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Posts Tagged ‘hippo’

A Museum Evolves

Posted in Museums are Cool, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 2, 2018| 19 Comments »

One of my favourite museums in the world, and certainly one of the best natural history museums in the UK, is Cambridge’s Museum of Zoology, AKA “University Museum of Zoology at Cambridge” (UMZC). It is now nearing a lengthy completion of renovations; the old museum exhibits and collections were excellent but needed some big changes along with the re-fabbed “David Attenborough Building” that houses them. As a longtime fan of the exhibits and user of the collection (and microCT scanner), I hurried to see the new museum once it officially opened.

And that makes a great excuse to present a photo-shoot from my visit. This focuses on the “mammal floor” below the entrance- the upper floor(s?) are still being completed and will have the birds, non-avian tetrapods, fish, etc. But the UMZC is strong in mammals and so it is natural for them to feature them in this chock-full-o-specimens display. Less talk, more images. Here we go!

All images can be clicked to mu-zoom in on them.

Stomach-Churning Rating: 3/10; bones and taxidermy and innocuous jars.

The building. The whale skeleton that hung outside for years is now cleaned up and housed right inside; you walk under it as you enter.

Entrance.

First view past the entryway: lots of cool specimens.

View from the walkway down into the ground/basement level from the entry. As specimens-per-unit-volume goes, the UMZC still scores highly and that is GOOD!

Explanation of frog dissection image below.

Gorgeous old frog dissection illustration; such care taken here.

Leeuwenhoek’s flea woodcut; I think from Arcana Naturae Detecta (1695). There is an impressive display of classic natural history books near the entryway.

Dürer/other rhino art image and info.

Darwin was famed for collecting beetles when he should have been studying theology at Cambridge as a youth, and here is some of his collection. Dang.

Darwin’s finches!

Darwin kicked off some of his meticulous work with volumes on barnacles; specimens included here; which helped fuel insights into evolution (e.g. they are “retrograde” crustaceans, not mollusks).

Darwin’s voyage: fish & other preserved specimens.

I think this is a solitaire weka (flightless island bird; see Comment below). I’ve never seen them displayed w/skeleton + taxidermy; it’s effective here.

Eryops cast. More early tetrapods will surely be featured on the upper floor; this one was on the timeline-of-life-on-Earth display.

I LOVE dioramas and this seabird nesting ground display is very evocative, especially now that I’ve visited quite a few such islands.

Mammal introduction; phylogenetic context.

Monotreme glory.

UMZC is well endowed with thylacines and this one is lovely.

“TAZ FEEL NAKED!”

Narwhal above!

Rhinocerotoidea past, present, and fading glory. 😦

Ceratotherium white rhino. The horn is not real; sadly museums (and even zoos) across the world have to worry about theft of such things, given that some people think these horns are magic.

Ceratotherium staring match. You lose.

Ceratotherium stance.

Foot of a Sumatran rhino juxtaposed with a horse’s for Perissodactyla didaction.

A tapir. As a kid, I used to wander around the house pretending to be a tapir but I did not know what noise they’d make so I’d say “tape tape tape!”.

Big Southern Elephant Seal.

Squat little fur seal.

Hippopotamus for the lot of us. (baby included)

Hippo facedown.

Skull of a dwarf Madagascar hippo.

Cave bear and sabretooth cat make an impressive Ice Age demo.

It’s a wombat.

Ain’t no don like a Diprotodon! (also note its modern miniature cousin the wombat, below)

Diprotodon facial.

Diprotodon shoulder: big clavicles bracing that joint region.

Diprotodon knee: even in big marsupials, the “parafibula”/lateral sesamoid of the knee is still generally present. And why it is there/what it does deserves much more study.

Diprotodon hip. I just find this animal’s anatomy fascinating head-to-tail.

Diprotodon front foot. Absolutely freakish.

Diprotodon hind foot. Even weirder.

Your view after having been trampled in a supine position by a Diprotodon. Not a good way to go.

Diprotodon got back.

Elephant seal’s butt continues my series of photos of big animals’ bottoms.

Asian elephant’s butt view.

African elephant butt.

Sectioned elephant skull to show pneumatic resonating chambers.

