This week I have a single bone I’d love to have your thoughts on:
It’s another stray from a box containing an Ostrich skeleton.
Any thoughts on what it might be be?
As usual you can leave your questions, thoughts and suggestions in the comments section below. Have fun!
Last week I gave you an object to identify that I found hiding in a box of Ostrich bones:
I’m pleased to say that Laura McCoy, Michelle, Joey Williams and Lena worked out that it’s the right femur of a Perissodactyl, but there was a lack of agreement about which kind of Perissodactyl it might be.
Rhino’s weren’t considered, since their femurs are distinctively massive, but both Tapirs and Equids were suggested (which could include Horse, Donkey, Zebra, maybe even Quagga).
My first thought was Horse, mainly because it looks very much like a Horse femur and they are quite common in collections – but that’s not really good enough for the purposes of real identification.
On inspection of images of a Tapir femur in a veterinary manual (link opens pdf) I had to have a rethink and now I am really not sure about the identification, particularly since I know that there is a big box of Tapir postcrania that came into the Horniman from the same collection as the Ostrich. Other specimens from that acquisition have also been mixed up, for example a box of Lion postcrania I was working in today had Manatee atlas and axis vertebrae and a Pig femur in the same box, while the box of Pig postcrania held the Lion atlas and axis.
Lion postcrania, with some unexpected additions
Now I need to get back into the collections to see if this bone does belong to the Tapir, or if it is indeed Horse. So I’m sorry to say that the answer is not really an answer, but stay tuned and it will be resolved…
I was working my way through a box of large ratite bone the other day and stumbled across this out-of-place object: Any ideas on what it might have come from and why it might have been in a box of Ostrich bits? As usual, you can put your questions, thoughts and suggestions below – if you think it’s easy then maybe try using a clue to give other people a chance of working it out for themselves. Have fun!
Last Friday I gave you this odd bit of bone (or should I say bones) from a box of mixed objects to identify:
As Ellen Going immediately recognised, it’s a scapula and clavicle – which in itself tells us that it can’t be from a Carnivore or Ungulate, since they lack a well-developed clavicle.
The open articulation with large acromial and coracoid processes and the symmetrical, blade-like scapula body suggest that this is an animal with a lot of movement in the shoulder, and reciprocal movement at that (hence the symmetry). This suggests a flapping animal, but without the extreme clavicle adaptation (i.e. the wishbone) seen in birds.
So as Flick Baker, Ric Morris and Joey Williams all realised, this is the shoulder and clavicle of a large fruit bat, in the family Pteropodidae. Good work!
This week I have a genuine mystery object that I found in a box that carried this somewhat unhelpful label:
Here it is – any idea what it is and what it might be from?
As always I’d appreciate your thoughts and suggestions in the comments section below!
Last Friday I gave you this lovely specimen from the King’s College Museum of Life Sciences to try your hand at identifying:
It wasn’t easy, since there were limited views, so the dentition wasn’t entirely visible and the bones of the palate are not shown. Also, there was no scale bar – something that Ric Morris gently reprimanded me for.
Despite these limitations, many of you correctly managed to work out that this is the skull of a Mongoose of some sort. So congratulations to bugblokenz, Flick Baker, henstridgesj, Michelle and Allen Hazen for recognising that this is a member of the Herpestidae.
Narrowing it down beyond that is more of a challenge and without better images it’s a bit unfair to expect a species level identification – but I’m going to have a go.
Scouring through Mongoose skulls in collections and various images online (especially using the fantastic Animal Diversity Web resource, the ever helpful Skulls Unlimited and the brilliant Mammals of Tanzania Skull Key), I came to realise that the teeth are visible enough to discount many Mongoose species. Also, the shape of the zygomatic region and facial profile was quite distinctive (most Mongooses have cheekbones that are flat under the eye sockets – but not this chap).
Excluding the options that didn’t quite fit, left me with a few that did – the Egyptian Mongoose Herpestes ichneumon, Slender Mongoose Herpestes sanguinea, and White-tailed Mongoose Ichneumia albicauda.
Not a clear-cut identification, but better than nothing, and it might be possible to refine it by looking at the specimen in the flesh… as it were.
Last Friday I gave you this object from the Horniman’s Anthropology collection and asked you to identify what it’s made from and what function it may have served:
The identification turned out to be the easiest question to answer, despite the modification of the bone. The shape of the end of the bone is a result of the epiphyses (the ends of the bone) detaching from the diaphysis (the midshaft of the bone), which tells us that the animal was a juvenile at time of death and that the bone is actually formed from two bones that have fused together down their length – which is why a similar pattern is repeated on the left and right side of the bone.
This sort of fusion is normally seen in the hand and foot bones of artiodactyls, which narrows down the possible species. Judging by the size and general proportions it would be from something the size of a Roe Deer, although a bit more chunky. The closest species I could find for comparison was the the Goat Capra aegagrus hircus (Linnaeus, 1758), although it may be from a close relative, the Serow:
A Serow (Capricornis sumatraensis) by Melanochromis, 2007
As for the function, there were some great suggestions (from weaving comb to needle-case), but apparently this is the key to a set of handcuffs!
The variety of anthropological uses of bone is huge, and it’s always exciting to find something outside of our expectations – which this object most definitely is for me!
This week I have an object for you that one of my colleagues in Anthropology asked me to check the identification of:
Any ideas what bone this is made from and, more of a challenge, what the function of this worked object might have been in its culture of origin?
As usual you can leave your questions, observations and suggestions in the comments box below. Have fun!
This week I have a mystery object for you that had me stumped for a little while recently, after it didn’t match the comparative material I had to hand. I managed to work out what it is, but I thought that it might make for a fun challenge as the 250th Friday mystery object:
Any idea what this is and what species it comes from?
As usual you can leave your (preferably cryptic) observations, questions and suggestions in the comments section below. Have fun!
Last Friday I gave you this exploded skull from the incredible Galerie d’anatomie comparée et de Paléontologie in Paris:
As I suspected, it was a bit of an easy one for many of you, but that provided the chance for some cryptic clue fun.
So my thanks to Agata Stachowiak, Chris, Allen Hazen, henstridgesj, Claire Miles and witcharachne who all hinted at an identification of Sloth, more specifically a Two-toed Sloth, I think of the species Choloepus hoffmanni Peters, 1858 as opposed to C. didactylus Linnaeus, 1758, which appears to have a smaller angular process on the mandible and a less broad zygomatic region.
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A two-toed sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni) at La Selva Biological Station, Sarapiqui, Costa Rica. By Geoff Gallice
The teeth of Sloths are fascinating, due to their fairly simple rooting and their impressively sharp premolars that look like canines.
These Sloths have an interesting feature of their hair, which has a groove to help support algae, which help keep the Sloth camouflaged. This is pretty handy given the Sloth’s notorious lack of speed with which to escape predators. This may help explain the need for those sharp premolars as well!
Last Friday I gave you this unidentified object to get your opinions on:
This specimen has puzzled me quite a bit. The internal structure is a dense honeycomb, that seems too tightly compacted to belong to a bird – plus it’s so big that the only birds it could possibly belong to would be a Moa, Elephant Bird or maybe Ostrich at a push, and I compared this against two of these three possibilities:
So, it’s mammalian and large. It’s also clearly a metatarsal or metacarpal, based on the shape of the articular surfaces.
It’s not shaped quite right for a one or two toed animal so the it seems that the variety of suggestions along those lines of Hippopotamus, Rhinoceros and Elephant are most likely to be in the right area.
I did compare this to Hippo feet and an Elephant hindfoot and drew a blank, so that leaves an Elephant forefoot or a Rhinoceros foot. My best guess would be the 4th metacarpal of a Rhino, although Elephant is still a contender – I will try to find some comparative material to confirm.
A massive ‘thank you’ to everyone who contributed ideas – it’s great to have some fresh perspectives and new directions to explore when you’re stumped!
This week I have a complete mystery for you to identify. I’ve checked this specimen against all sorts of species and have drawn a blank. So, I’m opening it up to you, to see if you have some inspiration to help me solve what this is:
As usual, you can put your thoughts, questions and suggestions in the comments box below. I look forward to hearing your ideas!
Last week I gave you this mystery skull from the stunning Galerie d’anatomie comparée et de Paléontologie in Paris:
I was struck by the cat-like dentition and general shape, but as many of you worked out, that’s no cat.
It is in fact a specimen of a Fossa Cryptoprocta ferox Bennett, 1833, as correctly identified by Charne, Manabu Sakamoto, Nigel Monaghan, SMerjeevski – good skills!
Fossa by Ran Kirlian
This carnivore is endemic to Madagascar and is the foremost natural predator of lemurs. They are well adapted to climbing in order to catch their tree-dwelling main course, with rotating ankles a bit like a Margay.
Madagascar is an amazing place for biology. It separated from Africa around 20 million years ago and has had its own unique wildlife evolving there ever since. This means that the familiar cats that fill niches in (relatively) nearby Africa are missing, since they didn’t really exist when Madagascar started drifting off. The Fossa fills that catty niche.
There may be more mystery objects to come from the Galerie d’anatomie comparée et de Paléontologie, since the whole place blew me away!
So when I first picked it up I thought – embarrassingly now – that perhaps it was something a bit pinniped-like but then the teeth didn’t match that idea at all so I reverted to thinking it was a bit more doggy.Irritatingly, it was a juvenile so that scuppered size-based guesses, and ruled out taking too much information from the posterior, mandibular teeth. Also, the skull was darn cute, with a shorter snout than an adult would possess.I had a couple of ideas from looking at the width of the zygomatic arches, but that lack of a parasagittal crest got me all twisted around. And time was tight for what we needed it for!My esteemed colleague Mr Garrod was the first to push me in the direction of a wolverine, but I’ll leave it to Paolo to show how he managed to ID the little critter and save the day – although it looks like a bunch of people on here already managed that! Love the bone-banter. 😀
Wolverine cranium for comparison
This week I have a guest mystery object for you from Dr Nick Crumpton at the NHM.
