This week I’m going to give you a break from skulls, here’s an Anthropological mystery object for you to identify (as suggested by Emilia, who is one of our excellent Conservators):
Any idea what it is, where it’s from and what it’s made of?
As usual you can leave your suggestions, observations and questions in the comments section below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!
This week I’m sticking with small skulls. Rather different to the last one – any idea what it might have belonged to?
As always, you can click on the image for a larger sized version that may help. Speaking of help I will also do my best to answer any questions you may have – just put your comments below. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this mammal skull to identify:
It proved more difficult than I thought it would, although Jake immediately spotted that it was a Continue reading
After a few weeks away from the Horniman’s store, I’m finally back amongst the collections and working with the skulls. That means that this week I can give you a nice mammal skull to identify:
Any idea what this skull belonged to?
As usual you can put your questions, observations and suggestions in the comments section below. Good luck!
Happy New Year!
On Friday I gave you these two bones to compare, asking whether you thought they were from the same species.
There were some excellent responses with useful observations reflecting some of the difficulties faced when trying to identify postcrania. Unlike skulls which are composed of several bones forming a composite structure, including highly diagnostic elements (teeth for example), postcrania tend to be a bit more limited in the number of diagnostic characters visible. That said, the shape of the articulation points, the grooves and crests from tendons and ligaments, the scars from muscle attachments and the holes from nerves and blood vessels can all provide clues as to what a bone belonged to.
Size can also provide a clue, but as pointed out by Debi Linton:
…there’s a size differential, that could nevertheless be intraspecific variation…
This is a valid point – size can vary within a species for all sorts of reasons, the most obvious being the age or sex of the animal. However, in this instance the size difference is accompanied by quite a substantial set of differences in shape that go beyond what you would expect to find within a species. So well done to Dave Godfrey, Jamie Revell and Jake for making that deductive leap! That said, Debi also deserves congratulations for identifying the differences and then exercising caution in the light of insufficient information – it may be unsatisfying to say I’m not sure, but it’s often the only truly correct answer available.
That said, I’m a little surprised that nobody worked out what these femurs were from. The bottom one (B) has a small area of damage on the proximal end (the end nearest the body), which shows a honey-comb structure in the bone beneath. Jake also spotted that the angle at which these femurs would articulate with the hip would be unlike a deer – or other mammal in fact. These are the femurs of two species of bird – very big birds for that.
Any idea which species?
Between parties, travel and snow I’m amazed that I remembered to set this Christmas eve mystery object.
I’ve tried to keep this week’s object pretty straightforward, since I may not be able to provide many clues due to shopping and food preparation duties for tomorrow. That said, do you have any idea what this is?
Please don’t hesitate to comment with questions and suggestions – if I get any opportunities to offer guidance I will. Good luck and have a very merry Yuletide!
On Friday I gave you another bird skull to identify:
As expected, the regulars immediately waded in with correct identifications to the group, based on the scars from the salt glands on top of the head, bill shape (including the groove running from the nostril) and the size of the specimen no doubt. So congratulations go to Dave Hone, Jake, jonpaulkaiser, KateV, cromercrox, David Craven, Matt King and Curianth (everyone who commented in fact) – you were all correct in suggesting that this is the skull of an Continue reading
I don’t give you birds very often (GrrlScientist has that area well covered) and I’m mostly working with mammals at the moment, but following up on last week’s Gentoo Penguin I thought I might give you another bird from the Horniman’s collections. This is one that I’ve had to identify from the infamous box 83.1 and it was picked by my trusty minion Cat and our work experience student Tilly (thanks guys!). Here it is:
As usual, you can put your questions, observations and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to answer. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this skull to identify:
It obviously belonged to a bird, but what kind? If you look at the top image you’ll see two deep scars on top of the head above the eyesockets – these are the areas where salt glands were located when the animal was alive. This is the first thing I look for when I have a bird skull to identify, because they tell you whether the bird was marine.
I’ll explain – marine birds don’t have regular access to fresh water and they need a way to remove excess salts from their system, which is what the salt glands are for. Generally, the bigger and deeper the scars for the salt gland, the more marine the bird is in its habitat, so clearly this bird spent an awful lot of time at sea.
There are plenty of marine birds out there, but only a few have such well-developed salt glands and even fewer have such a distinctive bill shape – just look at that mandible. This is of course a Continue reading
Last week I gave you an anthropological object to identify, so this week it’s back to skulls. Here’s one that I recently reunited with its mandible after they had been separated for over 25 years – any idea what species this now complete skull belonged to?