Paenungulates: hyraxes, Sirenia, elephants & kin (evolutionary demo).

AND MY HYRAX!
Sorry. Had to.

Megatherium side view.

Megatherium. Yeah!

Megatherium hindlegs fascinate me. Well-heeled.

Tamandua duo.

Silky anteater; wonderful.

Armadillos.

Anteaters round out a fab display on Xenarthra.

The UMZC has everything from aardvarks to zebus. Here, conceptualized with other Afrotheria.

Golden moles: the more I read about them, the more they fascinate me.

We can all use some more solenodons in our lives!

Example of the phylogenetic context used throughout exhibits.

If you’ve got a good Okapi taxidermy, you’d better use it.

It’s a giraffe. Did you guess right?

Gerenuk showing off its bipedal capacity.

Warthogs have an inner beauty.

Pangolin. Glad to see it back on exhibit.

Nice little brown bear.

Double-barrelled shot of hyenas.

Colugo!

Nice to see some Scandentia featured.

My brain says this is a springhare (Pedetes) so I am going with what my brain says and anyway I really like this display.

When I saw this I thought, “That’s a nice… rodent thingy.” And so “rodent thing” it shall be labelled here. Enjoy the rodent thingy. Some serious taxidermy-fu in action.

Moonrats– now there’s something you seldom see a full display of. Well done!

That’s part I of this sneak peek at the evolving exhibits- I will put up a part II once the upper floor exhibits open. I highly encourage a visit!

For Mike: gimlet

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Better Know A Muscle: 2. Biceps brachii

Posted in Better Know A Muscle, tagged , , , , , , , on February 11, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Nice GIF of the human biceps in action- By Niwadare - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38718790

GIF of the human biceps (above) and its antagonist triceps (below) in action- By “Niwadare” – own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38718790

Last year on Darwin Day I debuted “Better Know A Muscle” (BKAM), which was intended to be a series of posts focusing on one cool muscle at a time, and its anatomical, functional and evolutionary diversity and history. A year later, it’s another post on another muscle! Several dozen more muscles to go, so I’ve got my work cut out for me… But today: get ready to FLEX your myology knowledge! Our subject is Musculus biceps brachii; the “biceps” (“two-headed muscle of the arm”). Beloved of Arnie and anatomists alike, the biceps brachii is. Let’s get pumped up!

Stomach-Churning Rating: 7/10. Lots of meaty elbow flexion!

While the previous BKAM’s topic was a hindlimb muscle with a somewhat complex history (and some uncertainties), the biceps brachii is a forelimb muscle with a simpler, clearer history. Fish lack a biceps, just having simple fin ab/adductor muscles with little differentiation. Between fish and tetrapods (limb-bearing vertebrates), there was an explosion in the number of muscles; part of transforming fins into limbs; and the biceps is thenceforth evident in all known tetrapods in a readily identifiable anatomical form. In salamanders and their amphibian kin, there is a muscle usually called “humeroantebrachialis” that seems to be an undivided mass corresponding to the biceps brachii plus the brachialis (shorter humerus-to-elbow) muscle:

Most of the humerobrachialis muscle (purplish colour), in dorsal (top) view of the right forelimb of the fire salamander Salamandra salamandra (draft from unpublished work by my team).

Most of the humerobrachialis muscle (purplish colour), in dorsal (top) view of the right forelimb of the fire salamander Salamandra salamandra (draft from unpublished work by my team).

In all other tetrapods; the amniote group (reptiles, mammals, etc.); there is a separate biceps and brachialis, so these muscles split up from the ancestrally single “humeroantebrachialis” muscle sometime after the amphibian lineage diverged from the amniotes. And not much changed after then– the biceps is a relatively conservative muscle, in an evolutionary (not political!) sense. In amniote tetrapods that have a biceps, it develops as part of the ventral mass of the embryonic forelimb along with other muscles such as the shorter, humerus-originating brachialis, from which it diverges late in development (reinforcing that these two muscles are more recent evolutionary divergences, too).

