By Robert Boessenecker (@CoastalPaleo) and Sarah Boessenecker (tetrameryx) Happy Fossil Friday! Porpoises belong to the modern family Phocoenidae, and are one of the less diverse ‘families’ of modern echolocating whales (Odontoceti), with six species in three genera. They are all …

Friday Fossil Feature – What Makes a Fossil Hunter Happy? Finding His Porpoise! Read more »

By Robert Boessenecker (@CoastalPaleo) and Sarah Boessenecker (@tetrameryx) Happy Fossil Friday! Earlier this week a new paper from CCNHM paleontologist Robert Boessenecker was published in the open access journal PLoS One, reporting new anatomical details for the extinct dolphin Albertocetus …

Friday Fossil Feature – 4 Specimens are Dolphinately Better Than 1 Read more »

By Robert Boessenecker (@CoastalPaleo) Happy Fossil Friday! Last week saw the publication of a new paper naming our spectacularly preserved toothed baleen whale Coronodon havensteini. The article was published in Current Biology by Jonathan Geisler and Brian Beatty from NYIT, …

Friday Fossil Feature – Sinking Your Teeth into Coronodon Read more »

By Sarah Boessenecker (@tetrameryx) and Robert Boessenecker (@CoastalPaleo) Happy Fossil Friday! Over Memorial Day weekend, museum paleontologists Bobby and Sarah Boessenecker traveled to the town of Aurora, North Carolina for the 24th annual Aurora Fossil Festival.  Aurora is tiny – …

Friday Fossil Feature – 2017 Aurora Fossil Fest! 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! 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) 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 »