This week I have a nice skull for you to have a go at identifying:
This specimen is around 52cm long and it had an incorrect label attached, so it needed to be identified, to work out what its correct label should be. What do you think?
As always, you can leave your thoughts, questions and suggestions in the comments box below. I hope you enjoy the challenge!
Last week I gave you this specimen to identify, from the collections of the Dead Zoo:
I thought it might prove a little challenging, and I wasn’t mistaken, although some people did manage to get very close. Chris Jervis was the first, but Adam Yates also provided a nice analysis of the specimen:
It is blade shaped without cusps, so the incisor of a large animal seems possible (I’m ruling out a Thylacoleo premolar on the basis of the broad wear facet on the occlusal surface and single root).
The root is really short so I’m guessing its a deciduous incisor.
Horses are large mammals with incisors of this sort of shape. If it were a horse it would be a third incisor because of its less square crown. As the high point (presumed mesial side) is on the left side it is probably a right incisor.
So my guess is a right deciduous incisor three of a horse.
Adam Yates June 7, 2024 at 10:20 am
Adam then followed up with a note about the size being too big for a horse, and leaned in to Chris Jervis’ suggestion – a good decision.
So what is it?
This is in fact the upper right incisor (or tusk) from the skull of an Indian Rhinoceros Rhinoceros unicornis Linnaeus, 1758:
African rhino species have lost their incisors, but the Indian Rhinoceros have incisors that form self-sharpening tusks with open roots, which are used in fighting.
The full specimen that this is from is a mounted skeleton that was on display in the Dead Zoo for a century or so, and the animal clearly had a very tough life, as it shows a variety of pathologies that have healed.
In the mandible there is a huge abscess at the base of the lower right tusk, possibly due to fighting or maybe a bullet wound:
The animal also has a variety of other injuries, including a bullet wound in the ribs:
and a major trauma to the lower front left leg, which has resulted in the humerus and ulna fusing together:
This would undoubtedly have been a very grumpy, very gnarly rhino. I’ve spoken a lot about rhinos in the past (including in a recent documentary series about the problem of rhino poaching and the wildlife trade), as they’re incredible animals that have been horribly exploited in the past, and still being horribly exploited today.
I have these photos of the specimen as over the last couple of weeks we have started the decant of specimens from the Dead Zoo in earnest, as we’re getting moving on a major capital developement project in the Museum, to solve a number of issues with access for the public, problems with the museum environment, and conservation of the 168 year old building.
Stay tuned for more updates on the project, as I suspect it will be keeping me busy for the next few years!
Last week I gave you this incredibly funky skull to have a go at identifying:
It’s from a very distinctive type of animal, which pretty much everyone figured out, thanks to those huge bony crests on the front of the cranium (actually originating from the maxilla). In life, these would have almost enclosed the animal’s melon (a waxy ball that helps focus sound transmitted through water), helping to improve echolocation.
This is of course the skull of a River Dolphin – which is a term given to a variety of riverine dolphins around the world – although only the Genus from South Asia (Platanista, as Chris Jarvis was the first to identify) has the characteristic bony crests. This is probably an adaptation to their reliance on echolocating in the sediment-laden and murky waters of the Indus and Ganges rivers.
As Adam Yates correctly pointed out in the comments, the tooth count suggests that of the two possible species, this is the Susu, Hihu, Shushuk, or Ganges River Dolphin Platanista gangetica (Lebeck, 1801).
These dolphins have almost lost the use of their eyes, with them being lenseless and merely used for detecting the difference between light and dark. This pushes them to rely on echolocation as their primary method of finding food.
I find it interesting that Giant Golden Moles have a somewhat similar crest structure to their skulls, while sharing this near blind condition (I’ve talked about this a little in a previous post):
As far as I’m aware the Giant Golden Mole has no melon, but it does have (relatively) huge ear bones, no external ear openings, and lives at ground-level rather than underwater, so it may be that the bony structure helps focus sound transmitted through the ground into the auditory region of the skull, in a way similar to that suggested for the South Asian River Dolphin’s crest, albeit in the water.
