Tag Archives for nature

Friday mystery object #144 answer

On Friday I gave you another genuine mystery object from the Horniman’s collections:

It was in a box of unidentified and unlabelled bones which I’m pretty sure came from the King’s College teaching collection in the 1980s, when King’s merged with Chelsea College. Quite a large amount of material came to the Museum and unfortunately much of it was jumbled up, missing labels and quite often different parts from the same specimen had become separated.

I have been kept busy trying to make sense of it all, which is no small task, as the collection was mainly used for comparative anatomy meaning it is very diverse. The specimens in the collection could be from anything and from anywhere in the world – which makes it rather difficult to narrow down the options.

This specimen was a bit of a puzzle, since although it is clearly from a fairly large animal, it is quite hard to work out what the full adult size would be, as this bone is from a juvenile (as spotted by Kevin). This is apparent from the unfused ends of the bone (called the epiphyses).

One possibility that occurred to me (and Rhea) was that it may be the bone of an aquatic mammal, such as a seal. However, in aquatic mammals the humeri need to rotate, meaning that they tend to be flattened in two different planes at the proximal and distal ends. This bone is just flattened in one plane, meaning it wouldn’t be great for use in swimming efficiently and it wouldn’t be great for bearing large amounts of weight/force during locomotion – a more rounded cross-section of bone is better for that.

In fact, the general shape of the bone is wide and flat with large tuberosities for muscle attachment – almost like the humerus of a mole:

This is something that  Richard Forrest seems to have picked up on when he suggested that it is the humerus of a fossorial [digging] animal. This narrows down the options quite nicely, as there are only a few large fossorial animals.

The Pangolin was suggested by Dave Godfrey, but the bone is too large. Dave also suggested the Aardvark, which is a good contender, although not quite right. I personally have a different animal in mind –  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #142

This week I have a genuine mystery object for you. I just stumbled across a couple of big boxes of unidentified skulls and bits of bone, so you can help me work out what some of these things might be from. To start with we have this skull:

Please put your suggestions, comments and questions below and I’ll do my best to respond. Enjoy – and have a nice Easter!

Friday mystery object #141 answer

On Friday I was in rather a rush as I was involved in co-organising this year’s Natural Science Collections Association (or NatSCA) conference. It was a very enjoyable (if hectic) few days of natural history nerdery, but left me limited time to select an object from the FMO. I took my opportunity at the drinks reception at the Grant Museum of Zoology where I tried out the camera on my new phone to get an image of this specimen:

Now it was a fairly easy one to identify as the skull of these animals is very distinctive. Nonetheless, if you haven’t seen the skull of one of these animals before it is a bit of an oddity, with that spike in the face and the apparently strongly protruding maxilla and mandible (which is actually due to unusually elevated frontals). Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #141

This week I’ve been rather swamped with co-organising the Natural Science Collections Association conference, so I haven’t had much time to think of a good mystery object from the Horniman’s collections. However, here is a nice (if somewhat distinctive) specimen from the excellent Grant Museum of Zoology for you to identify:

image

Any idea what it is?

You can put your comments below and I’ll do my best to respond, as the opportunity arises. Best of luck!

Friday mystery object #140 answer

On Friday I gave you this skull to identify:

I thought it would be an easy one and I wasn’t wrong, although several of you seemed to second-guess my intentions and assumed that I was trying to trick you because it seemed too easy.

The small second incisors (or peg-teeth) just behind the big first incisors were a complete give-away for the group of animals this skull came from – the Lagomorphs, which Jake spotted immediately.

Henstridgesj, Jamie Revell, Debi Linton and Jake all suggested that it came from a  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #139 answer

On Friday I gave you this object to identify:

It didn’t prove to be all that difficult, perhaps since the skull is distinctive in having the general appearance of a ruminant (in particular it is missing the upper incisors), but it also has canines and is very small, with a skull height of just over 5cm. This slightly unusual mixture of characters suggests one of the more primitive ruminants.

Jake suggested it might be a Muntjac or Chinese Water Deer, but as Lena pointed out, Muntjac (and Chinese Water Deer) have a scent gland in front of the eye (called a preorbital gland) that is housed in a big pocket in the skull.  The skull itself is also a bit small even for a Muntjac.

