Jason Anderson, vertebrate paleontologist and anatomist at the University of Calgary (Canada), shared these two intriguing photos with me, and agreed for me to share them with you. Yay, thanks Jason! Good timing for a badly needed Mystery Dissection post:
What are they (species ID) *AND* from what region of the body?
(they are the same region, same specimen, same animal)
RULE: Your answer must be in the form of a winter holiday song (at least four lines)!
If you’ve been following some of my recent tweets, I’ve been tweeting about the “joys” of increased academic paperwork around holiday-time; e.g. this one:
♫Doing the bloody paperwork
That’s how academia goes
And if you ever saw it
You would even say it blows♫
— John R. Hutchinson (@JohnRHutchinson)
Perhaps some inspiration there.
As always, you can score extra points for creativity.
Remember: the scoreboard is here.
Difficulty: Integumentary
Stomach-Churning Rating: 6/10; if beauty is only skin deep, then ugly is, too?
Here they are…
May these photos bring you happy holidays! And remember, thick skin is good insulation. Bundle up before you go out! No freezer burns, please.
jingle bell, jingle bell
acabou o papel
nao faz mal, nao faz mal
limpa com jornal…
o jornal tá caro
caro pra chuchu
como eu vou fazer
pra limpar o tatu?
I wish you a merry Hippo,
I wish you a merry Hippo,
I wish you a merry Hippo
and a kiss on his snout!
Based on the top pic I was going to say hippo snout, but the second left me less sure. It’s still my best guess though.
Oops, in my keenness to guess, since I was so pleased I had a vague idea of what it was for once, I missed the whole “rhyme” thing. And in any case, Mieke beat me to it!
Slashing through the skin
Of a pickeld elephant
Oh what joy it brings
In the form of a big grant [wth, it almost rhymes]
Hairs in follicles
Bristles poking out
Yellow corpuscles
Make me want to shout:
Pachyderm, pachyderm, this is from your leg:
Doing paperwork on Sunday, when I should be home instead!
[To the tune of Jingle Bells]
While shepherds watched their hippos by night,
All seated on the ground.
A labcoat-clad anatomist came down,
And waved a knife around.
“Fear not!” said he, for mighty dread,
Had seized their troubled minds.
“All I need is a hippo’s snout,
for this competition, online.”
(Bloody Hell can’t afford to dilly-dally!)
Rudolph the Brown-nosed River Horse
Had a very bristly nose
And if you ever saw it
You would say it really shows
Then one froggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say
Rudolph with your nose so sensitive
Won’t you guide my sleigh forthwith?
Then how the hippos loved him
As they shouted out with glee
Rudolph the Brown-nosed River Horse
You’ll go down in zoology
You know Crasher and Disaster and Presser and Vicious
Combat and Corpulent and Danger and Bloodyhellrunitsahippo
But do you recall?
The most famous river horse of all?
You’re a bum, maybe a trunk?
You’re definitely a chunk,
Of hippopotamus less able lying on the table,
Not an elephant, nor mammoth,
But an semi-aquatic behemoth,
Happy Christmas you ar-tiodactyl I hope it’s not your last…
And John’s scalpel still ringing after hitting the tray,
And without a snout poor hippo cried out,
What a terrible day!
Oh dugong dugong dugong
Or are you a manatee
From just your brist-ly snout
It’s very hard to tell!
Good King Manatee looked out
On the feast of seagrass
But he did not have a snout
Jason had it, alas
(apologies for the eyewatering scansion)
Oh hippo snout, oh hippo snout,
how bristly is your skin!
Your lip is thick
and hairy, too,
much more than in
a common ‘moooh’!
Oh hippo snout, oh hippo snout,
how bristly is your skin!
Just watched a cartoon movie with my (also ill) youngest son. It had walruses in it. Got me thinking…… Oops!
Oh manatee, oh manatee,
with hippos did I mix ye.
I overlooked the bristle’s length,
and their arrangement and their strength.
Oh manatee, oh manatee,
this pictures makes me think of ye!
To the tune of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’.
I stumbled on this quiz today and it intruigéd me,
A hairy, fatty bit of skin for us all to I.D.