Biceps brachialis or humerobrachialis, the “biceps group” tends to originate just in front of the shoulder (from the scapula/coracoid/pectoral girdle), running in front of (parallel to) the humerus. It usually forms of two closely linked heads (hence the “two heads” name), most obviously in mammals; one head is longer and comes from higher/deeper on the pectoral girdle, whereas the other is closer to the shoulder joint and thus is shorter. The two heads fuse as they cross the shoulder joint and we can then refer to them collectively as “the biceps”. It can be harder to see the longer vs. shorter heads of the biceps in non-mammals such as crocodiles, or they may be more or less fused/undifferentiated, but that’s just details of relatively minor evolutionary variation.

The biceps muscle then crosses in front of the elbow to insert mainly onto the radius (bone that connects your elbow to your wrist/thumb region) and somewhat to the ulna (“funny bone”) via various extra tendons, fascia and/or aponeuroses. The origin from the shoulder region tends to have a strong mark or bony process that identifies it, such as the coracoid process in most mammals (I know this well as I had my coracoid process surgically moved!). The insertion onto the radius tends to have a marked muscle scar (the radial tuberosity or a similar name), shared with the brachialis to some degree. A nice thing about the biceps is that, because it may leave clear tendinous marks on the skeleton, we sometimes can reconstruct how its attachments and path evolved (and any obvious specializations; even perhaps changes of functions if/when they happened).

Here are some biceps examples from the world of crocodiles:

Crocodile's right forelimb showing the huge pectoralis, and the biceps underlying it on the bottom right.

Crocodile’s right forelimb showing the huge pectoralis, and the biceps underlying it; on the bottom right (“BB”- click to embiceps it).

Crocodile left forelimb with biceps visible (

Crocodile left forelimb with biceps visible (“BB”) on the left.

Crocodile biceps muscle cut off, showing the proximal and distal tendons (and long parallel muscle fibres) for a typical amniote vertebrate.

Crocodile biceps muscle cut off, showing the proximal (to right) and distal (to left) tendons (and long parallel muscle fibres) for a typical amniote vertebrate.

What does the biceps muscle do? It flexes (draws forward) the shoulder joint/humerus, and does the same for the elbow/forearm while supinating it (i.e. rotating the radius around the ulna so that the palm faces upwards, in animals like us who can rotate those two bones around each other). In humans, which have had their biceps muscles studied by far the most extensively, we know for example that the biceps is most effective at flexing the elbow (e.g. lifting a dumbbell weight) when the elbow is moderately straight. These same general functions (shoulder and elbow flexion; with some supination) prevail across the biceps muscle of [almost; I am sure there are exceptions] all tetrapods, because the attachments and path of the biceps brachii are so conservative.

And this flexor function of the biceps brachii stands in contrast to our first BKAM muscle, the caudofemoralis (longus): that muscle acts mainly during weight support (stance phase) as an antigravity/extensor muscle, whereas the flexor action of biceps makes it more useful as a limb protractor or “swing phase” muscle used to collapse the limb and draw it forwards during weight support. However, mammals add some complexity to that non-supportive function of the biceps…

Hey mammals! Show us your biceps!

Jaguar forelimb with biceps peeking out from the other superficial muscles, and its cousin brachialis nicely visible.

Jaguar forelimb with biceps peeking out from the other superficial muscles, and its cousin brachialis nicely visible, running along the front of the forearm for a bit.

Elephant's left forelimb with the biceps labelled.

Elephant’s left forelimb with the biceps labelled.

Longitudinal slice thru the biceps of an elephant, showing the internal tendon.

Longitudinal slice thru the biceps of an elephant, showing the internal tendon that helps identify where the two bellies of the biceps fuse.

In certain mammals; the phylogenetic distribution of which is still not clear; the biceps brachii forms a key part of a passive “stay apparatus” that helps keep the forelimb upright against gravity while standing (even sleeping). The classic example is in horses but plenty of other quadrupedal mammals, especially ungulate herbivores, show evidence of similar traits:

Giraffe biceps cut away proximally to show the

Giraffe biceps cut away proximally to show the “stay apparatus” around the shoulder joint (upper right).

Zooming in on the

Zooming in on the “stay apparatus”; now in proximal view, with the biceps tendon on the left and the humeral head (showing some arthritic damage) on the right, with the groove for the biceps in between.