Speculation about comparative structures aside, the South Asian River Dolphins are incredibly well adapted to their habitat, which means that their populations are increasingly at risk due to changes arising from the climate crisis (such as changing annual rainfall and runoff patterns), farming practices (such as increased pesticide and fertiliser contamination of waterways), hydrological management (such as the installation of dams), plus hunting and accidental fatalities due to river traffic.
Similar pressures have almost certainly already pushed the Baiji or Yangtze River Dolphin into extinction, so let’s hope we can learn from the mistakes of the past, and ensure these strangely wonderful animals survive into the future.
This week I have a lovely specimen from the Dead Zoo for you to have a go at identifying. It’s very unusual looking, but as a result it’s very distinctive:
Any ideas what it is? If you recognise it, then please have a go at making your answer cryptic, so people who are less familiar have a chance to work it. I look forward to your responses and hope you have fun with them!
Last week I gave you this fantastic skeleton from the Dead Zoo to identify:
I suspected that it wouldn’t prove too much of a challenge for most of the regulars here, as it is fairly distinctive – although possibly not all that familiar. However, there is another species that has some very similar convergent features, which did cause some confusion.
The skull is quite elongated and there is a series of simple teeth that line the upper and lower jaw:
This skull shape – plus the powerfully built body – is reminiscent of the first animal to come to mind for anyone with an alphabetical mindset; the Aardvark:
However, as you can see, despite the similarities, there are several differences between these skulls – particularly in relation to the eye (there’s a postorbital process in the Aardvark), cheekbone and teeth (Aardvark teeth are a lot more robust – I talked about them a bit in a post from 2017 if you’re interested).
In terms of differences from the Aardvark, there’s also quite an important feature presnt in the forelimb:
Aardvarks have four front toes, all of which are fairly uniform in size and all have long and robust claws for tearing into termite mounds, but the mystery object has a very odd toe configuration, with every toe different in size and shape, with one enormous sickle-shaped third claw (also useful for demolishing termite constructions).
This is a feature unique to the Giant or Great Armadillo Priodontes maximus (Kerr, 1792):
So well done to Chris Jarvis, who was the first to identify the animal – but I must say that the clue he used to share his knowledge came with a parasitic earworm from which I’m still recovering…
I have a potentially perplexing mystery object for you this week from the Dead Zoo. Any idea who this bony character might be?
If you think this is an easy one, then I would be both surprised and impressed, so let me know your thoughts through a crytic clue or two below. Enjoy the challenge!
Last week I gave you this unidentified skull from the collections of the Dead Zoo:
I say it was unidentified, but in a strange quirk of coincidence I actually did identify this skull three years ago, just a month before the start of the Covid Pandemic (which might explain why I never had a chance to update the record).
Not only did I identify it, the specimen also made it into the blog exactly 100 mystery objects ago.
I think the specimen is most likely to be the skull of a White-nosed Coati Nasua narica (Linnaeus, 1766), for the reasons I outlined back in 2020. So well done to Leon and Chris for recognising this cousin of the Raccoon from South and Central America and the southern parts of some North American states .
Coatis have quite distinctive upper canine teeth, that look almost like short tusks. These are useful for defence from other Coatis, but they are not very well adapted for subduing larger prey. This isn’t really a problem for Coatis, since they mainly feed on invertebrates, fruit and small vertebrates that they undcover during their energetic foraging.
So I apologise to everyone for repeating a specimen – this is the first time this has happened (and hopefully the last)!
This week I’m continuing with skulls from the collections of the Dead Zoo, and this one was sitting in the “Unidentified” drawer:
Do you have any ideas what this might be? I suspect that some of you will be familiar with this, so perhaps it’s time for some cryptic suggestions in the comments. Have fun!
Last week I gave you this neat little skull to have a go at identifying, from research collections of the Dead Zoo in Dublin:
I wasn’t surprised that everyone in the comments worked out that this is the skull of some sort of fox, but I was equally unsurprised that nobody worked out the species. Generally speaking, most people immediately think of the near ubiquitous Red Fox or perhaps Grey Fox (or Gray Fox to our American friends), but there are plenty of others – 24 species commonly referred to as “fox” and 12 species of “true fox” in the genus Vulpes.
