This a single vertebrae from the spine of a minke whale, a small baleen whale occasionally spotted around St. Paul. The long flat vertebral processes are characteristic of a whale, and I know its from a minke because the skull was about a mile up the beach. Judging from the length of the spinous process (or vertical, long bit pointing right), I would assume this puzzle piece fits into the lumbar region of the spine, an area with restricted twisting motion that mainly supports the up and down swim pattern of an marine mammal. Huge muscles that controlled this whale's propulsion ran from the base of the skull all the way to the flukes, and would have laid on top of the two transverse processes (or horizontal, two bits pointing up and down) like a slab of meat on a shelf. It's difficult to see in this photo, but in each vertebrae where the three processes meet there's a hole. When combined these holes create a channel that protects the nerves and blood vessel running the length of the body. Nothing like a bit of whale anatomy over a morning coffee.
Canon EOS 60D, Canon EF17-40mm f/4L USM, ISO-200 f/16 @ 1/160 sec.
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