…a daily picture of anatomy! And today the pictures are a mysteryyyyyyy! ♫
Welcome back again, again, and again (gasp, pant)– and again (exhausted howl)… and… aaaaaagaiiiiin… to Freezermas!
This is the end. I’ve worked hard all week to bring you all-new content for Freezermas, and on the Seventh Day I get drunk rest— and make you do the work! Off into the hoary wilderness you go, seeking answers to eternal trivial mysteries.
Seven mystery photos of museum specimens today, each from a different museum (or other institution whose role it is to display critters, in 2/7 cases) and animal! I’ve visited all these facilities and taken these photos myself. Which specimens can you identify, and (ultra difficult) can you identify the institution it’s from?
Stomach-Churning Rating: 2/10. Super tame.
You had some impromptu practice on day 2. Very well, then. This session counts for points. If you want a recap of points, see last Mystery Dissection.
But because the pictures are small and numerous (refer to them by number 1-7, please), the points/correct answer are simplified: 2 pts for correct answer, and maybe 1 bonus pt for something clever but incorrect, 0 pts here just for shooting the breeze (“Superhuman effort isn’t worth a damn unless it achieves results.”–Ernest Shackleton), plus 1 pt extra credit if you correctly ID the museum/institution. Being first does not matter here. Just being correct. With 7 mysteries, you can freeze up a lot of points here! But…
Difficulty: Cropping. Lots of cropping. And therefore quite pixellated if you zoom in much; don’t even bother clicking to embigitate. However, there may or may not be themes between some pictures, or critical clues. They are identifiable.
Off you venture, brave Freezerinos! Wear multiple layers.
1) 
2) 
3) 
4) 
5)
6)
7)
But wait– there is a mystery eighth specimen, which even I am not completely sure what it is! No points for figuring it out, but mucho respect!
And…
Happy Freezermas! One last time– sing it: “On the seventh day of Freezermas, this blo-og gave to me: one tibiotarsus, two silly Darwins, three muscle layers, four gory hearts, five doggie models, six mangled pangl’ins a-aaaaaaand seven specimens that are mysteries!” ♪♫
I hope you enjoyed Freezermas. Let’s hope we’re all thawed out in time for the next one.
CLUES/ANSWERS: Click these thumbnails to embigrinate them if you need help–
What's In John's Freezer? 
I can tell you the eighth one, at least: it’s a megamouth shark Megachasma pelagios. A google search locates a photo of the exact same specimen in the Los Angeles Natural History Museum. Megamouth specimens are not common, though I believe that it’s been established in recent years that live ones are not as uncommon as previously believed. They’re part of the diel migration between deeper and shallower waters of the ocean, only coming closer to the surface at night.
Ahh, right, that jogs my memory and indeed you are correct on both, it is the NHMLA’s specimen and it was a megamouth! I forgot to label the photo and could not recall until now. Glad to know now!
I think 5 and 7 are T. rex toes, with seven being the infamous feathered “Chicken rex” (C. rex) mount at the LA Natural History Museum.
Hmm, 2 makes me think of a fossil turtle shell. 5 looks like therapod toes. I’ve got to think about the others…
1. glyptodont tail (tring?), 2. rear of a ground sloth skull
3. a walking fish
4. Amblycetus
5. some kind of Phorusrhacid 6. Llama glama phalanges
7. mesonychus foot, NHM
Crikey, that’s a toughie but here goes:
1) Pleurodire.
2) Footprint, Filosina layer of the Vectis Formation.
3) Rounded, fish fin – Coral Cod?
4) Placodont
5) Tyrannosaurus rex Sue at the Field Museum, Chicago.
6) Is this the Dino Sapiens model?
7) Er, mammal (or in other words, no idea which one).
8) Megamouth shark.
Interesting answers so far- I won’t comment on right/wrong until tomorrow night. So keep em coming!
1. Snapping turtle or the penis of some proud mollusc
2. ?
3. Looks like it could be some sort of fan shell but a limb makes more sense
4. Some early cetacean but prob not Ambulocetus
5. Sue right foot, Field Museum
6. Digits of a “grey” extraterrestrial
7. Looks familiar but I cannot place it. Some semi-aquatic mammal.
Bah, beaten on #5 while I was pondering the others (without much success). It was the only one I knew without searching (apart from which foot). Actually, it’s still the only one I know…
Hmm, not many guesses here… I’ll give it another 24 hrs then draw this to a close. Too hard?
Too hard?
It was for me.
OK, I’ve tormented you long enough. It clearly was a hard set of mysteries BUT you got quite a few of them right! In a few moments I’ll load the actual images I cropped them from, above, but the answers are (in addition to megamouth shark confirmed above):
1) Tail of Alligator Snapping Turtle, from a live display (one-off public showing) at the AMNH in NYC;
2) I was worried I made this too easy, but it was too hard: caudal end of Parieasaurus skull (right side), showing flanges; from the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin;
3) Frogfish (not sure of species), from the Aquamarine Fukushima, Iwaki, Japan (~1 yr before the disaster),
4) Basal tetrapod/temnospondyl Sclerocephalus, from the Haus der Natur, Salzburg, Austria [note the gastralia/belly ribs; unlike any whale];
5) Yes, good old Sue the T. rex from the FMNH [that one I knew you’d get];
6) Dale Russell’s infamous “dinosauroid” from Raleigh’s North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences [yay! you got it!]
7) Aardvark (live) at Colchester Zoo near London. [Sorry, that was hard!]
Soooooo– POINTS:
*Thanks* for playing– I appreciate the participation! Next time will be easier. 🙂
I’ve given sympathy points for those braving the zero-Kelvin difficulty of the mysteries.
[totals in brackets]
Christopher Taylor: +3 for nailing the megamouth answer, so quickly, and so thoroughly! [3]
hypnotosov +1 [6]
Anath Sheridan +1 [9]
RH +2 [17]
Stu Pond +5! [8]
Mark Robinson +3 [19]
And thus we have a new leader– Mark all by himself– but still a close game, and Anath, Stu and hypnotosov have moved into the upper rankings.
Crikey, happy with that. Great quiz, and thanks for Freezermas – it was superb.
Good (but hard) comp. Thanks, John. Congrats to Stu – I saw his answer for #6 after I posted and knew he’d nailed it (nailed!). Should have been clearer that my answer for #1 was “Snapping turtle” and the other bit was just a weak, late-night attempt at humour.
Ooh, nearly forgot – are the claws (nails!) on that aardvark trimmed or unusually worn down? I ask because even quite young aardvarks seem to have long claws on all four feet, so I actually dismissed it as a possible answer.
Good question- I do not know.
Damn damn damn, too late to the party. That megamouth photo looks very familiar… but we coincidentally came up with near-identical compositions. ING series 1, elephant ep, was on TV last night, by the way.
Ahh well, next time Darren! I bet you woulda nailed a few of these. Funny about the photo!
The green homanoid on the picture – dinosauroid is just reptilian alien (lizzies), there is one the same in National Museum of Canada in Ottawa, they’re still living with us, dangerous and much smarter than we’re.
Sorry, not Canada, it’s in Dinosaur Museum, Dorchester. Most hypothetical dinosauroid. They play with us, for them we’re just animals.
Read the Lacerta Files, recent interview with one of these species.