Need help identifying this beach find?

I don’t know, but it looks cool!

By the way- though I would love an identification guesses are good too!

Clearly you have found the top of a Sleestak skull! Awesome find!!

hahahaha @forestGeek

i don’t know what it is. but it better not be in the atlantic.

Wow, I tried looking it up. My best advice would be to take that bone to a biology professor or to a local museum and see if someone can’t find the answer for you.

Please report back here if you find out what it belonged to. Now I’m curious!

a Manta?

Of course it could just be part of a much larger animal, such as a whale or something. Interesting find.

Last summer I was on the beach with my daughter and saw what must obviously have been some type of eel (snake-like body, no fins), but the head looked so much like a dolphin, with the characteristic nose!

I had looked up ray skeletons initially, but it didn’t resemble the parts that are in Dog’s photos.

@SpatzieLover: Me too. I tried sting rays and mantas. They are too big unless Dog’s photo was of a baby. The carapace certainly reminded me of the shape of a Sting Ray missile.

@gailcalled Even if it were a baby, it didn’t seem to match up. So perplexing. I likened the shape to that type of aquatic life, though.

@SpatzieLover : I have to leave now but what about a small horseshoe crab? That thing sticking up does look like a tail.

@gailcalled I have to leave for now, too (it’s a beautiful day & I promised my son we’d go swing at the park;)

I think you’re on the right track. That aligns better with dog’s part.

To me, it looks like a section of a skull. The part that sticks up would be where neck muscles attach.

@gailcalled
AFAIK we don’t have horseshoe crabs on the West Coast, and their tails look much different.

I was thinking something like horseshoe crab too, but I hear what you’re saying, crisw.

Actually, what you found is the sternum of a sea bird. I don’t know which species of bird but you compare it to this Gull skeleton and see where it goes.

That big flange that sticks up is where the flight muscles attach to the chest, and the zigzag edges are where the ribs were attached.

@Darwin Fantastic! That has to be it! BRAVO!

Then the rest of the bones I found are not related!

HERE is a link to the other bones. You will see the measuring tape in the background to show that they are long and wide and cannot possibly be part of a seabird.

I have flipped them to give different perspectives.

Again- guesses are welcome as well.

The flange on the gull skeleton is disclike. It does not have a point like your bones. Your bones, @Dog, have a finlike protrusion that is not even and rounded. However, the breast cavity does look similar.

Definitely not a horseshoe crab, I agree.

@Dog – those look like fish bits to me.

@Jeruba – it probably isn’t from a Gull, but it is from some sort of bird.

i figure maybe a stingray or a manta ray

As to the first one- we have Heron out here so that is a possibility as well. I am researching Heron skeletons right now.

@Darwin- fish bits?

@Darwin
I do think bird sternum is right- hadn’t rotated it enough in my head to see that! I was too busy thinking sagittal crest…

I’ve just looked at a bunch of bird skeletons and ruled out owls, ravens, eagles. pelicans, albatrosses, and great auks. But they are all similar enough that I do think Darwin is right, it’s a bird.

@Dog – By fish bits I mean the various parts that make up the skull of a fish. Here is a diagram that shows the various curved pieces that make up a fish skull. Unfortunately not all the bones are named here but you can see generally where some of the bits you have would go. Bear in mind that different species of fish will have slightly different shapes to the various pieces.

One nice thing about fish bits as skeletons is that they don’t have any woggly parts.

@Darwin How fascinating!
I think I have identified a Cleithrum. The fish must have been rather large in life. I never knew the skulls were so complex.

Many many thanks and lurve for helping me solve the mysteries of my beach finds.
I lurve Fluther!

Not a very good picture, but at first when I saw the bigger bones, I thought about a horseshoe crab, but I guess they are only in the Atlantic.

Pretty cool stuff you found tho!

I have seen plenty of horseshoe crabs up close, and handled some (to prove I wasn’t chicken), in a little creek the kids used to frequent, running into Quincy Bay in Massachusetts. Definitely not like this.They’re a shell and a long spike of a tail.

@dog Beats the Hell outta me, but love your presentation.

And actually horseshoe crabs don’t have any bones – they are invertebrates related to spiders.

No – but I thought it was a piece of the shell.

Horseshoe crab shell doesn’t resemble bone at all in that for one it is tan in color, and two, it has the texture of fingernails. It is bendable rather than stiff.

Have you ever actually met a horseshoe crab?

The ones in our creek were black like lobsters.

Looks like a turtle possibly? or stingray