Hippo's humerus (upper left) and biceps muscle cut away proximally, displaying the same sort of

Hippo’s humerus (upper left) and biceps muscle cut away proximally, displaying the same sort of “stay apparatus” as in the giraffe. Again, note the stout proximal and distal tendons of the biceps. The proximal tendon fits into the groove of the humerus on the far left side of the image; becoming constrained into a narrow circular “tunnel” there. It’s neat to dissect that region because of its fascinating relationships between bone and soft tissues.

The biceps brachii, in those mammals with a stay apparatus, seems to me to have a larger tendon overall, especially around the shoulder, and that helps brace the shoulder joint from extending (retracting) too far backward, whilst also transmitting passive tension down the arm to the forearm, and bracing the elbow (as well as distal joints via other muscles and ligaments). It’s a neat adaptation whose evolution still needs to be further inspected.

Otherwise, I shouldn’t say this but the biceps is sort of boring, anatomically. Whether you’re a lizard, croc, bird or mammal, a biceps is a biceps is a biceps; more or less-ceps. But the biceps still has a clear evolutionary history and Darwin would gladly flex his biceps to raise a pint in toast to it.

So now we know a muscle better. That’s two muscles now. And that is good; be you predator or prey. Let’s shake on it!

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Unconventional Animals and Anatomy in Art: British Museum Part 2

Posted in Museums are Cool, tagged , , , , , on June 15, 2014| 5 Comments »

Welcome back to my two-part British Museum series; I covered crocodiles before. Here, I celebrate the less common creatures depicted in human art, design and culture. And we begin back in Egypt, with a bit of crocodile to provide a nice segue:

With the head and torso of a hippo, the legs of a lion and the tail of a crocodile, the Egyptian goddess Taweret just rocks. More info here- https://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aes/b/breccia_statue_of_taweret.aspx

With the head and torso of a hippo, the legs of a lion and the tail of a crocodile (not easily visible here), the Egyptian goddess Taweret just rocks. More info here.

Anatomy in art is best when the anatomy is actually used as a substrate for art, as in this later piece from Egypt, and another piece that follows it:

Scapula (shoulder blade) from an ox, from Roman Egypt. Click to embovine for closer examination and explantion.

Scapula (shoulder blade) from an ox, with Roman enscriptions. Click to embovine for closer examination and explanation.

~8000 BC red deer antler headdress from England (click to enstaggen for closer examination and text details).

~8000 BC red deer antler headdress from England (click to enstaggen for closer examination and text details in upper left). Picturing an Ice Age shaman wearing this gives me a sense of awe.

Human anatomy in our artwork, to my mind, reaches its pinnacle in Aztec religious masks like this, which was too cool to omit:

Use of a human skull to make a stunning mask decorated with obsidian, representing Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror and master of creation/destruction; slayer of Quetzalcoatl. Badass dial turned to 11!

Use of a human skull to make a stunning mask decorated with obsidian, representing Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror and master of creation/destruction; slayer of Quetzalcoatl. Badass dial turned to 11! He is also sometimes represented as a jaguar.

Continuing the mask theme, the following masks show off sawfish, sharks and other species from the region:

Awesome diversity of ceremonial fish masks from Africa.

Awesome diversity of ceremonial fish masks from Africa.

Lions find their way into plenty of artwork such as European royal heraldry. Yet the huge depictions of an Assyrian lion hunt in the British Museum are not only anatomically impressive but also evocative of a time long past, when Asian lions ranged far across human territories. In viewers today, however, they may inspire more sympathy for the fleeing lions than awe for the lordly charioteers, horsemen and archers that pursue them.

Assyrian lion hunt Royal Lion Hunt

I finish with some statues and other depictions of animals that are more globally uncommon than lions:

You don't see tapirs much in art but here seems to be one, as a bronze statuette from ~400s AD in China.

You don’t see tapirs much in art but here seems to be one, as a bronze statuette from ~400s AD in China.

Statue of the Indian elephant diety Ganesha from ~750 AD. As the placard explains, Ganesha got his elephant's head when Shiva freaked out and cut off the human one, then promised to make amends by substituting the head of the next animal he saw.

