True Sea Otter

[Boesse]

Hey all, I'm posting this in acknowledgment of Christopher Pirrone's donation - he is @oreodont but I'm not sure he posts here that much any more. Chris was generous enough to mail this specimen to NZ in 2014 while I was doing my Ph.D. so I could prepare and study it. I molded and casted the specimen for him. Sea otter fossils are as rare as hen's teeth.

 

Enhydra sp.
Merced Formation, middle Pleistocene (670-620 Ka)

San Francisco, California, USA.

Donated to University of California Museum of Paleontology, Berkeley, CA.

This specimen was collected from a well-dated horizon in the Merced Formation and constitutes the earliest example of a true sea otter (Enhydra) in the Pacific basin, indicating that sea otters are a recent invader from the Arctic/North Atlantic. Here's the paper: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10914-016-9373-6

 

Edited February 2, 2017 by Boesse

[JohnJ]

@Boesse

 

Bobby, thanks for posting this specimen and the link.  It's another great example of the active collaboration between amateurs and professionals in paleontology. 

 

(I moved your post into its own topic in the Partners in Paleontology forum.) 

[Mike Pocock]

Hi Informative post thanks for the link

 

Regards

Mike

[jpc]

Yee haaa....