I wonder’d if it was dugong, walrus or manatee,
But I’m saying that it is a hippo, hippo
I’m saying that it is a hippo.
the scientists among you might sulk,
but I’m certain as shit that’s the hulk.
His skin’s more aptly described as hide
and his wirey beard is his pride.
So John, why cut off his chin
they’ll be nothing left of his grin!
To ‘Mary’s Boy Child’ by Boney M:
Long time ago in RVC,
so the holy Bible say,
The freezer was at bursting point,
So they threw some things away.
‘Hark now here’, the dustmen yell,
‘You can’t put that in here!
We can’t take frozen walrus snouts,
Unless you buy us beer.’
To the tune of ‘Away in a Manger’
I think on reflection I would like change
my ID ’cause them hippos
don’t have Alaskan range.
I’ll admit it’s quite cheeky to have another go
But it’s nearly Christmas
and you never do know.
_Odobenus rosmarus divergens_ is my new choice
Oh the lovely Pacific Walrus
with its bellowing voice.
Ah! Lorna beat me too it whilst I was typing!
🙂
There’s John with a new puzzle
It kind of looks like a muzzle
Second picture gave no doubt
This has to be a Manatee snout:
Rough skin, bristles and some muscle
I am not a poet…
Lo, e’re a sailor drinking
While passing tropic shores so bright
thought he did see a maiden
in the shallows at midnight
Claim-ed she had a fish tail
this slosh-ed sailor did
half-maid and half a mackrel
It’s time to put him in.
No maiden did he see.
But bristly lips and thick skin
it was a manatee.
[Attempting to be to “Lo, a Rose E’re Blooming.”]
Some great rhymes and guesses so far!
♫Santa baby, just slip a hippo under the tree for me;
Been an awful good anatomist, Santa baby
and hurry to the freezer tonight!♫
Answer, in video form (via Jason– nice pick, dude!):
(Compare 1st photo frame in video, of partly submerged hippo looking at camera, to see where specimen came from. I wouldn’t stand under the mistletoe for a smooch from this specimen, no sirree.)
The walrus/manatee guesses were especially reasonable.
Well played everyone- like Jason said, a fantastic, funny round of songs! Nice way to round out the year. Pretty much everyone got some points here; quite a few 3+-point answers.
Scoreboard updated soon, but… I am ending this round of the Mystery Anatomy competition, now that 2013 draws to a close!
And– Mark Robinson has handily won a nice frosty mug of victory! Everyone cheer- hippo, hippo, hooray! Thanks for playing, everyone- there were quite a few people creeping up on Mark in scores, but he hung in there like a chilled out champ.
This means that the scoreboard will be reset for 2014! Tabula rasa. Spring freezer cleaning. Call it what you will, it’s a whole new game, folks! I will put some new puzzles on ice for you- there are some great opportunities coming up!
Thanks again to Jason Anderson for the great photos– I welcome more from others in the future!
Happy holidays to all, and may you have many happy dissections of your holiday presents!
Point scores added to scoreboard:
-Mieke +5 for being first correct answer and nice song!
-Mike Doube, Richard Dearden, Mark Robinson +4 for being close and funny; also +4 for Heinrich Mallison for extra effort
-Ryan Marek, Stuart Pond +3 for getting there nearly on time, with good songs too
-Gabi, Ben, pakasuchus, dobermunk, Lorna Steel, Sandra N, Eric -Morschhauser +2 for good songs even if they were about manatees, armadillos or other non-hippos
-Dave Hone +1 for figuring out the rules in the end 🙂
Well played!
Thanks John! I will practice on my English lyrics next year! 😉
Kept me chuckling all day- I really liked Ryan’s take on the Pogues and Kirsty McColl- I think she would have approved!
“… won a nice frosty mug of victory!”
Yar! I shall reward myself with a mug of Tactical Nuclear Penguin from BrewDog. And I’ll eat some cake and talk like a pirate all day.
Thanks for the quizzes and the rest of the blog, John. I learned a bunch of interesting things while occasionally being assaulted by terrible (and not-so-terrible) puns.
Happy Not Dead Yet Day for the 16th and may you have a Frabjous Freezermas in about a week’s time.