As usual, put your suggestions, observations and questions below and I’ll do my best to give clues and further information. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this rather snug looking object to identify, asking where does it come from and what is it made of?
Suggestions ranged from Beaver fur from North America to Yak fur from Bhutan. However, a number of you managed to get it right – it is in fact a Continue reading
The wintry conditions this week have inspired me to seek something warming for this week’s mystery object:
Any idea where this snug looking item is from and what it’s made of?
As usual you can put your suggestions, observations and questions in the comments section below. Good luck and stay warm!
Part the first:
On Thursday I accidentally posted the Friday mystery object for a few moments and in that tiny window of opportunity SmallCasserole managed to correctly identify this organism:
As soon as it was posted properly this object also proved no challenge to several of the other regulars, with David Hone, CopilasDenis, David Craven and Dave Godfrey all spotting that it was a graptolite. Moreover, David Craven managed to correctly identify the species as Continue reading
[N.B. I posted this early by accident and SmallCasserole got it immediately, so I feel that there should be an additional object this week to make amends for my mistake…]
This Friday I’ve decided to pull out something geological, since I have recently established links with the London Geodiversity Partnership and rocks are on my mind. Not any old rocks mind – this one has a fossil embedded in it:
Any idea what this fossil is?
Now for your bonus mystery object:
As usual you can put your suggestions, observations and questions in the comments section below and I will do my best to provide useful hints for both of them. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this skull to identify:
I deliberately didn’t provide a scale bar, partly because I wanted to demonstrate how important it can be to have a sense of scale when identifying a specimen and partly to make the specimen a bit more challenging to identify.
Nonetheless, most of you got a correct identification, with some very good subtle hints being used to communicate that fact. So well done to Jack Ashby, David Craven, CopilasDenis, Dave Godfrey and Manabu Sakomoto, who all hinted or explicitly stated that this was the skull of a Continue reading
This Friday I am not going to provide any scale bar with the object. This is something that I have to deal with quite often, when members of the public email a photo of something for identification. Sometimes it’s not a big problem, particularly if the whole organism is in view and it’s has distinctive morphology (shape), but in some instances (particularly with bones) it can make identification very tricky indeed. Let’s see how you do:
Any idea what this might be?
Put your questions, comments and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to provide answers (except about size). Good luck!
Here’s an object I’ve been thinking about using for ages, but I’d forgotten I had a photo of it – even though it’s one of my favourite oddities from the collection:
Any idea what this weird skull might belong to?
As usual, questions, comments and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to provide answers and (not too obvious) clues. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this object to identify:
It’s one of my own specimens, found in 1997 and prepared using the simple method of suspending the body from a tree in a bucket with small holes drilled in the bottom to allow rainwater to drain. The specimen could have been bleached with a mild hydrogen peroxide solution, but the original intention was for it to provide an indication of the bone damage that may suggest insect activity, so I didn’t want to risk causing any additional chemical damage.
Everyone was on the right track with their suggestions – the hooked bill and large orbits making it clear that this was a predatory bird, with most people correctly opting for some kind of owl. However, Jake managed to get the species right in no time by using specimens from his own collection to inform his identification of Continue reading
I’ve not been in our collections building for a couple of weeks now, so I am running short of specimens to use for the mystery object. However, there was one at my disposal, that I collected myself well over a decade ago – any idea what this is:
As usual, you can put your questions, comments and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to reply. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this object to identify:
As I suspected, you all worked out that it is the skull of a turtle, so well done all and particularly Jake, who got there first.
Turtle skulls are quite characteristic, in that they have a bill with no teeth and they have no openings apart from the obvious ones like the eye sockets and nose. Most other tetrapods have several openings in their skulls, something that is diagnostic for, and sometime provides the name for, major groups like the main ‘reptile’ group the Diapsida. This name that means two arches, which is a reference to two additional openings present in the skulls of this lineage (which includes the lizards, snakes, crocodiles and dinosaurs – including the birds). Turtles and tortoises are members of the Anapsida, which means without arches.
The characteristics of this skull are those of an Anapsid and the streamlined shape and quite large size (despite it being a youngish adult, as indicated by the unfused sutures) suggests that it is a sea-turtle. There are only 7 species of sea-turtle and the comments provide an example of features that can be used to distinguish this as a Continue reading
Zygoma 