This particular specimen has a sagittal crest that forms a lyre-shape – normally something associated with the Grey Fox:
However, this feature can occur in other species, often in females or subadults, where the surface of the bone has not finished remodelling at the margin of the attachment of the temporalis muscles (those are the ones that connect to the lower jaw from the sides of the cranium and are responsible for the operation of the lower jaw during powerful biting).
However, in this specimen the muzzle is more tapered and the postorbital constriction is relatively broad. All of these point away from the Grey Fox.
With foxes there can be a lot of similarities between the skulls of species, with all the usual compounding issues of sexual dimorphism, age and regional variation. However, size can give some clues, and things like the relative size of the external auditory meatus (also known as the ear-hole), and the shape of the auditory bulla, are useful for differentiating between species.
With a bit of patience, a bit of pattern recognition, and a resource with good images of specimens, like the Animal Diversity Web, it is possible to work out what you’re looking at.
In this case, the mystery object is a Swift Fox Vulpes velox (Say, 1823).
These North American foxes are smaller than the Red or Grey Fox, but a bit bigger than their close cousin, the Kit Fox. They live in grasslands and praries, where they prey on rodents, birds, reptiles and pretty much anything they can find – including insects, fruit and grasses.
As with many species, the Swift Fox has declined due to changing land use and the systematic persecution of predators in the first half of the 20thC. In fact, it was wiped out in Canada around this time, although it was subsequently successfully reintroduced and numbers have increased.
So watch out for those foxy skulls – there are more species to consider than you might think and they can be tricky to identify without reference resources. I hope you enjoyed this little detour down the fox hole!
For the first time in quite a while, I managed to escape from my desk and spend a little time in the collections of the Dead Zoo. The main reason was to facilitate access for researchers doing some really cool projects, but it also gave me a chance to spend a little time exploring the collections I’m responsible for.
In one of the cabinets I spotted this skull, and I thought it might make a good mystery object:
So, do you have any thoughts on what this might be? As ever, you can leave your questions, observations and suggestions in the comments section below. I hope you enjoy this specimen as much as I did!
Last week I gave you this 6 million year old fossil skull to have a go at identifying:
The specimen is on display in the geology galleries of the Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo (which is well worth a vist). However, this did mean the photos provided weren’t quite as good as I’d like, particularly notable being the lack of a scale bar (sorry!)
Even without a scale, consensus shifted towards this being some kind of hyena, thanks to the curved mandible and (hint of) robust molars and shorter toothrow than you might expect to see in a canid. The broad and flat profile of the frontals between the eye sockets probably helped too:
Hyenas have an interesting evoloutionary history, branching off from the basal feliforms around 22 million years ago and adapting to fill a terrestrial carviore niche in Eurasia and becoming quite diverse. In America the canids were filling that same niche, which led to some competition when the canids made it to Eurasia (spoiler alert – the hyenas lost that competition, leaving us with just three highly specialised bone crushers and the decidedly weird Aardwolf living today).
The mystery specimen was labelled as Thalassictis wongii (Zdansky, 1924), a species described from China and originally placed in the genus Icititherium, but reassessed by Kurtén (1985). A cladistic treatment of the Hyaenidae by Werdelin & Solunias (1991) later placed it in the genus Hyaenotherium, but that may not have been accepted by the curatorial team in Oslo without an accompanying formal taxonomic treatment.
These are the sorts of decisions that need to be made when considering something as simple as a label stating a species name, so you can imagine my sense of trepidation as we are about to embark on a major project at the Dead Zoo, which will allow us to reassess the information with our 10,000 or so display specimens. Fun times ahead!
This week I have a mystery object for you from a recent visit to Oslo:
I apologise for the poor image quality – I was using my phone and this specimen was behind glass, so it was tricky getting a decent photo without a lot of reflections. Given the poor images I’ll drop in a clue – this is a fossil specimen from around 6 million years ago.
Any thoughts on what it could be? As ever, you can leave a comment down below. Have fun working this one out!
Last week we had these two skulls from Andy Taylor, FLS to have a go at identifying:
Everyone recognised that these are the skulls of Tube-nosed birds in the Order Procellariiformes – very large Tube-nosed birds.
Usually, you’d think of albatrosses when considering large Procellariiformes, but they have proportionally longer bills than this and while they have the nose-tube characteristic of the group, the tube is quite small and to the sides and rear half of the bill. In the mystery specimens, the tube is large and located on the top, and in the front half of the bill.
