This week I’m going to put you to the test with this mystery object from the Dead Zoo:
I’m not going to lie, this is probably going to be a challenge, but somehow I suspect that someone will manage to spot what it is.
As always, you can leave your thoughts, questions and suggestions in the comments box below, and I’ll try to offer some useful hints if it’s proving too difficult. Best of luck with it!
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!
This week I have a nice mystery object for you from the Dead Zoo to have a go at identifying:
It may not be the most festive looking object, but it is embedded in a piece of pine, and that’s about as festive as I can manage. Any idea what it is?
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).
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!
Well, this is a bit of a milestone – the 500th mystery object. Over 15 years’ worth of weekly posts, sharing some of the interesting objects that I’ve come across in my work, as a curator, or that have been shared with me by other people with a fascination with the natural world (particularly zoology).
This week I have a specimen from a new contributor to the blog, Emma Murphy, who is part of my curatorial team at the Dead Zoo (I’m still finding it hard to believe that I have a curatorial team!)
This specimen came to us from the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland and we think it probably dates back to the 1830’s. As such, the identification that accompanies it is extremely out of date, so this specimen is in need of reidentification:
So, do you have any idea which species this skeleton might be from? As always, you can leave your thoughts in the comments box below – I hope it proves a fun challenge!
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!
Last week I gave you this mystery object to try your hand at identifying:
I picked this specimen because it’s from Ireland, but it’s not a species you might normally associate with Ireland. Plus it’s fragmentary and missing some parts that are useful for identification.
That said, after a little initial mis-step, the correct species – and indeed subspecies – identification was reached. So well done to James Bryant, Adam Yates, and Allen Hazen.
This is a section of mandible from a Cave Hyena Crocuta crocuta spelaea Goldfuss, 1823. This jaw shows just three teeth, but they are very useful teeth for identification, since they are characteristically robust, with really heavy conical premolars with well defined cingula (those ridges of enamel near the base). Perfect for smashing through bones. The curve of the jaw is also a useful clue.
The Cave Hyena was present in Ireland around 40,000 years ago we have several specimens in the Dead Zoo, mainly from Castlepook Cave in County Cork. These caves provide a rare glimpse of pre-glacial fauna, since most other sediments (and therefore fossils) from the Pleistocene period were scoured away by the glaciers of the last glacial period.
So well done to everyone who figured it out. Specimens like this provide a fantastic snapshot into the prehistory of Ireland, offering a sense of how changing climate and landscapes shape biodiversity over time.
This week I have a fossil mystery object for you to have a go at identifying:
Any idea what this section of mandible might be from?
As ever, you can leave your thoughts, questions and suggestions in the comments box below. Have fun!
Last week I gave you this cute little skull to identify:
This is an object I selected when I was recovering from Covid, so I picked it thinking that I knew what it said on the label and so it would be an easy one to write up an answer for. Of course, the Universe being the way it is, I came to write this answer and realised that I actually took note of the wrong label.
My brain is clearly still not fully recovered from being ill, so now comes the complicated bit where I have to work out what it is, with no more information than I gave you, since I’m writing this answer at home and I don’t have access to either the specimen or our database.
Fortunately a lot of that work has already been done by the wonderful regular visitors to Zygoma (thanks folks!)
This is one of the diminutive Artiodactyls. It has neither horns nor antlers (although the specimen is female, so those might not be present even if the males of the species had them). It lacks scars from scent glands, so it’s not a Dik-dik or other tiny antelope. However, it does have small but prominent canines, which offer a clue. As Chris Jarvis suggested, this is the skull of a Mouse-deer, in the family Tragulidae.
There are three possible Genera in the family, but a quick check against specimens from the Genus Hyemoschus show some clear differences – both in general proportions of rostrum (snouty bit), the number of foramina in the front part of the mandible (Hyemoschus normally have two, but our mystery specimen has just one).
There are also differences in comparison with specimens in the Genus Moschiola – which seem to more usually have two foramina in the maxilla and a somwhat open suture at the junction between the bones of the maxilla, frontal and nasal bones.
That leaves the Genus Tragulus, which the mystery skull fits with very well.