I love Indian artwork for its plethora of proboscideans. Here, a statue of the Indian elephant diety Ganesha from ~750 AD, engaged in a dance. As the placard explains, Ganesha got his elephant’s head when Shiva freaked out and cut off the human one, then promised to make amends by substituting the head of the next animal he saw.

North Chinese (~11-12th century) ceramic plate depicting a funky, vaguely humanoid dancing bear tied to a pole.

More dancing! North Chinese (~11-12th century) ceramic plate depicting a funky, vaguely humanoid dancing bear tied to a pole. The anatomical exaggerations here make the piece more memorable and vaguely demonic, but not so much as the next item.

The dance is over, thanks to ass demons. That’s right, ass demons. Many Burmese were surely frightened or inspired by these terracota warriors from 1400s AD. These warriors represented king Mara’s forces that attempted to disrupt the Buddha’s meditation. As ass demons would tend to do. (I hate it when that happens)

I hope you enjoyed this brisk dance through atypical animals and their anatomy in artwork! Coming next, a look at one of the greatest anatomists ever.

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A WIJF Anatomy Vignette: A Hippopotamus Femur With Funky Pathology

Posted in Anatomy Vignette, Frozen Mammals, When Anatomy Goes Bad, tagged , , , , , on February 7, 2013| 9 Comments »

I’m not sure if this is a new tradition at this blog or not (probably not), but hey let’s give it a name: an Anatomy Vignette. Just something curious I notice during my research that deserves more than just a tweet. I borrowed some bones from the University of Cambridge Museum of Zoology (whom I love, because they have great exhibits and are very research-friendly) to CT scan for some projects. I noticed this:

femur-path

And I thought “Ouch! That’s nasty, dude.” (the holes in the bone just above the knee joint– these should just be a roughened area where the adductor muscles and other leg muscles attach)

So I was interested to see the CT scan images to find out how these possibly osteomyelitic lesions continued into the bone. They’re really pervasive, continuing into the marrow cavity quite far up the femur, as this shows (good CT-viewing practice to match up what you are seeing in the photo above with this movie):

I would be surprised if this was not the reason this animal died (presumably being euthanased at a UK zoo). There would have been extensive infection and pain resulting from this bony disease. How did it originate? Who knows. Maybe the animal strained a muscle and bacteria got inside, or maybe there was a fall or other injury. Hard to tell.

Oh, and also note the lack of a true marrow cavity in hippos, which is true for all the long bones. The “cavity” is filled in with cancellous bone. Same with rhinos, elephants, and many other species… science doesn’t entirely know why but this feature surely does help support the body on land, and grants at least some extra negative buoyancy in water; at a cost of some extra weight to lug around, of course.

And so ends this Anatomy Vignette.

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RVC Anatomy Museum, Part 6- Skeleton Crew

Posted in Museums are Cool, tagged , , , , , , on August 18, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Well, I happened to take some more photos of a few of my favourite skeletons/bones from our Anatomy Museum during my last jaunt over to our Camden campus, and figured I might as well share them. So here you go! (Right now it’s so hot I wish I was a skeleton! Gigantothermy is not always so great) First, two views of our seated polar bear, which I learned this week is a celebrity— a model for the kickass armoured polar bears in the film The Golden Compass:

 

Then, also out in our cafe area you’ll find some nice smaller specimens in addition to our elephant. Such as:

A decent mount of a three-toed sloth is above; and below I’ll share several skulls including a second hippo (male? quite different morphology from the other one I showed):

And another charismatic megafauna, a ?black? rhinoceros (shown previously as a mounted skeleton in our old hall):

And a small gharial (Gavialis) skull:

Which can be nicely juxtaposed with a more robust Caiman (or our earlier Alligator):

And then a small wallaby:

Let’s go back inside. I have a few more friends for you to meet. Such as our chimp next to a Lucy skeleton (both casts), briefly glimpsed in my first post:

And a really, really gnarly-faced bulldog! Shudder.

