see you here next week for mystery object #501!

Friday mystery object #499 answer

Last week I gave you this mystery object from the Dead Zoo to try your hand at identifying:

There were some muttering about this being a squalid in the comments and on social media (I left Twitter some time ago, but I’m on Bluesky, Mastodon, and LinkedIn), and those mutterings were of course correct, since this is a shark in the Order Squaliformes. A useful point for identification of this Genus is the lack of an anal fin.

There are a lot of Squaliformes, but this one has a profile that best fits the form of either the Squalidae (the Dogfish) or the Centrophoridae (the Gulper sharks). The tail offers a clue to distinguish though, as it has a full tail notch and a secondary partial notch that gives a squared off section of the tail tip that isn’t seen in the Squalidae (although some do have a squared off tail tip, but with just a single partial notch).

Within the family Centrophoridae you could spend a bit of time going through about 20 species to rule some out, or you can take a shortcut and guess that this specimen is from the waters around Ireland and start searching for likely candidates there. This approach helped Adam Yates get the identification.

I think the taxidermy of our specimen may have made this harder, since I don’t think the taxidermist had a big enough eye for the species (if you look at the specimen’s head you can see how hollow the orbit appears around the eye):

The large eyes are one of the features of this deep sea species that does indeed occur in Irish waters, but the scales are probably the most useful feature, although unfortunately they aren’t easy to see clearly on the specimen (although if you click the photo you do get a bigger version).

As Adam recognised, this is a Leafscale Gulper Centrophorus squamosus Bonnaterre, 1788.

This particular specimen was collected in May 1906, 70 miles off Bull Rock in County Kerry, in a trawl at 110 fathoms. It came to the Dead Zoo via Irish Fisheries, along with many other specimens that have helped lay the foundations of our understanding of the marine life found in Irish waters.

We still receive new specimens from trawlers around the island, with new records of species and interesting variations within species being donated quite frequently. With the dizzying rate of technological developments, it’s easy to assume that we already know everything about the life on our planet, but in reality we’re still discovering new things all the time, and our knowledge is very incomplete.

So thanks to everyone who joins in the mystery object – it gives me a chance to learn new things from you, and I hope it helps you to test your skills, and maybe learn some new things about the animals we share the planet with!

Friday mystery object #492 answer

Last week I gave you this chunky chewer to try and identify:

It wasn’t the easiest challenge, since it’s clearly a rodent, and rodents are the most diverse Order of mammals, with over two thousand species. Not only that, but this specimen is badly faded – if you’re a regular reader of my blog you’ll know that’s a recurring theme for specimens from the Dead Zoo, due to the natural light that illuminated the space for over a century and a half.

However, to get started it’s worth taking a look at the size and overall shape of the specimen:

It has a shortish tail, short legs and a fairly long and cylindrical body. It also has tiny eyes, tiny ears, and incisors that protrude beyond the lips. These are all features that are common to rodents that have evolved to have a specialist fossorial (or burrowing) lifestyle, where digging is done with the teeth and usually it’s a way of getting to plant roots and tubers growing underground.

The obvious examples of rodents with a lifestyle matching this would be species like Gophers, the Naked Mole-rat, the somewhat-related blesmols (a group of African Mole-rats), the unrelated Blind Mole-rats and some of their relatives in the Family Spalacidae. All of these similar looking animals have converged on a body form that works for their way of life, but there is a key feature to help work out which of these groups of fossorial rodents to look at – the size.

Many burrowers (and most rodents in general) tend to be on the smaller side, but this specimen is around 50cm long – and that’s not including its tail. It may not quite be up there with rodent giants like the Capybara, but you could certainly consider it to be a fossorial rodent of an unusual size.

Hopefully, that should be all the additional information needed to narrow this species down to the Large Bamboo Rat Rhizomys sumatrensis (Raffles, 1821), a possible inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s mention of the Giant Rat of Sumatra (which I suspect in turn may have influenced William Goldman in his creation of the R.O.U.S.’s in the Princess Bride).

The Large Bamboo Rat feeds mainly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, on bamboo roots. They do also take other food, such as the roots of other plants and sometimes fruit and nuts that they find when on the surface, since they are less fussy about emerging from underground than some of the more dedicatedly fossorial rodents.

Of course, by emerging it does make them more likey to be eaten by predators, and given their large size, humans count in that number. However, one interesting thing to note about this species from Southeast Asia is that they are known to carry a bacterium that can be particularly problematic for people with immunodeficiency issues, particularly HIV/AIDS, so eating them can have its problems.

I hope you enjoyed the challenge!

Zygoma

Adventures in natural history collections

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