It all gets a bit more complicated from there. In terms of size, I think we can rule out the Greater Mouse-deer since the mystery skull is about 2cm shorter that an example of the Greater Mouse-deer that I featured on the blog about 12 years ago (where doe the time go?):
This size difference is not a perfect characteristic to use, since the skull length can overlap between the species, but the mystery specimen has all the indicators of being a mature adult and it would still be at the absolute smallest end of the spectrum for the Greater Mouse-deer.
Distinguishing between the other possible species is more problematic, since there can be quite a lot of regional variation within the remaining species. From looking at examples of skulls online I’m leaning towards the Lesser Mouse-deer rather than the Java, Philippine, Vietnam or Williamson’s Mouse-deer, but that’s based on the structre of the zygomatric arch and general proportions rather than any clearly distinctive features.
In this instance I can at least check my hunch tomorrow on our museum database, to see if my hunch plays out – I’ll update this answer with the result as soon as I have a chance!
[Update: I’ve had a chance to check and my hunch was off – it’s listed as Java Mouse-deer Tragulus javanicus (Osbeck, 1765), so it goes to show that you do need those clearly distinctive features to get a good identification! This is why it’s better to rule out what it can’t be based on the data available and be happy with having a few possibile options, rather than making a misidentiifcation]
Thanks to everyone who had a stab at the identification – I hope you enjoyed the challenge!
This week we have a handsome specimen from the Dead Zoo for you to have a go at identifying:
Any idea which specie species this specimen might be? As always, you can leave your thoughts, questions and suggestions in the comments section below. Have fun!
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!
This week I have a detail of a specimen for you to have a go at identifying:
Any idea what this toothy critter might be? I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Last week I gave you this sturdy shoulder from a specimen in the Dead Zoo to try your hand at identifying:
It’s big, chunky and definitely not something you’re likely to find while digging in your garden.
The size might suggest something like a horse or cow, but it’s far too broad for either. The shape is a little more like a pig scapula, but as Sallie Reynolds pointed out, pigs have a more strongly curved scapular spine (the ridge of bone that sticks up along the middle). Plus pigs are a good bit smaller – this is a big scapula.
Rhinos have scapulae that are quite long and narrow – similar to a horse’s, and elephants have a very differently shaped shoulder:
Cetacean shoulders tend to be much more flattened and usually more circular, so it’s not one of them either. It is, however, from a distant cousin.
This is the scapula of a Hippo Hippopotamus amphibius Linnaeus, 1758.
Hippos used to be considered closer relatives of pigs and members of the Suborder Suina, but the discovery of the fossil whale Pakicetus in 1981 and various genetic studies over the last couple of decades have revealed that whales and hippos share a common ancestor and they have been grouped together in the Suborder Whippomorpha.
So well done to Adam Yates who dropped an equine hint about the source of this shoulderblade – since Hippopotamus does of course translate to “river horse”. I hope you enjoyed the challenge – there will be another next Friday!
This week, inspired by the discussion of the scapula of the last mystery object, I thought I’d give you this shoulder blade to have a go at identifying:
Any idea which species this came from? I’m interested to hear what you make of this one!
Last week I gave you this specimen from the Dead Zoo to have a go at identifying:
It didn’t take long for Chris Jarvis to drop a great clue to the correct answer, and it seems that overall it was a bit of an easy one for quite a few of you. I admit that I’m not overly surprised by that, since it’s pretty distinctive.
The scapula is long and curved, the humerus is relatively short and robust, the radius and ulna are robust and quite flattened, as are the digits on that wide and splayed-out hand. All of these elements add up to a flipper shape, but unlike the flipper of a cetacean or seal, it has quite short digits.
That’s because this is the left arm of a slow-moving aquatic mammal that plods along under the water (as much as plodding is possible whilst being underwater), rather than a hydrodynamic fast-swimming beastie with a flipper shaped to cut through the water.
There are still a few possible species that fall into this category, but of then all, there is only one with such a curved scapula shape – the Dugong Dugong dugon (Müller, 1776).
I picked this mystery object because it’s from one of several specimens that we’ve been working on recently, in preparation for transport out of the Dead Zoo, as we prepare for a major capital project on the building. The limbs, skull and tail were removed and the vertebrae and ribs stabilised in a structure that we call a “stillage”:
With enough wrapping and packing this specimen will be ready to crane out of the building in the near future, and it’s just one of several thousand specimens that will be making the move. If you’re interested in hearing more about the project, you can listen to an interview I did recently with Sean Moncrieff on NewsTalk.
