Uhen Lab

05/11/2017

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)30435-9

Congratulations to our colleague Olivier Lambert for the earliest Mysticete!

Lambert et al. describe a new toothed cetacean from the late Eocene of Peru. Being the oldest known baleen whale relative (Mysticeti), its skeletal morphology provides crucial information about the archaeocete-neocete transition, suggesting a specialization toward suction and possibly benthic feedin...

03/08/2017

For today's , enjoy one of the rarest whales on earth!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/03/07/one-of-the-worlds-rarest-whales-has-been-caught-on-film-for-the-first-time/?utm_term=.492cef4c436b

Students captured images of the True's beaked cetacean, which spends about 92 percent of its time below the sea's surface.

02/15/2017

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967064516303873

More beaked whales + more South American fossils = win!

A fossil skull of a beaked whale was newly collected by a manned submersible from the São Paulo Ridge of the Atlantic floor about 2900 m deep off the coast of Brazil. It was found in the middle of the manganese nodules on the seafloor. The whale fossil can be dated sometime between the middle Miocen...

02/08/2017

And something a little more appropriate for this . Major congrats to Travis Park and coauthors for this one!

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/284/1848/20162528?etoc

Living baleen whales (mysticetes) produce and hear the lowest-frequency (infrasonic) sounds among mammals. There is currently debate over whether the ancestor of crown cetaceans (Neoceti) was able to detect low frequencies. However, the lack of information on the most archaic fossil mysticetes has p...

02/08/2017

New developmental mechanisms for the Mammalian middle ear? Why yes, we're interested!

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/284/1848/20162416?etoc

Multiple mammalian lineages independently evolved a definitive mammalian middle ear (DMME) through breakdown of Meckel's cartilage (MC). However, the cellular and molecular drivers of this evolutionary transition remain unknown for most mammal groups. Here, we identify such drivers in the living mar...

02/06/2017

https://medium.com//picture-a-paleontologist-what-do-they-look-like-4c56c32fe56d #.c4ilmh1zv

Great to see so many friendly, and diverse, faces! Check out Uhen Lab members within!

Inspired by a conversation with paleontologist Ali Nabavizadeh, I decided to do a photoshoot at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Society of…

10/12/2016

Nice article on the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History's impressive fossil and extant whale collection. The video features Smithsonian Paleobiology Nick Pyenson talking about the collection, its history and its uniqueness

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/10/12/the-bones-in-the-smithsonians-whale-warehouse-are-relics-of-a-lost-world/?hpid=hp_local-news_smithsonian-1245pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

How 20th century whaling turned the abundance of the Antarctic into a killing field, and the NMNH warehouse into “a collection that cannot be made again."

10/06/2016

Check it out! A new baleen whale that preserves fossil baleen!

http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/3/10/160542

09/21/2016

http://satlw2017.naturkundemuseum.berlin

Also, for those interested, mark your calendars for a trip to Berlin this coming April!

09/21/2016

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mms.12363/full

And finally, something from our local Calvert Formation! Check out this awesome paper on flipper evolution.

Marine Mammal Science Explore this journal > Explore this journal > Early View Previous article in Early View: Insights into Blainville's beaked whale (Mesoplodon densirostris) echolocation ontogeny from recordings of mother-calf pairs Previous article in Early View: Insights into Blainville's beake...

09/21/2016

https://peerj.com/articles/2479/

Then a shoutout to our colleague Olivier Lambert for their new beaked whales from South America!

The Ziphiidae (beaked whales) represent a large group of open-ocean odontocetes (toothed cetaceans), whose elusive and deep diving behavior prevents direct observation in their natural habitat. Despite their generally large body size, broad geographical distribution, and high species number, ziphiid...

09/21/2016

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00288306.2016.1211540?needAccess=true

First up is a key new dolphin from the Early Miocene of New Zealand!

(2016). Papahu-like fossil dolphin from Kaikoura, New Zealand, helps to fill the Early Miocene gap in the history of Odontoceti. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics. Ahead of Print. doi: 10.1080/00288306.2016.1211540