Tip of the crown of 1 tooth exposed, but no evidence of earbones…yet.

The OG whale (21 million years old) from Ocean Grove, Victoria @melbournemuseum. An odontocete. Skull elements at left, hammer for scale. #FossilFriday

Congratulations!

New evidence of a toothed mysticete from the Vaqueros Formation of California fills a gap in the palaeobiogeographic range of Aetiocetidae Abstract. Extant baleen whales (Mysticeti) are toothless aquatic predators that use keratinous baleen plates to capture and filter smaller prey. Although a

New pub! @royalsocietypublishing.org

New evidence of a toothed mysticete from the Vaqueros Formation of California fills a gap in the palaeobiogeographic range of Aetiocetidae url: royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

A 21-million-year-old fossil found along Victoria's Bellarine Peninsula has been recovered in what has been described as one of the largest and most complicated excavations in the state's history.

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02...

#fossils #paleontology

Incredible whale fossil discovered buried on Victorian beach | 9 News Australia YouTube video by 9 News Australia

youtu.be/aP0JRu0opMI?...

Cochlear analysis of Kekenodon onamata, a late Oligocene stem whale, suggests they specialised in low-frequency hearing, a trait of raptorial feeding in fossil whales. Low-frequency hearing may be characteristic of raptorial macrophagous fossil cetaceans @joshcorrie @Blogozoic

It’s Prosqualodon! Important new paper by Maxi Gaetan and colleagues on this enigmatic austral fossil odontocete #FossilFriday

aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

New Aussie dinos, including the first records of carcharodontosaurians and unenlagiines here!

Carnivorous dinosaurs thrived in Australia 120 million years ago, new fossils show Some of the new finds are the first evidence of these types of dinosaurs from Australia.

theconversation.com/carnivorous-...

Evolutionary and paleobiogeographic implications of new carcharodontosaurian, megaraptorid, and unenlagiine theropod remains from the upper Lower Cretaceous of Victoria, southeast Australia The Early Cretaceous non-avian theropod body fossil record of Victoria, Australia dominantly comprises isolated dental and postcranial remains. Numerous specimens have been collected from both the ...

Major advance in Aussie theropod dinosaurs by @monashuniversity.bsky.social and Museums Victoria PhD student @dinoman-jake.bsky.social

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Done!

An annotated checklist of Australasian fossil mammals Australasia has had a rich history of discovery of fossil mammals, with the first specimens collected within Wellington Caves, New South Wales and described by Richard Owen in 1838. Currently, a to...

New publication: taxonomy and classification of every fossil mammal species in Australasia—Wallace Line to New Zealand!

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The skeleton of Cynthiacetus, with an arrow pointing to it hind-legs

The skeleton of Cynthiacetus, with an arrow pointing to it hind-legs

Fossil #whale skeletons are genuinely amazing. #Whales evolved from four-legged hooved mammals (their closest relatives are hippos), & don't have hind-legs today (but they do have a pelvis). This is a 40-million-year-old whale called Cynthiacetus at @mnhn.fr, with a full leg skeleton. #FossilFriday

FISH!!!! Big hypural bone (tail tip vertebra) of a large marine fish from the latest Miocene of Beaumaris, Victoria, which will be studied in a new project starting very soon!

Whale skeletons

A Steller's sea cow skeleton flanked by two elephants

Antelope, cattle and deer skeletons

A fur seal skeleton at the front of a "herd" of hundreds of other skeletons all facing the same way

Hello from the best natural history gallery in the world. 🤩
The gallery of comparative anatomy at #Paris' National Museum of Natural History contains literally thousands of skeletal specimens. In my opinion, it has never been surpassed. #museums

Incredible views of the external morphology of Indopacetus pacificus, the holotype specimen of which is from Queensland, Australia!

Tyrannosaurus rex approaches a wary triceratops on a Cretaceous floodplain

Should probably remind folks I’m also an illustrator, you might see my work out in the wild on a cover like this recent one for Scientific American

Beth Zaiken paints a monumental mural featuring elk, bison and mammoths in a scenic river valley landscape

I started my career as a traditional painter, and I used to hand-paint gigantic canvas murals (like this 58’x14’ one from 2015 (c) Blue Rhino Studio). These days I’ve transitioned to doing the same kind of work, only digitally.

Quick comparison between a southern cassowary femur (top) and a recently found Late Miocene casuariid bird femur (bottom) from Beaumaris, Victoria

Landed in Perth ready for #SMM2024! Interested in the unique amphibious hearing abilities of pinnipeds? So am I!

Come see my talk on the evolutionary origins and anatomical evidence for amphibious hearing in seals!

Monday, 11:30am in Room 4 (Hearing Mechanisms) @marinemammalogy

Scientific figures from the paper, showing the skull of Romaleodelphis in dorsal view (left) and ventral view (right). The skull has a somewhat squashed braincase and a very long snut with a few preserved teeth - the teeth are small and conical, and all of the same shape.

The skull of Romaleodelphis in lateral (side) view, with the long narrow snout pointing to the left. The mandible is also shown: it is very long and fused along most of its length, with "homodont" teeth: the teeth are all conical, less than 1 cm long, and single rooted.

The periotic bones of Romaleodelphis - the inner ear bone. This thing looks more or less a piece of popcorn: it's got the spherical cochlea, perforated by several holes for nerves, and the anterior and posterior processes, more or less looking a bit like three merged peanut M&Ms with a few little articular facets, grooves, and holes in places.

New paper by Sanchez-Posada et al. in JVP: a new early Miocene dolphin, Romaleodelphis pollerspoecki, from Austria. Possibly related to Chilcacetus from Peru and some other poorly known long-snouted dolphins of the same time period. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

For #FossilFriday a trio of Early Miocene ‘shark-toothed cetacean’ teeth from Victoria, Australia