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Ancient Whale Skulls and Directional Hearing: A Twisted Tale

By Guest PostAugust 25, 2011Nature, Scienceaaron wood, archaeocetes, asymmetric skulls, baleen whales, basilosaurus isis, biological sonar, ct scans, echolocation, fossil, julia fahlke, modern whale, mysticetes, national science foundation, nsf, odontocetes, paleontologist, philip gingerich, richard lane, robert welsh, signs of artificial deformation, skewed skulls, symmetrical skulls, terrestrial mammals, three dimensional digital model, three dimensional torsion, toothed whales, twist, university of michigan

*Skewed skulls may have helped early whales find direction of sounds in water*

Skewed skulls may have helped early whales find the direction of sounds in water and are not solely, as previously thought, a later adaptation related to echolocation.

Scientists affiliated with the University of Michigan and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) report the finding in a paper published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (more…)

Colossal Fossil: Museum’s New Whale Skeleton Represents Decades of Research

By Guest PostDecember 18, 2010Nature, Scienceamy harris, anthropology, basilosaurus isis, basilosaurus skeleton, egyptian desert, evolution, extinct whale, fossil, fossil whales, fossilized basilosaurus vertebra, museum, natural history, philip gingerich, sea, sediment, skeleton, the evolution of whales, unesco world heritage site, valley of the whales, wadi hitan, william sanders

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—There’s a whale of a new display at the University of Michigan Exhibit Museum of Natural History, a leviathan that represents a scientific saga of equally grand proportions.

A complete, 50-foot-long skeleton of the extinct whale Basilosaurus isis, which lived 37 million years ago, now is suspended from the ceiling of the museum’s second floor gallery and will reign over an updated whale evolution exhibit scheduled to open in April 2011. (more…)

Tag Archives: basilosaurus isis

Ancient Whale Skulls and Directional Hearing: A Twisted Tale

Colossal Fossil: Museum’s New Whale Skeleton Represents Decades of Research