by Robert Boessenecker (@CoastalPaleo) & Sarah Boessenecker (@tetrameryx) Happy Fossil Friday! Two weeks ago, fossil collector Lee Cone (President of the Special Friends of the Aurora Fossil Museum) donated a spectacular skeleton of a large baleen whale (Mysticeti) from the …

Friday Fossil Feature – Fintastic surfprises from Lee Cone’s Whale Read more »

by Robert Boessenecker (@CoastalPaleo) and Sarah Boessenecker (@tetrameryx) Happy Fossil Friday! We’re back after a long hiatus, to talk about our most recent donation – A new gray whale from the Lee Creek Mine, NC, donated by Lee Cone. The …

Friday Fossil Feature – 50 Shades of Gray (whale, that is) Read more »

By Robert Boessenecker (@CoastalPaleo) and Sarah Boessenecker (@tetrameryx) Happy Fossil Friday! We all know that odontocetes (toothed whales and dolphins) use echolocation – this bio-sonar allows them to find their way under water and hunt their prey. They send a …

Friday Fossil Feature – A Closer Look at the Echo Hunter Read more »

By Sarah Boessenecker (@tetrameryx)   Happy Fossil Friday! Today we’re writing to thank local fossil collector, and founder of the Palmetto Paleontological Society, Mark Bunce. Mark has a passion for fossils, and started our local fossil club 2 years ago; …

Friday Fossil Feature – An Over-Whale-Ming Donation! Read more »

By Sarah Boessenecker (@tetrameryx) and Robert Boessenecker (@CoastalPaleo)   Happy Fossil Friday! Today we’re looking at Agorophius pygmaeus, one of the first named odontocetes from North America. Agorophius has a long, complicated history –  and it starts right here, in …

Friday Fossil Feature – whale, whale, whale, it seems all is not lost after all! Read more »

By Sarah Boessenecker (@tetrameryx) Happy Fossil Friday! Fossils don’t prepare themselves, and rarely come out of the ground looking the way you seem them on display in a museum. Here at the CCNHM, we are building a team of dedicated, …

Friday Fossil Feature – The head bone’s connected to the… neck bone… Read more »

by Sarah Boessenecker (@tetrameryx) and Robert Boessenecker (@CoastalPaleo) Happy Fossil Friday! Did you know that walruses used to live in the Southeastern US? From about 4 million years ago to as recently as 300,000 years ago these tusked behemoths were …

Friday Fossil Feature – Thinking of a Good Walrus Pun is No Easy Tusk… Read more »

by Sarah Boessenecker (@tetrameryx) Happy Fossil Friday! This week we take a look at Gavialosuchus americanus. Gavialosuchus americanus wasn’t actually an alligator; rather, they were more closely related to today’s gharials and crocodiles. Crocodile puns, however, don’t seem to have …

Friday Fossil Feature – An investi-Gator of the Oligocene of South Carolina Read more »

By Robert Boessenecker (@CoastalPaleo) and Sarah Boessenecker (@tetrameryx) For Fossil Friday this week here’s a couple of pygmy sperm whale earbones from the recently acquired Rita McDaniel collection at the Mace Brown Museum of Natural History. McDaniel led mine tours …

Friday Fossil Feature – Kogia let us tell you about earbones again? Read more »

By Sarah Boessenecker (@tetrameryx) Spring break: a time for fun, relaxation, road trips, and partying… for students at least. For visiting researchers Dr. Morgan Churchill and Dr. Brian Beatty, it was a prime time to visit the collections at CCNHM …

How we spent our Spring Break Read more »