Friday mystery object #192 answer

On Friday I gave you this unidentified specimen from the Horniman’s collections to take a look at. I had already had a go at working out what it is, but it never hurts to get a second opinion.

It’s actually a bit of a generic looking overall shape, perhaps reminiscent of a owl or a maybe a pheasant of some sort. However, the nares (nostrils) are very small and round and set in a bill that is sharp, shortish and very solidly constructed, which is something you only really see in a few passerines, some parrots and the falcons. The skull is too big for a passerine and the bill is totally the wrong overall shape for a parrot, which leaves us with a falcon – a fairly small one at that.

From there the shape of the palate and the proportions of the cranium led me to a species identification that I’m pleased to say agreed with that proposed by Tony Irwin and Wouter van Gestel (who eloquently explained the indicative characters that I mentioned above). We all think that this is the cranium of a Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #192

This week I have a skull with no data that I came across in the collections a little while back. I think I managed to get a decent identification on it, but I’d be interested to see if you all agree:

What do you think it is? As usual you can put your suggestions below. Thanks for helping out!

Friday mystery object #191 answer

On Friday we had this skull submitted by Dr Ben Swift for identification:

mystery191c

Now this is quite obviously a primate, as it has a bony ring around the orbit, a bony back wall to the orbit and just eight incisors as opposed to the twelve that forms the basal condition for mammals. The teeth also tell us that this is an Old World Monkey (Cercopithecidae), since these primates only have eight premolars instead of the twelve you find in the New World Monkeys (Platyrrhini). The small canines suggest that this is the skull of a female.

From there it starts getting a bit more difficult. The fairly small size of the specimen ruled out a few genera, but the main features that helped narrow down the possibilities were the very flat face, the heavy bony rings around the orbits, the flaring of the zygomatic arches (cheekbones) and the short and rounded braincase. Effectively the only way to consider these features is to look at a lot of comparative specimens (the excellent Mammalian Crania Photographic Archive proved very useful for this).

After a lot of consideration I found myself in agreement with the suggestion of something from the genus Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #191

This week I have a skull for you to have a go at identifying that has been submitted by Dr Ben Swift. Any idea what species this belongs to?

I’ll be trying to get an identification on this specimen myself and I’m not the best at primates, so your suggestions and comments would be appreciated – let’s see if we can crowdsource an identification!

Friday mystery object #190

This week I have a skull with character for you to identify. It will probably prove to be little challenge to some of you, but if you know what it is please try to use cryptic clues so you don’t spoil the game for others:

Put your thoughts below and I’ll be sure to make comments during the day. Enjoy!

Friday mystery object #189

This week I have another interesting skull that came up during one of our recent reviews:

Any idea what animal this belonged to? You can put your suggestions below and I’ll do my best to reply, although I will be at the NatSCA conference today, so it will depend on the quality of internet access on my phone.

Friday mystery object #188 answer

On Friday I gave you this previously misidentified specimen to have a go at identifying:

It turns out that you did a great job!

Jake and Mieke Roth immediately spotted that the skull belonged to a large turtle of some kind, henstridgesj narrowed it down to a fresh-water turtle and he and Steven D. Garber recognised that despite the large size, it wasn’t from one of the snapping turtles (which is what the original identification mistakenly had it as) and that it was more likely to be from one of the side-necked turtles. However, microecos went one better and managed to get a species identification for the specimen that agreed with the identification that our visiting reptile expert Dr Colin McCarthy who suggested Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #187 answer

On Friday I gave you this somewhat odd object to identify:

My first thought when seeing it was Bowser from the Mario games:

This probably isn’t the worst place to start the identification, since the animal with this feature was clearly big, scaly and toothy. This was obviously in the minds of Barbara Powell and Wouter van Gestel, who reached the correct conclusion that this is the structure from the tip of the snout of an adult male Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #187

This week I have a bit of an odd-looking (and therefore probably easy) object for you to identify. Any idea what this is?

You can leave your comments and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!

Friday mystery object #186 answer

On Friday I gave you a mystery skull from the forests of south Thailand to identify, courtesy of Mark Ribbands via William Vine:

When I first saw this skull I was immediately struck by its similarity to that of a Badger:

That badger-like quality (which Jake also noticed) got me thinking that it may belong to an Asian Hog Badger, but the skull length is 190mm, which is a bit too big even for a large adult Hog Badger and the unfused sutures, partially erupted canines and short muzzle make it pretty obvious that the skull comes from a very young animal (I talked about the characteristics of juvenile animals in a post a couple of years ago).

