New Marine Mammal Assemblage From Pliocene Of California (Shameless Self Promotion)

[Boesse]

Hey all, I hadn't seen this posted yet so I thought I'd take care of that. Here's a press release for a recent paper I published in the journal Geodiversitas on a new Pliocene marine mammal assemblage from the Purisima Formation of Northern California. I report 18 species of pinnipeds, baleen whales, and toothed whales, including a new extinct species of the modern genus Balaenoptera, named Balaenoptera bertae after San Diego State University paleontologist Annalisa Berta, who has made numerous contributions to the study of marine mammal paleontology, evolution, and functional anatomy.

Here's the press release, and a life restoration of the extinct whale which I produced recently:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140205103701.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fplants_animals+%28Plants+%26+Animals+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

[xonenine]

congratulations Boesse

[Auspex]

I will add my accolades; well done Bobby!

[piranha]

I will add a big congrats for this magnum opus at 126 pages!! The paper is available at Bobby's academia.edu website: LINK

[Plantguy]

Mighty impressive Mr. Boesse!

Congrats Bobby!

Regards, Chris

[xonenine]

I am already immensely enjoying reading some about real world fossil deposition here, after the Model papers And how well remarked these papers are, with great legends and diagrams, illustrations, I will be here a while too, and I see I will get as many morphology lessons as one could hope for, (again, with the extra help of the well remarked photos and drawings) thanks Boesse.

Edited February 16, 2014 by xonenine

[Boesse]

Thanks, guys! I will specifically go ahead and note that this paper is probably of interest to amateur paleontologists since quite a few different bones/teeth of numerous different types of marine mammals are figured prominently in the paper, including many earbones.

Anyway, let me know if you folks have any questions about it.

[JohnJ]

Looks like an excellent reference, Bobby. Very cool.

[siteseer]

Bobby.

That looks like a lot of work. Seriously, I went through it and decided it was a great paper - nice photos of specimens too. I liked the correlative chart so you see your deposit relative to others in time around the world. I liked the 'poster" showing all the animals in the water column. Maybe you should draw up a poster with all the animals detailed and then offer it for sale as "limited edition prints.".

You might know about "Graveyard of the Deep" by Michael Meaker. It is an artwork of many of the Sharktooth Hill animals in the water column featured in LACM's 1990 exhibition, "Sharks...Fact and Fantasy. The museum sold posters for a while. People seemed to like it because I've seen a couple of individuals ripping it off (the mako and/or the Allodesmus). One guy who has a certain great white shark website simply mirrored the mako and with a couple of other tiny changes actually signed it as his work.

Anyway, your blog is great too.

Jess

.

Hey all, I hadn't seen this posted yet so I thought I'd take care of that. Here's a press release for a recent paper I published in the journal Geodiversitas on a new Pliocene marine mammal assemblage from the Purisima Formation of Northern California. I report 18 species of pinnipeds, baleen whales, and toothed whales, including a new extinct species of the modern genus Balaenoptera, named Balaenoptera bertae after San Diego State University paleontologist Annalisa Berta, who has made numerous contributions to the study of marine mammal paleontology, evolution, and functional anatomy.

Here's the press release, and a life restoration of the extinct whale which I produced recently:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140205103701.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fplants_animals+%28Plants+%26+Animals+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

[Boesse]

Hey Jess,

Yup, this was an unbelievable amount of work! I started fieldwork in 2005 (but discovered the locality in 2004), and completed fossil preparation in 2011. I basically started writing this paper up within a month or two of finishing my master's program, and continued writing for about 14 months until I was able to submit it. As far as the poster goes... it's a nice idea, but that would be an immense amount of work. I've already had the press release and completed artwork for that (posted above) and need to turn towards finishing an illustration I started in August and complete a commission.

I did see that LACM exhibition poster - it's on the wall about 20 feet down the hall from Barnes' office at LACM. It's a nice one. Didn't realize that about the poster, though. To be honest, I don't care much for art being ripped off, so here's the image in question. Now that you mention it, that is a pretty blatant rip off of the poster.

http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/evolution/megalodon_lives.htm