As Wouter van Gestel recognised, these skulls are from Giant Petrels in the Genus Macronectes. They actually represent both species in the Genus – the top one is the Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus (Gmelin, 1789) and the lower one is the Northern Giant Petrel Macronectes halli Mathews, 1912.
They’re quite hard to tell apart, and the best feature I noticed for distinguishing them is the shape of the palatine, with the Southern having a very gentle curve to the rear section – as indicated below (in a very rudimentary way):
Andy has already written up some information about these birds on his Instagram account, which is well worth checking out:
Thanks for all your observations and thoughts on these rather impressive specimens!
This week I have a guest mystery object – or two – for you to test your skills on:
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the identification of the skulls here – keeping in mind that any differences could be due to individual variation, sexual dimorphism or they may even be different species. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Last week, I gave you this devilishly difficult genuine mystery object to have a go at identifying:
At first glance, it looks like it should be the occipital (the bone at the very back of the skull) of an Ostrich, or other very large bird. The bone is thin and dense (typical for a bird) and the overall shape and size looks like it might fit. However, none of the details of the bony sutures fit that possibility, for any large bird. Also, this came in as an enquiry, and was almost certaily found in Ireland, making a big bird even less likely,
With birds ruled out, I looked into the mammals. Generally it’s helpful to start with common species, to start ruling out the more frequently encountered species. There are some unfused sutures, so I began with looking at some common large mammals, keeping in mind the developmental differences that occur, making the skulls of juveniles appear quite different to adults of the same species. This is especially the case in relation to skull shape and presence of unfused sutures that can vanish in adults.
Sticking with the occipital, since the shape looks right and several people converged on the same idea (although the species suggested varied quite considerably), for me, the nuchal crest (the area of bone where the ligaments for the neck muscles attach to the back of the head) is very similar in shape to that of a sheep:
This would have been a nice and simple way to wrap things up, but unfortunately I’m still unsure. Mainly this is because the shape doesn’t match so well from other angles:
Of course, this may simply be an artefact of comparing a juvenile animal skull to an adult – so I’ll need to check with a range of specimens of different ages to be more certain.
However, there was also a suggestion of Porpoise (or other cetacean) by Adam Yates and Kat Edmonson came up with an intriguing suggestion that I am quite taken by. It is possible that the raised region is not the nuchal region at all (in Porpoises and many other cetaceans there’s actually a depression rather than a raised ridge in that area of the back of the skull), it may actually mark the junction between two very short nasal bones, a very compressed frontal region and the occipital at the back of a cetacean skull:
Just to help clarify, check out the area labelled 1, 2 and 3 in the image below:
So it may be that I was looking at the bone upside down the whole time. I’ll need to do some more comparisons to narrow down species if that is what it is, but huge thanks to Kat for getting me to see this object from a new perspective!
This week I have a weird mystery object for you to have a go at identifying:
This is a specimen that I came across from a small selection of enquiries I inherited.
I’m still not 100% certain what it is, although I have my suspicions. I’d be keen to know what you think!
You can leave your suggestions in the comments section below – I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Last week I gave you this really difficult, but incredibly cool mystery object to identify:
Definitely not a simple one for the uninitiated, but most of you got impressively close.
It looks a bit like ancient chewed gum at first glance (hey, it’s a thing!):
However, on closer inspection, some of the features start to emerge – including teeth:
Obviously, this is the fossilised skull or some critter, but what kind of critter is harder to determine.
The length suggests it’s something about the size of a rabbit:
And if you’re looking for a good fossil rabbit, you can’t beat Palaeolagus:
As you can see, the mystery object has a few differences, but due to the various missing parts, it’s a little hard to be confident exactly how different they are – although the shape of the orbital margin (the front of the eyesocket) gives a bit of a hint.
But, even more useful, is the curve in the maxilla (the upper jaw bone) that traces the root of the first incisor. In lagomorphs (rabbits, hares and even pikas), the incisor roots terminate with quite a big gap before the orbital margin, often with a triangular fenestrated region of cancellous bone (a sort of window of bony struts) in between.
The mystery specimen doesn’t have that – in fact the end of the incisor root is very close to the orbital margin. This is something you see in rodents.