Jack Ashby, Lena, Barbara Powell and Jamie Revell all managed to work out that this skull was from a member of the family Tragulidae. To be more specific it is from a  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #137 answer

On Friday I gave you this mystery object to identify:

Unfortunately I was unable to respond to comments on Friday, as my laptop had to go in for repairs and my phone has reached the end of its useful life as an internet device after 4 years faithful service. For the answer this week I had to drag out my old laptop, which has meant 2 hours of twiddling thumbs as the machine started up and dealt with various updates…

In some ways it was a good thing that I wasn’t able to comment, since it would have ruined the fun from the outset. Jake was straight in there, wondering if it was really as easy as it looked – and it was. Rachel, Jack Ashby and Barbara Powell also plumped for the right answer, while several others came very close when they went for a greedy relative. This is in fact the skull of a juvenile  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #136 answer

On Friday I gave you this skull to identify:

I think the oddly inflated and positioned auditory bullae make this look like Gary Oldman in his role as Dracula. Because of this characteristically odd feature the specimen was fairly easy to identify. Of course, that supposes that most people have seen the skull of one of these animals before…

Here is the skull in better detail (for future reference):

The front teeth were a good indication that it was a rodent (we’ve talked about that before) and with the big and upward pointing external auditory meatus (better known as ear-hole) it suggested a very big-eared rodent.

With a skull length of about 7cm the number of possible rodents decreased quite rapidly, as most are much too small to have such a big skull, so I wasn’t surprised when Barbara Powell and David Craven hinted that they had the answer. From then on I started getting cryptic answers about warm fur and cold faces as more of you worked out that this is the skull of a  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #136

[N.B. The answer to the mystery object will be a little late this week, as I won’t have internet access – expect the answer on Tuesday!]

This week I have a mystery object that will probably prove very easy to identify, since it has quite a distinctive shape:

It looks a bit like Gary Oldman’s portrayal of Dracula to me, but do you know what species this skull is from?

As usual you can put your questions, comments and suggestions below. Good luck!

Friday mystery object #135 answer

On Friday I gave you this object to identify:

I thought it might prove quite tricky, yet several of you managed to work out what it was and which animal it came from.

Jake spotted that it was from a young animal – as you can see from the unfused ends of the bone. He also noticed that it was a bit of a strange shape, a bit like a tibia, but actually a radius.

Barbara Powell suggested that it belonged to an animal built for power rather than speed and henstridgesj suggested one such critter – the Aardvark. Although that wasn’t right, or even close in terms of evolutionary relationships, it was very close from the perspective of functional adaptations.

After that it was a short step to the same answer that I decided on when I had to identify this piece of bone. Barabara Powell, henstridgesj and Steven D. Garber, PhD all converged on the answer of  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #135

This Friday I’ve decided to really challenge your identification skills with a single bone that I found in the Horniman’s collections.

There was no information of any kind with this specimen, although the material it shared a box with was acquired from the King’s College Comparative Zoology collection. That means that it could be from pretty much any animal on the planet. What do you think it is? (N.B. since it is tricky I’ve given you an image from every angle.)

As usual, you can put your questions, comments and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to respond during the day. Good luck (I think you may need it).

Friday mystery object #134 answer

On Friday I gave you a very nice specimen from the Horniman Museum to identify:

I chose this partly because it’s a great mount and partly because I needed to check the identification, which was out of date.

You all did a great job of breaking down the various options – and there were a few. Jake made the comment:

Is it dippy or a bit ruff ?

This I took as a question about whether the specimen was a Kangaroo Rat (of the genus Dipodomys) or a Rufous Rat-kangaroo (Aepyprymnus rufescens). There was another interpretation that fit with the dippy clue – the correct Family name, which is Dipodidae.

Barbara Powell and Jamie Revell were in the right area and henstridgesj suggested J.j. which was pretty much there, assuming he meant Jaculus jaculus. It is in fact the skeleton of the  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #133 answer

Friday’s mystery object was meant to be a bit of a challenge:

Post-cranial bones can be tricky to identify, especially if you don’t have much comparative material available.

The first challenge was to work out which bits of bone are present – something that Rhea and Jake managed very well. This particular specimen is composed of a broken portion of right mandible (showing the coronoid process, condyloid process and angular process), the left ilium, and the first three cervical vertebrae (which include the axis and atlas bones).

Identifying the species was a bit more tricky using just these few bits of bone, but several of you managed to get there. Henstridgesj was the first to suggest  Continue reading →

Friday mystery object #132 answer

On Friday I gave you these objects to identify:

I expected you to work out what these came from pretty easily – and you proved me right. In fact, I think this was probably the easiest mystery object so far, given that everyone managed to get a correct identification of  Continue reading →