This Friday I have a pretty straightforward mystery object for you. I was going to make it difficult by giving you an image of the specimen without the skull attached, but I am at a NatSCA meeting in Leeds today, so I probably won’t get much chance to provide clues during the day (although I will do my best).
So what is this the skeleton of?
As usual you can put your answers below (using clever clues if possible) – I will try my best to respond. Good luck!
Huzzah, it’s Friday!
Here’s this week’s celebratory bit of dead critter from the Horniman Museum for you to identify:
I hope you have fun with it! As usual I will do my best to respond to your questions, observations and suggestions as the day goes on.
Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this skull to identify:
Jake spotted that this was a marsupial’s skull straight away and many of you suggested Kangaroo using a variety of crafty clues. There was also a well reasoned suggestion of Koala that fell just a little short.
Obenedo missed the correct answer by a hair(y nose) but got the right type of animal, as did jonpaulkaiser, Matt King, Jake and Cromercrox.
Neil managed to go that little bit further and get the right species – Continue reading
Apologies for the rather late answer to last Friday’s mystery object – it’s been a hectic few days!
I asked you to identify this skull
which you managed to do very quickly.
The first suggestion of a Vulture by Rosa Rubicondior was along completely the right lines, while KK and Steven D. Garber, PhD suggested a Turkey Vulture – which isn’t quite right, but it’s in the same genus – Cathartes.
From there, Julie Doyle and Jake managed to get the correct species identification of Continue reading
Last week’s object was a bit too difficult – passerine skeletons are tricky to identify. This week I have something a bit easier for you to identify:
Put your questions, comments and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!
Following on from Rachel’s difficult guest object last week, I have another bird for you to identify:
(N.B. the skull is 53mm long)
Any ideas what it is?
As usual, put your questions, comments and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!
Below is Rachel’s follow-up guest post answer to last Friday’s challenging mystery object. Many thanks Rachel – it was a good one!
Well, I seem to have led you all a merry dance this week! Admittedly, it was sneaky to not include a scale bar or provide you with another view of the skull, but if I’d put the top view in I think it would have been game over in about five minutes…
As cromercrox so rightly pointed out, it is a bird skull. Many of the guesses tended towards water birds, with suggestions including goose, gull, and rail.
Manabu Sakamoto was the first to suggest a ratite, and later tentatively guessed ostrich, while Matt King went for a rhea.
Paolo and I actually thought it might be a rhea to start with, but after comparing it to an identified rhea skull in the collections and the ratite images on Skullsite, we decided that it is in fact an Continue reading
This week I’m handing over to a colleague, crossword competitor and member of the Mystery Object community, Rachel:
Welcome to my first (and hopefully not last) guest Friday Mystery Object. I hope what I’ve chosen isn’t too glaringly easy; if it is, please feel free to allow yourself a smug smile and a pat on the back, but do try to resist shouting out the answer until Sunday so as not to spoil the game for others. Cryptic clues are much more fun.
Today’s object is, as usual, from the collections of the Horniman Museum. I will hopefully be available over the weekend to offer feedback on suggestions or questions, and I’ll provide the answer on Monday.
Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this object (from the NHM) to identify:
It was a bit of a tricky one for those of you who haven’t seen the First Time Out exhibition (jackashby and David Godfrey obviously did see it). This fossil skull looks like it belonged to some kind of pig rather than a primate – yes, that’s right, I said primate.
The main feature visible here that indicates that this skull may belong to a primate is the enclosed orbit, which isn’t a particularly strong characteristic since various ungulates also have an enclosed orbit – as I said, it’s a tricky one.
The type of primate is the Koala Lemur Megaladapis edwardsi Forsyth Major, 1894 from Madagascar. It was an arboreal, slow moving, gorilla-sized folivore – with superficial similarities to Koalas (hence the name). It is hypothesised that the extended bony nasal region may have supported a prehensile top lip, that would have been beneficial when foraging for leaves in the trees.
I won’t go into much detail here, because other curators have provided their interpretation for this object as part of the First Time Out project, so I will leave you with a link to that information. However, I would be interested in taking a closer look at the dentition and complete skeleton of one of these animals – I’d like to get a better grip on this apparent convergence on a suid cranial morphology and more gorilla-like body. I wonder what it might have looked like?
It seems that Friday’s mystery object led you on a merry chase.
Not a Crab-eating Raccoon!
This skull clearly perplexed everyone, given the number of suggestions and guesses that were made. Representatives of pretty much every major carnivore family were suggested.
