On Friday I gave you one of the specimens on display at the Horniman Museum, photographed from an unusual angle, as the mystery object:
I thought it might prove tricky, but jonpaulkaiser managed to identify it within 16 minutes of it being posted. Impressive stuff! Matt King also managed to spot what general type of beastie this bit of bone belonged to; a Continue reading
The Natural History Gallery at the Horniman has been undergoing a bit of a spring clean. The lighting in the cases has been upgraded and during the process the cases and specimens have been dusted (very carefully mind). During the process I’ve spotted a few of our display specimens from unusual angles and out of their usual context. Here is an example of a nice one that I thought might make a nice mystery object:
So any ideas what this is?
Put your suggestions and questions in the comments section below and I will do my best to point you in the right direction without giving too much away. Have fun with it!
On Friday I gave you this lovely skull to identify:
It seems to have been a bit more tricky than I had expected. It was immediately identified as a carnivore, which is spot-on, but from there it got a bit murky. I must admit that I could have been a bit more generous with clues, particularly when David Craven asked if this was a viverrid (the family containing the civets) – I took the question at the family level, so I said ‘no’, but I should probably have asked for clarification since this skull belongs to a member of a family that falls into the infraorder Viverroidea (according to some sources).
This is in fact the skull of a Continue reading
This Friday I’ve taken bit more effort than usual to get a decent picture of a specimen for the mystery object. It’s amazing the difference it makes when you use a tripod and allow a good long exposure. I’m sure you’ll all identify this in no time, but hopefully you’ll enjoy the image while you’re at it – there are few things quite as beautiful as bones:
Feel free to ask questions, make suggestions or just leave your thoughts in the comments section below – I’ll do my best to answer or drop hints as the day goes on. Good luck and I hope you enjoy!
On Friday I gave you what I consider to be a rather interesting mystery object:
I must apologise for my tardy responses to the excellent questions asked, on Friday I was at a fascinating conference about using DNA from natural history collections for research, hosted by the NHM, and I didn’t get an opportunity to address the questions until quite late.
The questions were astute from the outset, with Bob O’H asking if it was a bird – no doubt inspired by the lightweight structure of the bone. SmallCasserole suggested that it was the sectioned skull of a Cassowary, based on the presence of the bony crest (or more accurately the casque) – an opinion that was widely supported. However, Dave Godfrey raised the possibility that this skull belonged to a hornbill, a suggestion that Neil developed to arrive at the correct genus with David Craven delivered the coup de grace with the correct species identification of Continue reading
It’s Friday again (huzzah!) so that means it must be time for my mystery object. This week I’m going to give you something that is being moved from the Natural History offices at the Horniman to our Study Collection Centre, where our reserve collection is housed. The delicate bony structure of this object really caught my eye and I hope you find it as interesting as I do (click on image for higher resolution):
As always, feel free to ask questions about the object or make suggestions about what you think it looks like – I’ll do my best to answer or respond, although I’m at a conference, so apologies if my answers are sporadic and perhaps a little brief. Good luck!
Last Friday Mark Carnall from the Grant Museum of Zoology provided a guest mystery object in the rather unpleasant looking form of this:
It looks a bit like part of a spinal column, but it isn’t. It looks like a worm of some kind, but it isn’t. So what is it?
David Craven and Dave Godfrey came through with the goods on this one. It is a parasitic crustacean related to the tongue worms (a misnomer because they are not worms at all) and it is in the genus Continue reading
This Friday we have a guest mystery object, supplied by the curator of the excellent Grant Museum of Zoology, Mark Carnall (the man who threatened the whole of humanity with the doomsday virus in Back from Extinction). Any idea what this fluid preserved specimen might be?
Given the general look of it and Mark’s history of terrormongery I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a body-snatching alien, if such things were in general circulation. If you’d like to see this critter from a different angle click here.
As usual, suggestions and questions below in the comments section and I’ll do what I can to point you in the right direction. Good luck!
