Whale vertebra?

[Callistemon]

Another well-balanced object in our region:

 

[SusanLR]

Is there a University where you could take photos and a piece of the bone to for analysis?
It could be dated and maybe the DNA identified.
Some universities will do this for free just to have a school project. Biology department.

It does look like a part of the skull on the bottom. Lucky you to find the object!

 

[Callistemon]

I don't think it's necessary to undertake expensive analyses, @SusanLR. A person knowledgeable about whale anatomy would probably have this in two seconds flat, just from the visual. The bones are really too big to be from any other vertebrate that's still around than a whale. We do get whale bones washed up on this coast now and again, it's just that I was stumped trying to work out which bit of the whale it was!

I could of course zap it off to the Marine Science people in the local uni, but we have several biologists here, myself included, and sometimes it's just fun trying to work out the puzzle with others, rather than being given the answer immediately by someone to whom it is completely obvious. Though I will eventually forward it on to a good marine vertebrate anatomist if we can't figure it out here!

 

[GafferGragz]

To me it seems that the lover part of the vertebrae is broken off!? The skull bone has a hole in it?
Anyway I always feel a bit giddy with the fact that the closest relatives to whales living today are hippos. No one had a clue until DNA was compared. Re the size of the thing, if its a blue whale, the aorta of it is also human sized.

How awesome it must have been to find it.

Cheers

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

...maybe the tall projecting bit is from the front end of a whale and the flattish bit is a part of the skull after all, @Gerald Wilgus - and maybe it has a cervical vertebra attached to it? I still can't quite figure it out.

Does anyone here have one of those 3D-puzzle minds that enable them to look at the head of this whale skeleton and the picture of the UFO from the beach and work out which bit it could be?

Those nasal bones could be a candidate - they're pretty straight...if you split them along the line...and would remove the bamboozlement from having a spinal projection that deep (which we've probably already eliminated), or from the lack of curvature making a bad fit for a rib...

I am more convinced that it is part of the skull with the nasal bone. Please let me know what it turns out to be. I enjoy some anatomy and taxonomy. I enjoy helping with insect surveys on local rivers to measure water quality. I am getting pretty good at identifying macroinvertebrates down to family level.

 

[GafferGragz]

Another well-balanced object in our region:

Are there many of these nicely 'dropped' stones?

 

[Callistemon]

To me it seems that the lover part of the vertebrae is broken off!? The skull bone has a hole in it?
Anyway I always feel a bit giddy with the fact that the closest relatives to whales living today are hippos. No one had a clue until DNA was compared. Re the size of the thing, if its a blue whale, the aorta of it is also human sized.

How awesome it must have been to find it.

Cheers

Hey and welcome - I'm new here too. Nice to have another person with lots of interests here! I saw your intro thread.

Nature is very amazing and endlessly fascinating.

 

[Callistemon]

Are there many of these nicely 'dropped' stones?

This one eroded in situ and happened to stay up because balanced. But we have lots of these big chunks of granite all around the place making little natural Stonehenges etc. Some of the granite here dates at over a billion years - we have unbelievably ancient rocks and landscapes.

I will post some photos tomorrow when I am not on an iPad which is too slow for posting really!

 

[Callistemon]

That’s a really cool find. It reminds me of the time I found a whole lemon shark on a beach once, it was very exciting.

That kind of sounds like a recipe, @Owliet.

 

[GafferGragz]

This one eroded in situ and happened to stay up because balanced. But we have lots of these big chunks of granite all around the place making little natural Stonehenges etc. Some of the granite here dates at over a billion years - we have unbelievably ancient rocks and landscapes.

I will post some photos tomorrow when I am not on an iPad which is too slow for posting really!

Mkay. I just thought that if there are more of the same 'dropped' in the landscape, eroded in situ isn't always a good explanation. Is there a softer layer of rock or is it close enough to be water washed? Can it be ice age related i.e. rafted in by ice floats. I didn't catch the location, so the brain sort of go poof!

