As promised, last Friday’s mystery object turned out to be easy:
The very first reply by Gerry gave the correct species and every subsequent suggestion was for the same animal.
With those huge razor-like incisors and canines what could this be other than a Continue reading
An easy mystery object this week, to make up for last week’s rather difficult spirit-scaring firebird:
Any idea what this skull belonged to?
As usual you can put your (preferably cryptic) suggestions, observations and questions below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this complete skeleton to identify:
As I expected, you managed to identify it in no time, with excellent use of hints and clues to get the answer across without spoiling the fun.
John the Hutch was the first to get it right (and was in fact the first to respond) with Carlos, henstridgesj, Jake, Henry Gee and Julie Doyle also recognising that this was the skeleton of a Continue reading
This Friday I have a pretty straightforward mystery object for you. I was going to make it difficult by giving you an image of the specimen without the skull attached, but I am at a NatSCA meeting in Leeds today, so I probably won’t get much chance to provide clues during the day (although I will do my best).
So what is this the skeleton of?
As usual you can put your answers below (using clever clues if possible) – I will try my best to respond. Good luck!
Huzzah, it’s Friday!
Here’s this week’s celebratory bit of dead critter from the Horniman Museum for you to identify:
I hope you have fun with it! As usual I will do my best to respond to your questions, observations and suggestions as the day goes on.
Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this skull to identify:
Jake spotted that this was a marsupial’s skull straight away and many of you suggested Kangaroo using a variety of crafty clues. There was also a well reasoned suggestion of Koala that fell just a little short.
Obenedo missed the correct answer by a hair(y nose) but got the right type of animal, as did jonpaulkaiser, Matt King, Jake and Cromercrox.
Neil managed to go that little bit further and get the right species – Continue reading
Apologies for the rather late answer to last Friday’s mystery object – it’s been a hectic few days!
I asked you to identify this skull
which you managed to do very quickly.
The first suggestion of a Vulture by Rosa Rubicondior was along completely the right lines, while KK and Steven D. Garber, PhD suggested a Turkey Vulture – which isn’t quite right, but it’s in the same genus – Cathartes.
From there, Julie Doyle and Jake managed to get the correct species identification of Continue reading
Last week’s object was a bit too difficult – passerine skeletons are tricky to identify. This week I have something a bit easier for you to identify:
Put your questions, comments and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this object to identify:
Rather unusually no-one managed to identify it. It’s not native to the UK and looks similar to quite a large variety of other species, because it’s a member of the Passeriformes (the perching birds), which is a hugely diverse and numerous group of birds. These factors make identifying the bird tricky, but without the plumage there to provide clues it was a very difficult task.
The plumage would have been a big help here, since the name of this bird is taken largely from a description of the plumage.
As you can probably work out from the photo above, it’s a Long-tailed Glossy Starling Lamprotornis caudatus (Statius Muller, 1776).
These tropical African birds are similar in diet and habits to the European Starling that we see more commonly – they just look a lot prettier.
Following on from Rachel’s difficult guest object last week, I have another bird for you to identify:
(N.B. the skull is 53mm long)
Any ideas what it is?
As usual, put your questions, comments and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!
Below is Rachel’s follow-up guest post answer to last Friday’s challenging mystery object. Many thanks Rachel – it was a good one!
Well, I seem to have led you all a merry dance this week! Admittedly, it was sneaky to not include a scale bar or provide you with another view of the skull, but if I’d put the top view in I think it would have been game over in about five minutes…
As cromercrox so rightly pointed out, it is a bird skull. Many of the guesses tended towards water birds, with suggestions including goose, gull, and rail.
Manabu Sakamoto was the first to suggest a ratite, and later tentatively guessed ostrich, while Matt King went for a rhea.
Paolo and I actually thought it might be a rhea to start with, but after comparing it to an identified rhea skull in the collections and the ratite images on Skullsite, we decided that it is in fact an Continue reading
This week I’m handing over to a colleague, crossword competitor and member of the Mystery Object community, Rachel:
Welcome to my first (and hopefully not last) guest Friday Mystery Object. I hope what I’ve chosen isn’t too glaringly easy; if it is, please feel free to allow yourself a smug smile and a pat on the back, but do try to resist shouting out the answer until Sunday so as not to spoil the game for others. Cryptic clues are much more fun.
Today’s object is, as usual, from the collections of the Horniman Museum. I will hopefully be available over the weekend to offer feedback on suggestions or questions, and I’ll provide the answer on Monday.
Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this object (from the NHM) to identify:
It was a bit of a tricky one for those of you who haven’t seen the First Time Out exhibition (jackashby and David Godfrey obviously did see it). This fossil skull looks like it belonged to some kind of pig rather than a primate – yes, that’s right, I said primate.
The main feature visible here that indicates that this skull may belong to a primate is the enclosed orbit, which isn’t a particularly strong characteristic since various ungulates also have an enclosed orbit – as I said, it’s a tricky one.
The type of primate is the Koala Lemur Megaladapis edwardsi Forsyth Major, 1894 from Madagascar. It was an arboreal, slow moving, gorilla-sized folivore – with superficial similarities to Koalas (hence the name). It is hypothesised that the extended bony nasal region may have supported a prehensile top lip, that would have been beneficial when foraging for leaves in the trees.
I won’t go into much detail here, because other curators have provided their interpretation for this object as part of the First Time Out project, so I will leave you with a link to that information. However, I would be interested in taking a closer look at the dentition and complete skeleton of one of these animals – I’d like to get a better grip on this apparent convergence on a suid cranial morphology and more gorilla-like body. I wonder what it might have looked like?
This week I’ll give you one that’s probably way too easy, but it’s a fascinating specimen:
As usual you can leave your questions, comments and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to reply. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you these objects to identify:
Apart from their superficial similarity to chocolate pralines or denuded molluscs several of you managed to identify that these are in fact teeth.
In particular Dave Godfrey, David and Styracosaurus Rider pwned this object with a definitive genus identification of Continue reading
This week I’ve decided to give you something that’s a bit of a change from the usual skulls:
Any idea what these objects are?
As usual you can leave your questions, comments and suggestions below and I’ll try to respond during the day. Good luck!
It seems that Friday’s mystery object led you on a merry chase.
Not a Crab-eating Raccoon!
This skull clearly perplexed everyone, given the number of suggestions and guesses that were made. Representatives of pretty much every major carnivore family were suggested.
Peter Harrison was the first to suggest a species from the right genus on the label (the slightly stuck-up looking nasals are can be a good clue that you’re looking at a procyonid) and Styracosaurus Rider made a good observation about the dentition. Eventually the correct answer on the label came from henstridgesj, backed up by Rachel, Styracosaurus Rider and David – it’s allegedly a Continue reading
This week I’ve decided to go back to mammal skulls. Any idea what this belonged to?
N.B. length of skull approx 12-13cm
As usual you can leave your questions, comments and suggestions below and I’ll try to provide some pointers. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this chunky object to identify:
It proved more of a challenge than I expected and I think that may be because I included a scale bar. Normally it’s the other way round – the scale bar helps rule out options based on size, but on this occasion it seems to have thrown a spanner in the works.
Clare P came close when she suggested a Pygmy Hippo and Jack Ashby, Matt King (sort of) and Styracosaurus Rider backed up that identification, but henstridgesj came closest with the suggestion of ‘Embryonic Hippo’.
This is actually the right front leg of a juvenile Continue reading
This week’s mystery object is a bit more chunky than the birds of the last few weeks:
Any idea what it is?
As usual you can leave your questions, comments and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!
Zygoma 