On Friday, whilst I was in the lovely friendly town of Portaferry catching up with some old friends, I gave you this mystery object to identify:
Unfortunately my phone seemed reticent to work properly, making it hard to respond to everyone’s questions, so thanks to Debi Linton for fielding some of the questions/suggestions. This object is one of those that is so characteristic in its structure that once you’ve seen one you will probably be able to spot another with ease, even though they have a huge variety of shapes, as pointed out by Benjamin Brooks in his comment (which provides a link to an image hosted by the Oceans of Kansas Paleontology site who incidentally have a mystery object of their own).
If you click on the image I provided you’ll see more detail, which makes it very clear that this is something composed of interlocking units that look like shiny bone. Shiny bone (that looks like a piece of ceramic) usually means bone with an enamel layer, which usually means teeth. These teeth are arrayed in a plate and if you look at the top of the plate you’ll see that it is discoloured, pitted and well worn. Clearly only this top part of the plate has seen much use and that use has been heavy, given the wear.
So why have all the rest of the tooth plate if it isn’t being used? Of course, the rest of the plate will be used, it just hasn’t moved into position yet – so what animal has teeth that move like a conveyor belt and are constantly being replaced? Sharks are the first things to come to my mind, but they don’t tend to have big flat plates, so think of something related to sharks that might need big flat plates for crushing something that very hard, probably marine molluscs.
If you haven’t worked it out already, this is a tooth plate from a Continue reading
This Friday’s mystery object is one of those that you immediately recognise, or are immediately puzzled by. However, with appropriate questions and a bit of reasoning you can probably work out what this is (click image for bigger):
If you are one of the people that recognises what it is immediately, can I request that you try to provide an answer using a bit of ingenuity (riddles, poetry, links), so it gives others a chance to work it out for themselves?
As usual I will do my best to answer any questions, although I am in Northern Ireland down by Strangford Lough for a long weekend, so I can’t guarantee reception on my phone – I will do my best though. Best of luck!
On Friday I gave you this skull to identify:
I used this skull because the shape really appealed to me when I stumbled across it in one of my office drawers – here are another couple of views of the same specimen:
Most of you quickly worked out that this skull belongs to a rodent – and a big rodent at that. The inflated nasal region was also quickly picked up by some of you and I think that’s what led Jonpaulkaiser to the correct answer first, followed by Neil who also managed a species level identification. Well done to everyone though, there were lots of very close attempts, with several of you missing out by a quill’s breadth – if you’ll excuse the frankly awful pun. This is of course (if you didn’t guess from the bad pun) a Continue reading
I am back at the Horniman this week, after last week’s soujourn to Plymouth. Yesterday I was working through some of the collections that I’ve been in the process of transferring from my office space to our stores building, when I came across this specimen:
I love the shape of this skull so much that I just had to have it as a mystery object. It would be too easy if I gave you a side-view, so you’ll just have to wait for that until Monday. Make your suggestions below and I’ll do my best to respond (although my home internet has been down for the past week, so I may be limited in how much opportunity I have to reply to questions).
Best of luck!
On Friday I was at the NatSCA conference, hosted by the Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery. The conference was excellent (thanks Jan and Helen) and I really enjoyed the natural history collections on display – particularly this piece of partially made taxidermy:
I asked you to identify what species of bird this mannequin is intended to represent. The only actual bits of the bird are the legs, head and wings, so these are the bits you should have concentrated on.
I was a bit surprised that no-one managed to get this. Most people went down the line of thinking that it was a fairly long-legged and long-necked bird, but that is without taking into account that the feathers are missing! Feathers considerably alter the shape of a bird, smoothing the contours of the neck (which has a strong curvature in life which shortens it) and providing a substantial amount of insulation. Feathers also layer quite densely on top of one another, with a stiff rachis down the middle of each, which provides structural support, changing the outline.
In the end there was one person who came close – Neil, who correctly identified that it was a corvid of some description and his suggestion was supported by Bob O’H. It is in fact a Continue reading
This Friday the mystery object is coming to you from Plymouth where I am currently attending the Natural Science Collections Association conference. The natural history gallery here has some great material and I thought it might be nice to have one of the specimens as this week’s object. So do you have any idea what this partially stuffed bird is:
As usual you can put your suggestions in the comments section below – I will endeavour to answer any questions, although I may not have much opportunity whilst the conference is in full flow.