Peter Harrison was the first to suggest a species from the right genus on the label (the slightly stuck-up looking nasals are can be a good clue that you’re looking at a procyonid) and Styracosaurus Rider made a good observation about the dentition. Eventually the correct answer on the label came from henstridgesj, backed up by Rachel, Styracosaurus Rider and David – it’s allegedly a Continue reading
On Friday I gave you this chunky object to identify:
It proved more of a challenge than I expected and I think that may be because I included a scale bar. Normally it’s the other way round – the scale bar helps rule out options based on size, but on this occasion it seems to have thrown a spanner in the works.
Clare P came close when she suggested a Pygmy Hippo and Jack Ashby, Matt King (sort of) and Styracosaurus Rider backed up that identification, but henstridgesj came closest with the suggestion of ‘Embryonic Hippo’.
This is actually the right front leg of a juvenile Continue reading
This week’s mystery object is a bit more chunky than the birds of the last few weeks:
Any idea what it is?
As usual you can leave your questions, comments and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!
This week we have a mystery object chosen by Melita and Laura who shadowed me on Wednesday as I worked in the Horniman’s collections:
It’s another bird and given last week’s impressive identification skills I expect that several of you will get this in no time.
As usual you can leave your questions, comments and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this specimen to identify:
I thought that it might prove a difficult one, but it seems I should have had more faith in the identification skills of my readers (you talented bunch), since the correct answer was delivered with little ado.
The long legs suggested that it was a wading bird to curatorialtrainee and Harry then tentatively suggested what turned out to be the correct answer, which was consolidated by the observations of henstridgesj and the input of David. Jake also spotted what bird this was by comparing the skull to the images on the very useful skullsite.com Continue reading
Last week’s bird was so popular I thought I’d give you another to identify this week. It’s a bit harder than last week’s Kookaburra and I’ll be very impressed indeed if anyone gets it to species, but I’m sure many of you will manage to identify it to family level.
I will be teaching young folk about skulls and mermaids at Camp Quest in Somerset this Friday, so I might not get a chance to respond to comments, although I’ll do my best.
Good luck!
I was a bit taken aback by the response to the second anniversary mystery object last Friday. There were a huge number of comments and unfortunately I was tied up all day and was unable to respond – my sincere apologies!
To give you a change from the usual mammal skulls I gave you this bird to identify:
It’s quite a characteristic bird, so I decided to make it more of a challenge by leaving out the usual scale bar – if you’re interested the head of this specimen is about 10cm long.
Obviously the comparatively large head and massive bill were key features that were picked up on, giving the following answers:
I’m pleased to say that the vast majority of you managed to get the correct identification; it is indeed the skeleton of a Kookaburra, more specifically the Laughing Kookaburra Dacelo novaeguineae (Hermann, 1783).
Laughing Kookaburra perched in a eucalypt tree. Taken in December 2008 in Victoria, Australia by Fir0002
These large antipodean kingfishers have a very distinctive call, which sounds to me like the laugh of a clown from a nightmare. In fact, I expect these birds are a bit of a nightmare for any small critters that live in their vicinity. That big robust bill is powerful and they use it to eat a wide range of animals including worms, snakes, rats and even some fairly decent sized birds.
They aren’t subtle about their hunting either. They simply grab their prey in their bill and smash it on the ground, on a branch or on a rock then swallow it whole. Often they keep smashing it for quite a while – after all, swallowing a live snake or rat probably isn’t a great idea.
If you look at the skull you might notice a deep groove around the back and a deep indentation on the lower jaw or mandible:
These are muscle scars and it’s quite unusual to find such impressive areas for muscle attachment in bird skulls, but then most birds don’t rely quite as much on brute force to catch and subdue their prey. Kookaburras mean business.
Well, it’s the second anniversary of the Friday Mystery Object – how time flies! Speaking of flying, I’ve decided to give you a bird skeleton to identify this week. Any idea what this is:
Comments below as usual – I’m sure that some of you will work it out straight-away, so please drop hints rather than give-away the answer to those less familiar with the anatomy of our feathered friends.
Best of luck!
On Friday I gave you this fairly characteristic skull to identify:
Unsurprisingly everyone opted for some kind of pig – after all, it has the tusks and general shape that most of us expect from swine.
Curatorialtrainee was the first to suggest a Continue reading
This week I’m giving you one that you should get to the family very quickly, but you may take a bit longer identifying the species. Good luck!
You can put your suggestions, comments and questions below and I will do my best to answer as I get the chance.
Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this skull to identify:
I was impressed by the speed with which everyone recognised this as being a large member if the squirrel family – the Sciuridae.
There were several hints of Groundhog, but this is actually the skull of a European member of the same genus, the Continue reading
Zygoma 