I would have been impressed if you got that far, since the overall shape and size of this specimen definitely gives off a rabbity vibe, but believe it or not, this a dormouse. More specifically, it’s the Gigantic Dormouse Leithia miletensis (Adams, 1863) or if you want to go with the commonly used and more technically accurate, but nomenculatorily incorrect, L. melitensis, since Adams made a spelling error in his original description.
In fact, this is one of the specimens collected and figured by Adams in that original work describing the species, making this part of the type series for the species (although the holotype is more likely to be a very well preserved half mandible from the same site).
The fact that this is a fairly large and intact part of the type series means that it is of great interest to researchers. The reason I had this specimen to hand for the mystery object, is because I was preparing it for a research loan to some of my old colleagues in UCL, where it’s being MicroCT scanned.
This research will help refine an understanding of the morphology of the Gigantic Dormouse and offer some clues to what happens on islands that leads to the development of giants, building on work that they’ve been doing on this fascinating species, which is an interesting read that you can find here (you may even recognise Fig. 1B).
Virtual Cranial Reconstruction of the Endemic Gigantic Dormouse Leithia melitensis (Rodentia, Gliridae) from Poggio Schinaldo, Sicily, By Jesse J. Hennekam , Victoria L. Herridge, Loïc Costeur, Carolina Di Patti, Philip G. Cox – CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=92037373
This week I have a really cool mystery object for you to have a go at identifying:
I’d be very interested to hear what you think it might be – but I suspect it will be a bit of a challenge. Enjoy!
This week I am have a great guest mystery object from Andy Taylor for you to have a go at identifying:
Here’s what Andy says about the specimen:
On Sunday, myself and Sophie Bagshaw were working through specimens that were donated to me from a person who had been given them by a zoological park. The specimen in question was part of a huge shipment of almost 140 frozen specimens that were in various states of preparation and were mostly head specimens. … I have a large rodent skull that I’m struggling to ID
Andy and Sophie have been doing great stuff with osteology for educational purposes for a while now, so it was a real pleasure to get a question like this, and it seems like a perfect opportunity for the community here to add their thoughts.
So, what do you think it is? Let us know below!
Last week I gave you this skull from the collections of the Dead Zoo, which had been misidentified and that came to light when Dr George Argyros was doing some research on the carnivore skeletons:
The label attached to this specimen indicated that this is the skull of a Leopard, which is clearly wrong. The label also identified the specimen as having been collected in East Africa by Major A.W.V. Plunkett.
Labels like this worry me. Not because they contain a misidentification, but because they may indicate that someone in the past has mixed up the specimen labels. This is a much bigger problem than a simple misidentification, as it can mean the real specimen has become dissociated from its information.
The huge, robust teeth of this specimen should make it fairly clear that it belongs to one of those specialist bone-crushers – the hyenas:
However, there are three species of hyena to choose from (I’m leaving the Aardwolf of this, since they don’t match this dental morphology even remotely).
My first thought was that this specimen is on the small side for a Spotted Hyena:
Size is seldom a definitive feature, especially in species that display sexual dimorphism, but what is more useful is the detail of the tiny molar at the back of the maxillary toothrow. This is absent in Spotted Hyenas, but it occurs in both Striped and Brown Hyenas.
So you might ask, how do we distinguish between Striped and Brown Hyenas? This is a good question. For starters, it’s hard to find enough reliable good images of the Brown Hyena’s skull online that show the details needed to distinguish between the species.
However, a bit of searching highlighted that the Brown Hyena has a shorter and more robust angular process of the mandible than the Striped – and the mystery object.
This long angular process was spotted by katedmonson, but Adam Yates was the first with the identification of Striped Hyena Hyaena hyaena (Linnaeus, 1758).
This one proved a little trickier than I thought at first, due to the similarities between the Brown and the Striped species. But I’m a little relieved that the consensus fell on Striped, both here on the blog, and between myself and George, since the Striped Hyena is found in East Africa, whereas the Brown is limited to South Africa.
This at least agrees with the locality on the label, so it may well have simply been misidentified when the specimen was acquired – especially since it looks like it was skeletonised naturally, so it may have been found dead and already defleshed, making it harder to identify.
I hope you enjoyed the challenge!
Zygoma 