I hope you enjoyed working out what this limb belonged to, and I suspect that there will be more tales (and possibly tails) from the decant coming up in future posts. Happy Friday!
Last week I gave you this specimen to identify, from the collections of the Dead Zoo:
I thought it might prove a little challenging, and I wasn’t mistaken, although some people did manage to get very close. Chris Jervis was the first, but Adam Yates also provided a nice analysis of the specimen:
It is blade shaped without cusps, so the incisor of a large animal seems possible (I’m ruling out a Thylacoleo premolar on the basis of the broad wear facet on the occlusal surface and single root).
The root is really short so I’m guessing its a deciduous incisor.
Horses are large mammals with incisors of this sort of shape. If it were a horse it would be a third incisor because of its less square crown. As the high point (presumed mesial side) is on the left side it is probably a right incisor.
So my guess is a right deciduous incisor three of a horse.
Adam Yates June 7, 2024 at 10:20 am
Adam then followed up with a note about the size being too big for a horse, and leaned in to Chris Jervis’ suggestion – a good decision.
So what is it?
This is in fact the upper right incisor (or tusk) from the skull of an Indian Rhinoceros Rhinoceros unicornis Linnaeus, 1758:
African rhino species have lost their incisors, but the Indian Rhinoceros have incisors that form self-sharpening tusks with open roots, which are used in fighting.
The full specimen that this is from is a mounted skeleton that was on display in the Dead Zoo for a century or so, and the animal clearly had a very tough life, as it shows a variety of pathologies that have healed.
In the mandible there is a huge abscess at the base of the lower right tusk, possibly due to fighting or maybe a bullet wound:
The animal also has a variety of other injuries, including a bullet wound in the ribs:
and a major trauma to the lower front left leg, which has resulted in the humerus and ulna fusing together:
This would undoubtedly have been a very grumpy, very gnarly rhino. I’ve spoken a lot about rhinos in the past (including in a recent documentary series about the problem of rhino poaching and the wildlife trade), as they’re incredible animals that have been horribly exploited in the past, and still being horribly exploited today.
I have these photos of the specimen as over the last couple of weeks we have started the decant of specimens from the Dead Zoo in earnest, as we’re getting moving on a major capital developement project in the Museum, to solve a number of issues with access for the public, problems with the museum environment, and conservation of the 168 year old building.
Stay tuned for more updates on the project, as I suspect it will be keeping me busy for the next few years!
This week I’ve got a nice mystery object for you to identify from the Dead Zoo:
Any idea what this might be? The more specific you can be, the more kudos points you earn!
Last week I gave you this incredibly funky skull to have a go at identifying:
It’s from a very distinctive type of animal, which pretty much everyone figured out, thanks to those huge bony crests on the front of the cranium (actually originating from the maxilla). In life, these would have almost enclosed the animal’s melon (a waxy ball that helps focus sound transmitted through water), helping to improve echolocation.
This is of course the skull of a River Dolphin – which is a term given to a variety of riverine dolphins around the world – although only the Genus from South Asia (Platanista, as Chris Jarvis was the first to identify) has the characteristic bony crests. This is probably an adaptation to their reliance on echolocating in the sediment-laden and murky waters of the Indus and Ganges rivers.
As Adam Yates correctly pointed out in the comments, the tooth count suggests that of the two possible species, this is the Susu, Hihu, Shushuk, or Ganges River Dolphin Platanista gangetica (Lebeck, 1801).
These dolphins have almost lost the use of their eyes, with them being lenseless and merely used for detecting the difference between light and dark. This pushes them to rely on echolocation as their primary method of finding food.
I find it interesting that Giant Golden Moles have a somewhat similar crest structure to their skulls, while sharing this near blind condition (I’ve talked about this a little in a previous post):
As far as I’m aware the Giant Golden Mole has no melon, but it does have (relatively) huge ear bones, no external ear openings, and lives at ground-level rather than underwater, so it may be that the bony structure helps focus sound transmitted through the ground into the auditory region of the skull, in a way similar to that suggested for the South Asian River Dolphin’s crest, albeit in the water.
Speculation about comparative structures aside, the South Asian River Dolphins are incredibly well adapted to their habitat, which means that their populations are increasingly at risk due to changes arising from the climate crisis (such as changing annual rainfall and runoff patterns), farming practices (such as increased pesticide and fertiliser contamination of waterways), hydrological management (such as the installation of dams), plus hunting and accidental fatalities due to river traffic.
