This week I thought I’d give you another object that I had to identify from a mixed box of specimens:
Any idea what this skull might have belonged to?
You can put your questions, comments and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!
This week I’ve been doing identifications from boxes of old specimens that haven’t been looked at for some time. Here’s one of the specimens that came out:
It should be a fairly straightforward one to identify to family level, but can you work out what species it is? Cryptic answers appreciated, to keep the game fun for everyone. Good luck!
Late nights and early starts do not make for blogging joy…
Any idea what this week’s mystery object might be?
I’ll be at a meeting in lovely Liverpool today, but I’ll do my best to respond to any comments. Good luck!
I’ve not been working in the collections much over the summer, which means I’ve been relying on a stockpile of photos for the mystery object. I’ve finally run out of specimens from the Horniman this week, so I have a mystery object that I photographed at the fantastic Grant Museum of Zoology for you to have a go at identifying (apologies for the indifferent quality of the photo):
You can put your suggestions, questions and observations below (preferably in a cryptic format) and I’ll do my best to respond.
I’ll be back in the collections from next week, so there will be some fresh Horniman specimens coming to light!
On Friday I gave you this object to identify:
It was a bit of a tricky one, since a few vertebrae aren’t a huge amount to go on. However, the large size helps narrow it down, as do the distinctively long neural spines.
As Ric Morris and henstridgesj spotted, the vertebrae are very compressed, not providing much scope for movement, suggesting an animal that relies on a rigid backbone for support and transferring large forces. This is not something you see in whales (at least not after the cervical and first few thoracic vertebrae), since water supports their weight and they maintain some flexibility in their spine for changing their orientation in the water when swimming. That leaves us with very few terrestrial mammals big enough to have vertebrae of this size – particularly considering that these vertebrae are from a juvenile animal.
The neural spines are long, but not laterally flattened. This suggests that they are not from a large Buffalo, Hippopotamus or Rhinoceros, since all of these animals have their neural spines orientated as a dorsal blade. The only animal of the right size that has dorso-ventrally flattened neural spines in the mid-thoracic region (that I’m aware of) is the Continue reading
On Friday I gave you this object from the collections of the Horniman Museum to identify:
The specimen had lost its label at some point in the past, so I had to identify it myself and was hoping to get your opinion on what it might be.
When I first saw it I noticed an odd scar running diagonally across the top of the cranium, which made me wonder if it was some kind of marine bird with an odd salt glad. Then I realised that the scar indicated something else entirely, which gave me the clue I needed to make the identification.
It seems that most of you also noticed the scar and came to similar conclusions, so 23thorns, cackhandedkate, Ric Morris, Jake and Steven D. Garber all recognised it as a woodpecker of some sort and given the length of the skull rachel and henstridgesj arrived at the same conclusion about species as I did, which is the Continue reading
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
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!
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
Zygoma 