New blog post! A guide to whale and dolphin earbones - part 1

[Boesse]

Hi all - it's been a while, since I started on twitter and started teaching much of the itch I scratched through blog writing was taken care of by twitter - but now I've thought about returning to more long-format science communication. The blog format is certainly more informative for most fossil collectors anyway.

 

The new post is just the first in a series on whale and dolphin earbones - the first is an introduction to the basic anatomy and function of earbones, along with basic differences between baleen whale (Mysticeti) and dolphin (Odontoceti) earbones, with comments on their preservation, discovery, and their uses in cetacean taxonomy, cladistics, and studies of diversity. The next post will be the one most anticipated by the majority of collectors - a guide to identifying dolphin periotics by family. The third post will be similar, but directed towards mysticete periotics, and the fourth will cover mysticete and odontocete tympanic bullae.

 

Read it here:

https://coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2022/12/bobbys-guide-to-whale-dolphin-earbones.html

 

Obligatory photo of some periotics we collected out on Charleston harbor on Dec. 1, well worth boots full of freezing cold water:

 

 

[Shellseeker]

Thanks for all you do.  You are a huge part of my education on marine mammals.