Archiv der Kategorie: Anatomie

The Nightmare Look of Naked Owls – how Feathers Conceal a Bird´s True Shape

Today I want to show you one of the coolest bird specimens I have ever seen in a museum, a bodycast of a barn owl (Tyto alba) with removed feathers. This gives us a great opportunity to see the enormous … Weiterlesen

Veröffentlicht unter Anatomie, Vögel | Schreib einen Kommentar

A tiny tusk within a broken tusk – just another narwhal oddity

The narwhal Monodon monoceros is almost a real-life fantasy creature. But not only due to its historical connection with the legendary unicorn – after all, a whale with an enormous tusk growing out of its head is much more fabulous … Weiterlesen

Veröffentlicht unter Anatomie, Blogposts in English, Teratologie, Wale | Schreib einen Kommentar

How Vanuatuan boars grow circle tusks that impale their own jaws

I wrote some time ago about zoological treasures in archeological, ethnological and historical museums. Today I want to share some quite interesting examples of such „treasures“ which I have seen in the Oceania exhibition of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. … Weiterlesen

Veröffentlicht unter Anatomie, Blogposts in English, Museen, Säugetiere, Teratologie | 4 Kommentare

The Narwhal´s lesser Tusk

I have seen a whole lot of narwhal tusks in museums, many skulls of narwhals (Monodon monoceros), some fully mounted narwhal skeletons and even several specimens with  double tusks. But so far I have never ever seen the vestigal right … Weiterlesen

Veröffentlicht unter Anatomie, Wale | 2 Kommentare

Curiosity of the Day: Whale bone chairs

Today´s curiosity of the day are chairs made of whale bones. The first one is constructed of two large cervical vertebrae and apparantly pieces of ribs for the chair legs. It is exhibited in the Zoological Museum at Copenhagen, Denmark. … Weiterlesen

Veröffentlicht unter Anatomie, Curiosity of the Day, Wale | Schreib einen Kommentar

No, there was no gorilla arm found on an Irish beach (Spoiler: it´s from a seal)

At the moment there is a strange story in the news, about an alleged gorilla arm which was found on a beach in Kilkee, Ireland. You can read the original story here. The photo in the article shows the grisly-looking, … Weiterlesen

Veröffentlicht unter Anatomie, Populäre Irrtümer, Säugetiere | 2 Kommentare

Curiosity of the Day: Inuit tools made from Greenland shark teeth

As I have a longlasting interest in ethnology and indigenous cultures, I decided to feature here some interesting man-made artifacts. Since this blog is mainly about animals, those objects will be of course zoology-themed. When I recently visited once again … Weiterlesen

Veröffentlicht unter Anatomie, Curiosity of the Day, Ethnology, Fische, Haie und andere Knorpelfische | 4 Kommentare

Fossil of the day: Gnarly wooly rhino skull

For today I have just a short fossil-of-the-day-post. It´s a close-up of the nasal and frontal area of of a wooly rhino´s skull from the Naturhistorisches Museum Mainz (natural history museum Mainz). You can see very well the highly textured … Weiterlesen

Veröffentlicht unter Anatomie, Megafauna, Paläontologie, Säugetiere | Schreib einen Kommentar

The spiny wing quills of the cassowary

Cassowaries are unusual and weird by nearly every standard, but the general focus is mainly on their flamboyant heads and necks and their formidable foot claws. But there is just so much more noteworthy about them. For example their extraordinaire … Weiterlesen

Veröffentlicht unter Anatomie, Vögel | Schreib einen Kommentar

A herring in the wolf´s clothing

Today´s blogpost features another fish skull, this time a much smaller but yet pretty impressive one, which nearly looks like a miniature version of the giant cretaceous Xiphactinus. It belongs to a dorab wolf hering (Chirocentrus dorab), a member of … Weiterlesen

Veröffentlicht unter Anatomie, Fische, Paläontologie | Schreib einen Kommentar