During my brief perusal of the exhibits the other day, I realized I had never shared our nice knee joint dissection in my post on those specimens, nor had I included it in my knotations about knee joints. This is particularly egregious as I am now doing a year-long fellowship/sabbatical to study knee joints, in particular the patella (kneecap) of birds. Here, a dog, with helpful labels of the anatomy around the stifle:

And that’s all folks! I’m preparing a particularly wacky post for later, which will include lots of whimsical anatomy, so stay tuned and keep coooooooool!

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RVC Anatomy Museum, Part 5- Skele-tonnes

Posted in Museums are Cool, tagged , , , , , , , on August 7, 2012| 4 Comments »

Well, here we are at the end of our virtual tour of the RVC’s little-anatomy-museum-that-could. Soon we will return to our regularly scheduled programme of dismembered cadavers and frozen body segments. I know you’ve missed them.

This post has a Stomach-Churning Rating (SCR) of 2/10, unless either penis bones or the backs of knees really gross you out (then maybe 4/10 at worst, although there is a link hidden in the text that might really freak you out).

OK, here we go. You might remember this chap, the famed racehorse Foxhunter:

And the museum features sundry other domestic-type species and their close kin, such as this sheep (a Soay Ram):

And this skeleton that is probably also a sheep, unless it is a tricky goat (notice framed photo of Bodyworlds exhibit on wall):

As well as his barnyard buddy, a quite robust pig:

But I want to focus more here on the surprises that the museum’s collection of skeletons has to offer, like this tiger poised below the pig:

Along with a wide assortment of smaller mammals such as this kinkajou coatimundi (note: label is wrong; see this Twitter chat we had that solved this mystery):

And a rhesus monkey (our primate skeletal collection is not shabby at all!):

And a whole shelf of ossified dog (and other carnivore) penises, oh joy! (os baculum; the “penis bone” of various Primata, Rodentia, Insectivora, Carnivora and Chiroptera– the infamous mnemonic P.R.I.C.C. of comparative anatomy):

But, great as penises may be and much as the internet may love them, there is much more to see here. Carry on reading, or incur the wrath of the giant fossil walrus baculum [oosik]! (this, Freezerinos, is called an argument ad baculum, I have just discovered; had to share!)

As I mentioned way back in my first post, what really sold me on the museum when I first viewed it back in 2003 was the megafauna! Here’s a photo I dug up of how the rhino used to appear in the museum’s old settings:

And the hippo was close by:

My off-with-their heads bias rears its ugly cranial appendage here, but I’ve already shown you its skull, so rest easy craniophiles; you had your day of glory. It’s time to kneel before Zod, or in this case kneel before my collection of animal knee photos! I hate to remind you of the trauma, but I did promise this with the mystery emu knee dissection, so suppress your PTSD [knee TSD?] and come along quietly now… Let an elephant knee soothe your tortured soul (from here on, all knees are left knees, in caudal/rear view):

I’m going to continue on without providing longwinded interpretations. I’ll leave you to draw your own, and just enjoy the diversity of knee anatomy, with some surprises toward the end. Descending in the size scale from multi-tonnes to semi-tonnes, first, a rhino:

And then our hippo:

The RVC does not have a mounted giraffe skeleton but I can show you the knee from our dissections, now nice and tidy (note the absence of a fibula, reduced to a small tarsal (ankle) bone in many artiodactyls– but not pigs or hippos as you can see above; what consequences this change has for knee joint mechanics is entirely unknown! However, the fibula has such a small/nonexistent connection to the femur/knee joint in many large mammals that the consequences may be negligible; who knows.):

Now, a horse of course:

One reason I find knees so fascinating scientifically is that they are mechanically so complex (and often over-simplified as simple hinges) and yet so fragile (knee injuries are common in many species; poorly adapted humans in particular! To wit…). But I also love knees because they feature prominently in discussions of form and function in extinct animals; in particular, dinosaurs. Let’s not forget Scrotum humanum, either…

Consider a few representative dinosaur images (mostly from the AMNH; not RVC!) here, starting with my old pal Tyrannosaurus (sorry, dislocated knee in this mount; ouch!):

Now, a ceratopsian (probably Triceratops??), I think; photo-labelling fail! Could easily be some sort of hadrosaur or something, though:

For what its worth, sans massive cartilages, a sauropod knee to round out the holy trinity of Dinosauria:

Consider here how the fibula plays a greater role in the dinosaurian knee joint (as in birds, too, to some degree), compared with the mammals above. But also consider the whopping amount of soft tissues missing here, as made evident in the emu post. Daunting indeed.

