Another Duck Bulla Bone/Syrnix
As I said in my post Domestic Muscovy Duck Duck Quack Box/Bulla Bone/Syrnix, I feel there's a general lack of waterfowl syrnix references online. I shared mine, but it was not in prime shape. Fortunately, I now have a second Cairina moschata domestica quack box in much better condition than my previous one that I think would be very valuable to share.
The new one is one the left, the old one on the right.
I assumed my old one might have been so thin because of how I cleaned it, but it makes sense Muscovy voice boxes are so much thinner than other ducks (1, 2) when you think about their calls. Muscovy ducks make low, weak and breathy sounds, and aren't generally wont to vocalizations.
I'm thrilled at the concept of more obscure anatomical elements being able to be identified so precisely. If you're in Muscovy duck territory and find a disembodied voice box around an inch/3 centimetres long that is exceptionally paper-y and thin, the good likelihood (I assume) is that it would be a Muscovy. Very few ducks are as quiet as them.
It's easy to identify mute swan sternums on a similar principle; all other Cygnus species have a thick keel to store extra windpipe to project their calls, while mute swans are the most "mute" of swans and lack this anatomical feature. You can see that clearly here with a Whooper swan as comparison, but all other Cygnus have that extra windpipe storage.
If any other views or measurements could be helpful to you, comment or message me and I'll be more than happy to take pictures of whatever you need.
8/10/23
Found another photo, this time of an Anas acuta syrnix: http://museum2.utep.edu/archive/birds/DDsyrinx.htm
Comments
Cool! So you collect bird bones? How do you keep them?
Exceptionally delicate items like these syrnix and my starling
sclerotic eye ring (last two pictures) I keep in small plastic or glass jars (much like these, https://www.michaels.com/mini-storage-containers-by-bead-landing/10505630.html, but I also reuse a lot of containers for storage). For small birds the whole skeleton can fit in empty tea boxes or small Really Useful Boxes, and my bigger birds go in shoe or shipping boxes. And really large bones can just sit on a shelf, especially because some of them like duck sternums I find myself bringing to my computer for IDing somewhat frequently, putting those away would be a massive inconvenience.
I see, thanks for the links! This is pretty cool!
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