Hello Zygoma fans. Nick Crumpton here from across the way at the Natural History Museum in South Ken.
Well, this fellow completely stumped me for a few hours this week on finding it in our teaching collection:
Until, that is, I called on the always helpful advice of Mr Viscardi (OK, and a certain Mr Garrod too…)
I’d love to see whether anyone can work out what it is, and how they figured it out!
You can leave your suggestions and thoughts in the comments section below – enjoy!
Last week i gave you this colourful specimen to identify:
As I suspected, some of the keen birders out there were straight on the case and GrrlScientist (unsurprisingly to me) immediately knew the species and an awful lot about its taxonomy, offering helpful hints and clues to other commentators.
After some discussion it became clear that this is a Finch and one of the Neotropical varieties at that. The bright yellow belly, emerald green head, throat, chest and wing, brilliant blue nape, back and eye ring all suggest that this is a male Blue-naped Chlorophonia Chlorophonia cyanea longipennis (Du Bus, 1855) from Peru.
There are other subspecies of Blue-naped Chlorophonia, but they have some slight differences in appearance, such as a yellow forehead, yellow tinged crown or green feathers in the mantle.
Here’s one of the little chaps in action:
So a big well done to everyone who managed to work it out!
This week I thought I’d give you a beautiful bird skin from the Horniman collections to have a go at identifying:
Any idea what this colourful critter might be?
You can leave your suggestions in the comments box below – but please try to be cryptic if you find it easy, so other people get a chance to work it out themselves. Enjoy!
Last week I gave you this nightmarish looking mystery object to identify:
There were lots of great suggestions about what it might be, with most of you in the right area of the animal kingdom with a legless critter in mind. In particular a fairly primitive type, with aglyphous or ‘groove-less’ teeth (as opposed to snakes characterised by having opsithoglyphous or ‘backward grooved’, proteroglyphous or ‘forward grooved’ and solenglyphous or ‘pipe grooved’ teeth).
There were several suggestions of Boa constrictor – specifically the right maxilla (upper jaw), but they have a straighter top to the maxilla and a differently shaped process that connects with the frontal and ectopterygoid bones (check out Udo Savalli’s snake skull anatomy page to see what those terms mean).
Anaconda was also suggested, but the anterior (front) part of the maxilla is not squared off enough.
Nicola Newton, rachel and Alex Kleine all suggested Python, which is what I think it is. I’m not certain of the species, but it’s definitely a big one – I’m leaning towards the Reticulated Python Python reticulatus (Schneider, 1801).
Just to give you a better idea of which bone it is, here it is compared to the skull of another large Python skull from the Horniman’s collection:
and to give a better sense of scale, here it is with my (fairly large) hand for comparison:
My very rough estimate of the length of the animal, based on other skeletal material I’ve seen, is around 5m – that’s one snake I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of!
This week I have a fragment of a toothy object for you to identify:
Any idea what species this fearsome looking row of teeth might have come from?
You can put your thoughts, questions and suggestions below. Have fun working it out!
A very Happy New Year to everyone!
Last week (and indeed last year) I gave you this box of bones and one non-bony object, dug up on the Isle of Sheppey to identify:
Everyone correctly spotted that the bones were canid (and by everyone I mean Ric Morris, witcharachne, Jake, Paleotool, Allen Hazen and Sam Misan), either Dog or possibly Fox, as suggested by Sam Misan.
The length of the bones would fit both Dog and Fox, but they’re a bit too robust for Fox – here’s a comparison of a radius from the box and a Fox:
So we have a Dog in the box, but the non-bony object has posed more of a challenge:
The initial thought was that it might be a musket ball, but it’s rather on the big side for that – more like a small cannon ball or piece of grapeshot.
The material its made of may provide a clue as to what it is. It’s not magnetic and there’s no red coloured oxidisation on the surface, so it’s not iron. It doesn’t have any casting marks, it’s too hard to be lead and although it’s dense, it doesn’t seem to be metal.
To my mind it seems likely to be a naturally formed mineral concretion. It could be a phosphatic nodule, pyrite or marcasite (they contain iron, but they’re not magnetic) or maybe a quartz mineral, like flint (which is what I’m leaning towards).
This may be naturally occurring in the area, but if the materials were collected together it seems likely that the ball had been used by someone for something. The possibility I’m inclined to go for is as ammunition for a sling.
All a bit speculative I’m afraid, but that’s how the game sometimes works out. Thanks to everyone for your input!
Zygoma 