We kneed to know more about knees before we can knavigate their aknatomy and make knew iknfereknces about their fukntiokn! And so I’m coming back full circle to my earlier anatomical studies this year to look more closely at knees in a variety of species; more about that later.

And that’s the end. I hope you liked the kneet photos and knurture the kneed to come back for my knext post, which will kontain more knormal spellikng.

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RVC’s Anatomy Museum, Part 2

Posted in Museums are Cool, tagged , , , , , , , on July 3, 2012| 2 Comments »

Last time I gave a quick overview of the museum and anatomy’s long history at the RVC. I’ll cover some of the cool skulls we have on display first, then in future posts the dissected specimens, then some of the neat birds and other exotic animals, and I’ll return to bones with a general overview of rockin’ skeletons at the end. Or something like that order. I am a fickle beast and might do otherwise. On with the show then!

So, skulls… I dread talking about skulls. As people on my research team know, I have at least one Cardinal Rule: I don’t work on skulls or heads. Except maybe skulls of Cardinals? Skull anatomy is too complex for my feeble old mind to grasp, and there are too many people working on them that are really great scientists, so I feel I have little to contribute to that area. But I do appreciate them, even if with a glazed look of apprehension and lack of comprehension. 🙂

It may not surprise you to learn that we have dog skulls in our vet anatomy museum, but you might be impressed by the selection! We have a case full of a diverse set of domestic breeds and non-domestic species (fox, wolf, etc.) of canids, shown above. There is bound to be a good research project in there somewhere- the plasticity of dog skeletons under humans’ artificial selection has done some amazing, and disturbing, stuff, especially to skulls and heads!

But I’m a cat lover and, lest the felids get jealous and enact their final vengeance upon us all, let me move quickly to our felid skull collection:

Yep, not just domestic cats but a nice assortment of lions, tigers and other hypercarnivorous predators! Many from local zoos, especially London Zoo over the past centuries/decades.

Not to be outdone, the ungulates are braying for predationattention, so let’s give them some love:

With some requisite horses thrown in but also quite a few exotic species! And right next to them is another case full of coneheads:

With one prominent member that definitely deserves a closeup, since giraffes are what got this blog started, and this is a lovely old ?male? specimen with honking big ossicones:

Don’t worry old bean, your artiodactyl chum the hippo is keeping you company, pip pip!

Look closely at the right side of the mandible (lower jaw) of that hippo and observe the lumpy bit in the middle of the jaw, which would be inside the cheek in life. That is apparently (I am no skull pathologist by any stretch) an impacted or otherwise severely wonky tooth, and it shows some signs of having been operated on, presumably to keep it from puncturing the cheek or getting infected. Ouch! (For comparison see this more normal, more toothsome skull) It is unilateral (just right side) so I presume this is a sound, if rough, diagnosis. Anyway, stunning skull nonetheless!

Stunning as that may be, archosaurs aren’t going to take this skull-off lying down! Here is one of our crocodylian species; an American Alligator (I think, but I know if I am wrong one of my readers will steer me to an alternative ID, presumably a common caiman, which I know we also have, along with a Tomistoma), with a turtle and python cowering behind it:

Indeed, some Alligator teeth,  with a horse jaw on display, make a lovely halo-like effect when viewed from a certain angle, in a set of shelves devoted to the diversity of tooth forms and functions:

But let’s get real, folks. Fish (OK systematists, non-tetrapod vertebrate) skulls could be said to blow away the diversity of tetrapod skulls. Or at least that’s what the wolffish is trying to tell us, from his vantage point in a display about jaws and ears (more evolutionary context, yay!):

And because I am not one to argue with a wolffish, I will let him have the last word. Hope you enjoyed another quick tour! I’ve only scratched the surface of our selection of skulls; there are plenty more good ones, so come visit sometime!

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