Hope you enjoy it!
On Friday I gave you this formidable looking object to identify:
Many suggestions related to the saw-like appearance of this object, proposing either a human-made saw or the rostrum (nose) of a saw-fish (which are endangered cartilaginous fish of the genus Pristis). The closest answers all made reference to the articulation at the end of this object, which is the significant clue as to what this object is – the “teeth” are just secondary details.
Jake was the first to come close, followed by Kevin the epic and KateV, who gave a sensible mechanical breakdown of the likely use of this element. I’m not all that surprised to say that this week no-one worked out that the mystery object is a Continue reading
It’s hard to believe that it’s a year ago today that I started this blog – how time flies! The mystery object didn’t start until four months in and I strongly feel that it provides the backbone of the blog. So here is my forty-first mystery object – I hope you enjoy trying to work out what it is (whatever it might be, it looks pretty vicious):
As usual put your suggestions and questions below and I will do my best to answer (without giving it away). The answer will be posted on Monday.
Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this skeleton to identify:
It looks a bit like a snake, but there are a couple of give-aways that mean it must be something else. First of all, snakes may look like they’re all tail, but actually they have quite short tails in relation to their body length (hint – the tail starts just after the ribs end) and second, a snake’s skull has a very open light structure (as I’ve discussed before). Both of these snaky features can be seen in this image taken by dbking:
Viperid snake skeleton (image by dbking)
So, if it’s not a snake, what is it? There are quite a few animals that have a long slim body with no limbs, from eels to caecilians to a variety of lizards (including, but not restricted to snakes, which are a discrete subgroup within the lizards). However, this is not an eel because their ribs don’t form a cage – they form vertical projections for their muscles to work against, it’s not a caecilian because they have even shorter tails than snakes, which leaves us with the non-snaky legless lizards (as recognised by Gimpy).
Legless lizards crop up in at least three major groups of lizard (not counting snakes) so there is a fair amount of choice out there. The Amphisbaenia are really weird and the mystery object doesn’t have the right skull shape to be one of them. The Pygopodidae are legless members of the same group as the geckos – and the mystery object could probably be one of them, except it’s not. It is in fact a member of the Anguoidea (more particularly the Anguidae) and it was identified correctly by Jim (and seconded by Neil) as being a Continue reading
Last week’s object was totally unrelated to natural history, but this week I am returning to my area of interest. Any idea what this might be:
(Length across specimen approx 45cm)
It’s a bit of an easy one, but next week I’ll make up for it with something a more difficult.
As usual you can ask questions or make your suggestions in the comments section below – I’ll do my best to answer, but I won’t be in the office for most of the day, so I can’t guarantee a rapid response. Good luck!
My guess is that the specimen was probably a fairly young adult, since most of the fragmentation of the skull is along suture lines. However, the disarticulation is greater than would be expected simply from a poorly fused specimen, so it looks like damage has also been sustained. Since the delicate nasal turbinates are still intact and in place, I expect the damage probably happened when they were still protected by soft tissue – making me suspect that it happened before the animal was skeletonised. Given the susceptibility of hedgehogs to getting run over, I expect that this individual was killed on the road by a glancing blow to the head that loosened teeth and sutures. I’m pleased to say that Jake agreed with my identification and cause of death for this specimen, so a hearty congratulations to him!
This week I am going to give you a genuine mystery object – something from the collections of the museum that has no identification. I have been dealing with a few of these sorts of things recently whilst organising the osteological (that’s bone) store.
Often specimens have been acquired in a big batch, which invariably means that there will be a box left at the end which contains the jumbled and broken bits and pieces that have lost information or have been separated from the rest of a specimen during the move from their old home, or at sometime in the distant past.
Here’s one such specimen:
(click for larger image)
Do you have any idea what this exploded skull might belong to – and why it might be exploded?
As usual post your suggestions below. I might not be able to answer any questions this week, because I’m off to Norway to visit a good friend I don’t see often enough in Trondheim. Who knows, next week I may have a Norwegian mystery object for you to identify… Good luck!
Zygoma 