Jake recognised that the skull was from a juvenile, as did Wouter van Gestel, who went on to suggest a much larger carnivore, the Malayan Sun Bear. The other possibility would be the Asiatic Black Bear, but without comparable juvenile skulls of both it is hard to be sure which it is, but I’m pretty certain it is the skull of a bear and looking at the shape of the adult bear skulls I think the Sun Bear Helarctos malayanus Horsfield, 1825 is probably the most likely candidate.

Sun Bears are the smallest members of the bear family and are well adapted to climbing, which they do a lot of as they search for the insects, fruit and honey that make up most of their diet. Here’s a video of a Sun Bear cub putting those impressive climbing skills to the test:

Happy Year of the Snake!

Today marks the start of the Chinese Year of the Snake and tomorrow we start the Herpetology phase of our collections review at the Horniman. How very apt!

Here’s a specimen labelled ‘Boa Constrictor’ that came to light while we were preparing for the review that I thought you might like:

Have a very prosperous and healthy Year of the Snake!

Friday mystery object #186

This week I have an object for you that came through as an enquiry from Mark Ribbands via William Vine. It’s 190mm long and was found in the forest of South Thailand:

Any idea what it came from? As usual you can leave your suggestions below – I may not be able to respond during the day as I’m at a seminar on Natural Science Collections and the Law, but I’m sure that there will be some interesting discussion about this object from the regulars!

Oddjects No.4

I came across this little Seahorse when sorting through some boxes the other day:

I love the translucence of the skeleton – it refracted the light from the LED on my phone beautifully for this photo.

Friday mystery object #185 answer

On Friday I gave you this object to identify:

I thought it might have posed a bit of a challenge, since it’s part of a species of bird that you don’t find in Europe or North America. Of course, I was forgetting the skills of the Zygoma community. Everyone recognised it as the sternum of a bird with weak flight muscles and Wouter van Gestel spotted the species and was supported in his identification by Barbara Powell and Robin.

This is the sternum of a Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #185

This week I have an interesting mystery object for you. It’s quite characteristic, but not necessarily very familiar, so it may prove a bit of a challenge:

Any idea what this piece of bone is and what it came from? You can put your thoughts below and I’ll do my best to get back to you. Good luck!

Friday mystery object #184 answer (well, not really)

On Friday I asked for your help with identifying this object:

There were a few interesting suggestions from beaks to bladders, but so far nothing really corresponds with the structure of this specimen. It’s very weird.

It looks like it’s probably from something aquatic, perhaps the ossified swim bladder of a fish, but I’m by no means sure of that.

I will see if I can read the notes written on the specimen under a UV light, but for now I have to admit that I am still stumped. Please let me know if you recognise what it is!

[N.B. from the discussion and links in the comments below, it emerges that this is the hyperostotic spine from the anal fin of a fish]

Friday mystery object #184

This week I have yet another mystery object that I’ve not managed to identify myself. Do you have any idea what this is and what animal it came from?

As usual you can put your comments below and will be eagerly checking them out in the hope that someone recognises this bony structure. Enjoy!

Oddjects No.2

Some interesting things have been coming to light in the reviews going on at the Horniman. Here’s an object that our Anthropology review team uncovered and asked me to identify.

It looks a bit like a bird of prey with a gimp mask, but it’s actually a charm from Nigeria.

Fortunately, I’d just gone through our bird skull collection and I immediately recognised this becowled bird skull as being from a Lappet-faced Vulture, so it was an easy identification – particularly since the skull is 18cm long and from Africa, which helped narrow down the possibilities considerably!

Here’s the Anthropology specimen compared directly to our Natural History specimen, so you can see what would be under the leather:

We’re also in the middle of our first collections Bioblitz at the moment, so expect to see a lot of activity on the @HornimanReviews Twitter feed!

Oddjects No.1

I’ve been running my mystery object for over three years now and I’ve decided to add another kind of post in order to share some of the odd and interesting objects that I come across as I work in the collections of the Horniman Museum.

To share these specimens I’ve chosen the name ‘Oddjects’ as a portmanteau of ‘Odd’ and ‘Objects’. Here’s the first:

This happens to be a Wolffish (Anarhichas sp.) specimen that was a mystery object back in 2010, but here I just want to use the specimen to capture the imagination and spark discussion rather than provide much in-depth interpretation.

What does this make you think of?

I hope you enjoy the Oddjects I plan to share – if you do I would heartily recommend also checking out the Twitter and Tumblr feeds for the Horniman’s collections review projects as they also share some great objects.

Friday mystery object #183

This week I have another genuine mystery object for you to have a go at identifying. I found a pair of legs in the collection and although I can think of a few things that they don’t come from, I’m a bit stumped as to what they did come from. Here’s one to give you an idea of what they look like: