Tag Archives for mystery object

Friday mystery object #89

This week I’m going to give you something to identify from an archaeological excavation near Coulsdon in Surrey. It was associated with human remains and some clay pipes that suggest an approximate date between 1600-1850AD. Any idea what this section of mandible belonged to?

After getting the scale wrong last week I have made sure that there are scale bars in the image this time!

As usual you can put your questions, observations and suggestions in the comments section below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!

Friday mystery object #88 answer

I’d like to begin by apologising for providing misleading information about Friday’s mystery object – I omitted a scale bar and then described the skull as being 4cm long. It goes to show how even a small amount of time can addle one’s memory, since this skull is in fact 7cm long:

I thought it would prove an easy one to identify, since it’s from a very well known species that I have talked about before – but the identification was made more difficult because it is a very young individual. This fact is clear from the lack of fusion of the bones and the lack of teeth. CopilasDenis and David Craven both spotted this and they also picked up on the fact that this skull is from a carnivore – as did ObenedO.

As to what species this skull comes from, no-one really came very close. In fact I was surprised when Jake said:

It doesn’t look catty or doggy or sheepy or deery.

since this is actually the skull of a Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #87 answer

On Friday the mystery object was provided by Mark Carnall, the curator of the newly reopened Grant Museum of Zoology:

It’s not been an easy one to work out – I thought it was part of a fish skull when I first saw it and comments have ranged from a squashed frog to Yoda’s foot.

The closest suggestions came from Jamie Revell, Steven D. Garber, PhD and Helen (sort of…), this is the  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #87

This Friday we have a guest mystery object from the newly reopened (and rather fantastic) Grant Museum of Zoology:

I got this one wrong when I first saw it – I hope you manage to do better!

I’ll do my best to give clues and answers to questions during the day, but hopefully Mark and Jack from the Grant will be able to provide some guidance as well. More about the awesome new Grant Museum on Monday with the answer. Good luck!

Friday mystery object #86 answer

On Friday I gave you this fluid preserved specimen to identify:

I probably made this one a bit harder than I could have, by not giving you a photo from the other side, but then that would have made it too easy:

It seems that Neil was the only person who may have correctly identified this specimen, as hinted in this comment:

Knowing it’s an embryo give me some idea (possibly incorrect) of the orientation: tail and hind-limbs at top, trunk, then forelimbs at lower left and the head, unhelpfully facing away from us, at lower right. It would then appear to be a quadrapedal tetrapod, probably (?) a mammal. Based on the apparent shape of the feet and possibly the hint of an ear I’m going to say …

This is of course assuming that Neil deliberately chose the word ‘trunk’ to indicate that he had worked out that this is the embryo of an  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #86

This week I thought it would be nice to give you a bit of a break from the usual skulls, so this week I have a fluid preserved specimen for you to identify:

It may just look like a small white blob, but it’s my favourite small white blob ever. Can you work out what it is?

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

Friday mystery object #85 answer

On Friday I was at the Natural Science Collections Association conference in Newcastle, which was a very enjoyable couple of days spent with other natural scientists discussing issues relating to natural history collections. The downside was that I wasn’t really able to respond to comments particularly well.

However, it turns out that you didn’t really need my input, since there were some great clues by other commentators, that helped with the identification of this object:

Jake spotted that it was the nasal cavities and teeth (the premaxilla and part of the maxilla) of a marine mammal and Jonpaulkaiser identified that it belonged to a  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #85

This Friday I’m at a conference in sunny Newcastle, so I might not get to answer questions on this post until a bit later in the day, but I have a feeling you won’t need my help on this one! Any idea what this object from the Horniman collection might be?

Please do feel free to ask questions and make suggestions below – I will do my very best to respond. Good luck!

Friday mystery object #84 answer

On Friday I gave you this piece of skull to identify:

It was in the Horniman collections with no identification beyond a pencil note saying ‘Monkey?’, but that seemed to be a  bit of an odd suggestion, since primates have very rounded braincases – even the longer skulled ones like baboons. I think the person who made the tentative identification had got the section the wrong way round – thinking that the nuchal crest was a part of a brow-ridge or something – a mistake that Jake certainly didn’t make. They also missed what several of you spotted – the rugose (sort of wrinkly) structure that supported the olfactory epithelium (the inner back part of the nose where the receptors for smell are located).

What most of you did miss however, was the lack of fusion of the cranial sutures, which indicates that this was from a juvenile animal. As a result it is smaller and has far less well-developed muscle scars than an adult animal would have. A faint muscle scar can be seen converging on what looks like the beginnings of a sagittal crest (as pointed out by Manabu Sakamoto), so it seems reasonable to guess that the adult animal would have a reasonably well developed crest on the top of the braincase.

Eventually Neil dropped a couple of hints that showed he knew what it was and David Craven and KateKatV also suggested that they knew that it was part of the braincase of a juvenile  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #84

This week I have a really tough one for you. It’s a specimen I found in our collections with a tentative identification that I was unconvinced by. I followed my instincts and they led me not only to a more accurate identification, but also to the rest of the specimen, from which it had been separated before they even arrived at the Horniman. Can you work out what it is?

Please feel free to ask questions and make observations or suggestions in the comments section below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!

Friday mystery object #83 answer

I apologise in advance for providing a slightly short answer to this week’s mystery object – I found myself a bit strapped for time between responding to Intelligent Design types trolling my blog here and at Scientopia, writing a talk for Skeptics In the Pub tomorrow evening and trying to sort out my laptop power lead after it broke (now fixed thanks to the helpful staff at Maplins who gave me the parts I needed to make repairs).

On Friday I gave you this object to identify, thinking that it might be a fun challenge:

As it turns out it seems to have been a good one, since most of you managed to work out what it’s from. There were some great hints dropped and I think that the comments proved to be a useful resource for those who weren’t sure, but they didn’t detract too much from the fun of working it out. Thanks to everyone for being awesome!

The first to correctly identify both the type of bone and the species it came from was Cromercrox, who gave a great rationale for his suggestion: Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #83

This Friday I’ve decided to give you a challenge in the form of one of my favourite interesting animal bits. This mystery object is one that a few people in the know will identify immediately, because it is so distinctive, but anyone who hasn’t seen one before is likely to struggle a bit.

Do you have any idea what type of bone this is and which species it came from? (N.B. it’s the same bone photographed from different sides.)

For those few that are in the know perhaps you could drop hints rather than blurting out the answer and for the rest of you, please feel free to ask for clues – I will do my best to offer guidance throughout the day.

Good luck!

Friday mystery object #82 answer

Apologies for the late posting of this answer – I was travelling back from Ireland yesterday and didn’t manage to get this post anywhere near as complete as I was hoping.

On Friday I gave you this mystery object to identify:

Pretty much everyone recognised it as being the skull of a dog or dog-like animal, but the large size of this skull (27cm long) caused some confusion. Quite a variety of breeds were suggested, but Rachel, Jamie Revell and Jake all ended up going for it being a   Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #82

This Friday I’m going for a mystery object that I’m sure you will all identify to species without any problem – it’s pretty big and pretty distinctive. Hopefully this object will give me a chance to write an interesting answer on Monday, so I can use it as a stand-alone post for a guest blogging spot I’m doing for Scientopia for a couple of weeks starting on Sunday. I’m intending to use this guest-spot to get myself motivated to tackle the various posts I’ve been wanting to cover for some time now.

Unfortunately, I’ve managed to time this slot quite badly, since I also need to prepare for a SITP talk that I’m giving on Monday 21st Feb and a Cafe Scientifique on the evening of Thurday 24th Feb (if you missed the last one, here’s the write-up). It’s going to be a busy couple of weeks…

On to the reason you came here – the Friday mystery object:

Any idea what this is?

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

Friday mystery object #81 answer

On Friday I gave you this object to identify:

I thought it would prove quite straightforward for my astute audience and I was not disappointed. As usual Jake was the first to comment and he was spot on when he said:

I think it is some sort of big bird, it’s the braincase and […] the ear

The big bird Jake suggested was an Emu, which was slightly off as was CopilasDenis‘ suggestion of Cassowary and Cromercrox‘ suggestion of Rhea (although they all correctly spotted that this piece of skull was from a ratite). But Dave Godfrey finally picked the last remaining living ratite and the correct answer when he suggested it was  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #81

This Friday I am going to give you what I consider a fairly easy one, because I stumbled across it on Thursday in a box of ‘miscellaneous bone’ and I instantly thought I knew what it was. Having checked my hunch I thought I’d give you the opportunity to have a go at working it out:

Of course, I will be here to offer some guidance if you run into any difficulties (after all, not many of you have reference material to hand) – so put your questions, comments and suggestions in the box below and I’ll do my best to answer. Good luck!

Friday mystery object #80 answer

On Friday I gave you this sectioned bit of a critter as the mystery object:

A slightly trickier one than usual, so I wasn’t surprised at the range of suggestions – ranging from a vertebra to a Narwhal tusk. Jack Ashby got in first with a tentative stab at the right answer when he said ‘sawfish maybe?‘ a suggestion supported by Carlos Grau. It is indeed part of the rostrum (beak or nose) of a  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #79 answer

On Friday I gave you this anthropological mystery object to identify, asking you to tell me what it is, where it’s from and what it’s made of:

Well, OdenedO worked out that it is a skirt (or apron) and Sam Kelly and Julie Doyle both correctly suggested that it was African in origin. Jake and Julie Doyle suggested that it could be ivory and Sam Kelly specified that it could be Hippopotamus teeth (although this suggestion was discarded in favour of horn).

So a bit of a group effort, but you pretty much got there – it’s an African (Ethiopian in fact) skirt/apron made using ivory, probably Hippopotamus incisors. That’s my current preferred hypothesis based on the photo – but I need to check the specimen myself to be entirely sure.

Ivory (teeth as a workable material) is an interesting area for us in the museum trade, since most kinds are controlled by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). This means that objects made of certain types of ivory need to have licenses for import and export, or for any commercial use, unless they can be shown to have been made before 1st June 1947.

There are various characteristics that can help identify different ivories – the best known being the presence of Schreger lines in Elephant ivory:

But there are other clues that can indicate which species an ivory has come from – unfortunately I don’t have time or the appropriate images to go into detail here, so I will pull together a post on identifying ivory as soon as I can. For now, here’s a link to a useful pdf article on this very topic.

Back to the skirt/apron – anthropology isn’t my area of expertise, but to the best of my knowledge this sort of attire is largely an indicator of status rather than a practical piece of clothing. In other African cultures beaded aprons are given to young women when they marry, so this may fulfil a similar purpose. I will try to track down some more on this – I think it may be included in one of the Horniman’s planned exhibitions in the next couple of years, so there may be a lot more information forthcoming. I’ll keep you posted.