Similar pressures have almost certainly already pushed the Baiji or Yangtze River Dolphin into extinction, so let’s hope we can learn from the mistakes of the past, and ensure these strangely wonderful animals survive into the future.
Last week I gave you this fantastic skeleton from the Dead Zoo to identify:
I suspected that it wouldn’t prove too much of a challenge for most of the regulars here, as it is fairly distinctive – although possibly not all that familiar. However, there is another species that has some very similar convergent features, which did cause some confusion.
The skull is quite elongated and there is a series of simple teeth that line the upper and lower jaw:
This skull shape – plus the powerfully built body – is reminiscent of the first animal to come to mind for anyone with an alphabetical mindset; the Aardvark:
However, as you can see, despite the similarities, there are several differences between these skulls – particularly in relation to the eye (there’s a postorbital process in the Aardvark), cheekbone and teeth (Aardvark teeth are a lot more robust – I talked about them a bit in a post from 2017 if you’re interested).
In terms of differences from the Aardvark, there’s also quite an important feature presnt in the forelimb:
Aardvarks have four front toes, all of which are fairly uniform in size and all have long and robust claws for tearing into termite mounds, but the mystery object has a very odd toe configuration, with every toe different in size and shape, with one enormous sickle-shaped third claw (also useful for demolishing termite constructions).
This is a feature unique to the Giant or Great Armadillo Priodontes maximus (Kerr, 1792):
So well done to Chris Jarvis, who was the first to identify the animal – but I must say that the clue he used to share his knowledge came with a parasitic earworm from which I’m still recovering…
Last week I gave you this fantastic specimen from the Dead Zoo to have a go at identifying:
It wasn’t a hugely difficult object to identify, given its distinctive narrow serrated bill on a duck-like body, which are hallmarks of the mergansers – a genus of piscivorous ducks:
There aren’t many species of merganser – just six alive today, so on the face of it, there aren’t many to choose from. This particular specimen looks most like a juvenile Red-breasted Merganser, as several people suggested – but it’s not one of those.
This particular specimen is one of two other known merganser species that survived until historic times, but which are now extinct. The other species has no taxidermy specimens to represent it, and is only known from subfossil material from Chatham Island, off the coast of New Zealand.
Our mystery object is one of the very few taxidermy mounts that can show us what the Auckland Island Merganser (Mergus australis Hombron & Jacquinot, 1841) looked like. There are only 27 existsing specimens of this species in the world, most of which are preserved in fluid, and have lost most of their colour as a result – although ours is no doubt a little faded from the natural light in the galleries.
The Auckland Island Merganser is a good example of a species that did not survive contact with humans. Their original distribution was much more widespread on New Zealand and Chatham Island, but the arrival of Polynesian peoples led to their loss everywhere except on Auckland Island.
The arrival of Europeans and the pigs and cats they brought with them to Auckland Island pushed the population to the brink, and then hunting expeditions around the turn of the 19th to 20th century wiped out the rest. This particular specimen was shot on the 5th January 1901. One year and four days later the last pair were killed by the same man – Lord Ranfurly, the Governor of New Zealand.
Ranfurly finished his term as Governor in 1904 and it seems likely that some of the skins of the specimens he collected in New Zealand returned with him. Some went to the British Museum (Natural History), while this one was prepared at “The Jungle” – Rowland Ward’s by shop at 167 Piccadilly, London before coming to Dublin.
It’s saddening to think that a species was pushed over the brink of extinction so deliberately, with no effort to preserve or protect it. Around the same time in North America the Passenger Pigeon became extinct in the wild, but at least the decline of the species had spurred efforts to preserve the remaining individuals in an effort to breed them. Meanwhile in New Zealand, it seems that the scarcity of the Auckland Island Merganser increased the demand for specimens, thereby sealing the fate of the species.
If you want to know more about the life and habits of these birds, New Zealand Birds Online is a great resource, with excellent information, so do check it out.
On a final note, I am currently attending the excellent NatSCA conference in Oxford at the moment, so extinct birds are very much on my mind. Later today I am looking forward to seeing the remains of the last fragments of surviving skin from the Dodo. We once shared our planet with these animals, and while it’s remarkable that we still have these specimens that help us understand what has been lost, it would be better if they had never been lost at all.
Zygoma 
