Tag Archives for museums

Friday mystery object #157 answer

Apologies for a late and rather short answer to last week’s mystery object, I was in Scotland for the wedding of a very good friend this weekend and haven’t had much time for writing.

On Friday I gave you this skull to identify:

It’s pretty distinctive and I wasn’t surprised to see the correct identification popping up in short order. The big scars above the eye sockets indicate that this bird had large glands for extracting excess salt, which means it was a marine bird. The shape of the bill, particularly the mandible, is also quite characteristic and the wide triangular pterygoid bones of the palate are a give-away for this group.

Pterygoid region highlighted

Pterygoid bones highlighted

Ian managed to get the correct species identification within the first hour with Barbara Powell and Robin reaching the same conclusion after some comparison at the very useful Seabird Osteology website. This is the skull of a  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #157

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!

Friday mystery object #156 answer

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 →

Friday mystery object #155 answer

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 →

Friday mystery object #154 answer

On Friday I gave you this very distinctive object to identify:

As I suspected, everyone correctly worked out it was a half mandible from a Sirenian – probably a Manatee. So well done to Barbara Powell, henstridgesj, Robin, Ric Morris, Rhea, rachel, Jake, Andrea and Jamie Revell for getting the main identification.

Of course, it got a bit more difficult when it came to making a species level identification, as is often the case. There are three well recognised species of Manatee – the West African, West Indian and Amazonian. There is also the Dwarf Manatee, which is a potential species in its own right or perhaps subspecies of the Amazonian Manatee.

Several people plumped for the Amazonian species or the Dwarf Manatee based on the fact that the jaw doesn’t look robust enough for the other species. However, this mandible is from a juvenile, so that was a bit misleading. Based on the hook of the coronoid process (the highest bit of the lower jaw where the temporalis muscle attaches) and the angle of the mandibular symphyseal region (the bit where the two halves of the lower jaw would have joined together) I think this is most likely to be what Barbara Powell first suggested, the  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #154

This week I have a specimen that is pretty distinctive for you to have a go at identifying, so it should prove pretty straightforward for anyone who has seen one of these before:

Of course, if you haven’t seen one of these before it may be a bit more of a challenge!

You can put your suggestions, observations and questions below and I’ll do my best to reply. Good luck!

Friday mystery object #153 answer

On Friday I gave you this fragment of an object to identify:

Many of the key features we look for when making an identification of a skull are in the facial region. The teeth are the most useful feature, but the relative proportions of the rostrum (muzzle) in the context of the whole skull and the particulars of the various elements that interconnect to make a skull all contain useful information.

It’s rather similar to recognising a person in fact – it’s much easier when you can see their face than it is when all you can see is the back of their head.

So how did everyone do? Well, there were various suggestions as to what it might be, but it was basically a guessing game, relying mainly on scale, gross morphology and the shape of the auditory bullae (aka the bulbous bit containing the ear bones). Most guesses focussed on the carnivores although there were some large rodents suggested.

I thought henstridgesj might have worked it out when he asked ‘Are the bullae double-chambered? Possibly, I can’t really tell, but if they are then it’s in the suborder Feliformia‘ and I answered in the affirmative, but the most obvious answer was somehow missed.

This object is almost certainly the rear part of the skull of a  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #153

This week I am delving into a box of bits to provide a genuine mystery object. I expect I will be doing a few items from this box in the coming weeks, since I am reaching the end of my curatorial review of the Horniman’s mammal osteology collections and I have been left with just a few boxes of random odds and ends that have been on display or have been cut up and the other part put on display.

These items have no information with them at all, so each is a genuine mystery that I hope to solve – a process that starts with identification. Any idea what this might be?

As usual you can put your thoughts, suggestions and observations below and I’ll do my best to reply. Good luck!

Friday mystery object #152 answer

Apologies for the late posting  today – I’m on holiday and haven’t had a chance to post until now.

On Friday I gave you this object to identify:

It was immediately recognised as a primate by everyone, which is unsurprising, given the very characteristic enclosed bony orbits and set of four incisors in the premaxilla and mandible. The teeth were also commented upon by henstridgesj, who recognised that this is an Old World Monkey (Cercopithecidae), with two premolars on each side in both the maxilla and mandible.

Some people might argue with the classification of this specimen as a member of the Cercopithecidae, since the lack of a tail suggests that it’s an Ape of some sort, but the Hominoidea form a smaller clade within the wider Cercopithecidae clade, which means that this is both an Ape and an Old World Monkey.

The kind of Ape is a more tricky question, although the shape of the teeth and the size of the braincase in relation to the facial region rules out any adult Great Apes (Hominidae) – it could be a juvenile, but the degree of fusion of the bones says not. That leaves the ‘Lesser Apes’ (Hylobatidae) or Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #151 answer

On Friday I gave you this object to identify:

There were fewer comments than usual, but those comments were impressively observant.

Lena got stuck in, identifying the element as a long, thin ungulate humerus and narrowing it down to a camelid. Mikolaj Lisowski noticed the low proximal epiphysis (the end of the bone that is connected to the shoulder) and suggested that it might belong to a  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #149 answer

On Friday I gave you a bit of a spot-the-difference with these two skulls, wanting to know if they were two individuals from the same species or if they were from two different species:

I must say that it was a bit of a tricky identification without the added complexity of a between specimen comparison, yet you all did remarkably well.

As usual Jake was the first to comment, correctly identifying that the specimens are both rodents and squirrels at that. He also recognised that both were adult animals, although one was probably older than the other when it died, based on the degree of wear on the teeth (assuming the diet was similar). The squirrel identification was also supported by Will, henstridgesj, Dave Godfrey, Jamie Revell and Barbara Powell.

Barbara also picked up on the feature that made me consider that these specimens may have been from different species – the sutures between the premaxilla, maxilla, nasals and frontal bones that make up the rostrum (the nosey bit). This is something that Lena and Jamie Revell also commented upon.

The position of the sutures (or junctions) between the various bones that make up the rostrum can certainly be useful in diagnosing differences between species – it’s a handy one for distinguishing between Lions and Tigers for example:

Lion vs Tiger sutures

However, in this case I don’t think that the differences between the sutures are all that diagnostic, I think the differences may simply be down to either sexual dimorphism (that’s where males and females of the same species develop differently) or differences between the ages of the individuals. In fact, given that the specimen with the more heavily worn teeth is smaller and less robust than the other specimen I wouldn’t be surprised if it was an older female and younger male of the same species that are being compared.

One of the reasons I don’t think the sutures are diagnostic comes down to timing of their fusion. According to Wilson & Sánchez-Villagra, 2009 the pattern of closure of the cranial sutures in rodents follows a fairly standard pattern, with the rostral elements being amongst the last to fuse. This suggests that those sutures are more likely to vary between animals of different ages and between animals with different life histories. That said, there are geographical variations in this species, so these specimens may represent individuals of different subspecies from different parts of the range – something I can’t check because there is no locality information with them (at least not that I’ve found yet).

With the spot-the-difference dealt with, I will leave you with the correct species identification as made by henstridgesj, these are the skulls of  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #149

This Friday I have a pair of skulls (top and underside) for you to have a go at identifying. Do you think they are from the same species, or do you think they represent two different species? (N.B. You can click the image for a bigger version)

As usual you can put your questions, comments and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to reply. Good luck!

Friday mystery object #148 answer

On Friday I gave you this object to identify:

As usual Jake was in like a shot with a correct general identification of whale vertebra. However, identifying what kind of vertabra and what species of whale is a more tricky prospect. The type of vertebra was narrowed down quite quickly by Jake, henstridgesj , Barbara Powell and Kevin K, all of whom agreed that it was one of the cervical (or neck) vertebrae.

Now the neck vertebrae in whales are odd. All mammals have seven vertebrae in their necks (even Giraffes), but whale neck vertebrae are a bit odd as in many whale species they tend to be fused together (as Barbara Powell pointed out). This makes sense when you think about how whales behave – they don’t need to turn their heads much, so having separated vertebrae is not necessary and may even cause problems considering the forces transmitted through the neck vertebrae during swimming, surfacing and feeding.

The pattern of fusion varies according to species and stage of development – some whales have no fusion, some have all of their neck vertebrae fused, others have the atlas (the first cervical that articulates with the skull) free and the other six vertebrae fused and yet others have the atlas, axis (the second cervical that the atlas pivots on) and the next four cervical vertebrae fused and the seventh and last cervical free. Just to complicate matters young whales start off with all of the vertebrae free and they fuse as the animal develops, which means that a young animal will not conform to the adult form.

In light of this situation, the mystery object becomes rather tricky to identify without being able to see the amount of fusion or other parts of the same specimen that may indicate developmental stage. That just leaves us with size and shape to go on, which is a bit problematic unless you have a suitable reference to compare this specimen against.

As it turns out I was unable to find a decent set of images for comparison and we don’t have much whale material at the Horniman. This means I’ve been a bit stumped in trying to identify this specimen – particularly since it came to us with the limited description ‘Vertebra of Whale’.

The size, shape and fusion suggest to me that it is from one of the large Oceanic Dolphins (Delphinidae), such as a Pilot Whale or Killer Whale. This would agree with Barbara Powell’s suggestion, but it would disagree with an identification that was made by a marine mammal expert who has helped me with identifications in the collections in the past. He suggested that this vertebra belonged to a Sperm Whale Physeter macrocephalus Linnaeus, 1758 – presumably a young individual, given the size, although that doesn’t really tally with the amount of fusion.

Size comparison of an average human and a sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus). Chris huh, 2007.

Apologies for the somewhat tentative outcome of this mystery object, but it serves as another example of the lack of certainty that we sometimes have to accept when trying to identify specimens – it can really be a pain in the neck.

Friday mystery object #147 answer

On Friday I gave you this object to identify:

I chose this object because it gave me a chance to take a photo using my new phone camera and a hand lens (inspired by an article by Nigel Larkin in the latest NatSCA News). I thought it might be a bit of a challenge, but I was proven wrong once again, as Jake tentatively identified the part of the skeleton this bone is from straight away – it is indeed a baculum or os penis (that’s the Latin for penis bone).

The species was a bit more difficult, but Barbara Powell was quick to identify that it came from a Mustelid and then there was a bit of disagreement between Barbara, Ric Morris and Dawn about whether it was from a  Continue reading →