 

[Owliet]

I know that at least it is not from a mammoth.

That kind of sounds like a recipe, @Owliet.

I didn't eat it. My sister took it back to the place we where staying at the time and put it in the bath. My mom was not impressed. Dad found it hilarious.

I have processed various animal bones before, although most of them are from cows and sheep. Have done an archaeological excavation processing on a mammoth femur once. It was very exciting as it was a sub-adult. =D

 

[Callistemon]

Mkay. I just thought that if there are more of the same 'dropped' in the landscape, eroded in situ isn't always a good explanation. Is there a softer layer of rock or is it close enough to be water washed? Can it be ice age related i.e. rafted in by ice floats. I didn't catch the location, so the brain sort of go poof!

I'll post about that tomorrow! We are in Western Australia and the geology here is very interesting. Tasmania has more examples of the ice/glacier processes you mention. And as for that rock, it's in one of the most ancient mountain ranges on the planet, which was once islands in an ocean that laid down the Stirling Ranges to the north of it, when multicellular life was only just beginning.

 

[Tom]

It looks old, but not that old, so I would get out of there if I was you before another one comes along.

 

[Suzette]

I can't see your face so probably the all-possibilities-covered reply here should be, "Yes, a metaphorical UFO."

DH and I are always playing word games and looking for fun, ridiculous epithets. So any object we don't know is a UFO whether or not it flies!

And anyway, you could make anything fly given enough force, however temporarily...

Probably already noted: UFO - Unidentified Floating Object.

That is the best I can do. Very cool though!

 

[Tom]

I was only kidding about the giant chicken, because as everyone knows really big bones only come from dinosaurs. So what you have there is likely the 4th or 5th vertabra spatulata of a teenaged Spinosaurus. The lack of a neural canal is easily explained by the fact the Spinosaurus's are known not to be the nervous type.

 

[Tom]

Wrong again! But in my defense this creature was only identified in a paper made public a few days ago.

It's most definately from a Vampyropod. Huge weird 10 tentacled relations of Octopi that get their name because they were vampires the sucked the blood out of people. Probably at night. The piece you have there is probably a big stinger they used to imobilize their prey.

Fossil coleoid cephalopod from the Mississippian Bear Gulch Lagerstätte sheds light on early vampyropod evolution | Nature Communications

Still Sorry I just love making up stuff.

 

[Kalinychta]

Wrong again! But in my defense this creature was only identified in a paper made public a few days ago.

It's most definately from a Vampyropod. Huge weird 10 tentacled relations of Octopi that get their name because they were vampires the sucked the blood out of people. Probably at night. The piece you have there is probably a big stinger they used to imobilize their prey.
View attachment 76947

Fossil coleoid cephalopod from the Mississippian Bear Gulch Lagerstätte sheds light on early vampyropod evolution | Nature Communications

Still Sorry I just love making up stuff.

He’s so cute. He’s got puppy dog eyes and a long, jolly beard.

 

[Owliet]

Anyway I always feel a bit giddy with the fact that the closest relatives to whales living today are hippos. No one had a clue until DNA was compared.

Yes, i have the same feeling about that the closest Living animalS to elephant are dugong, manatees and hyraxes.

 

[Callistemon]

It looks old, but not that old, so I would get out of there if I was you before another one comes along.

View attachment 76943

Bwahahaha!

Can you imagine Kentucky Fried Oviraptosaur? You could feed the whole extended family and everyone's friends...

Unlike Kentucky Fried Archaeopteryx...

 

[Callistemon]

I was only kidding about the giant chicken, because as everyone knows really big bones only come from dinosaurs. So what you have there is likely the 4th or 5th vertabra spatulata of a teenaged Spinosaurus. The lack of a neural canal is easily explained by the fact the Spinosaurus's are known not to be the nervous type.

Bwahahaha! Excellent! This is such fun!

Here's another theory: