San Diego Natural History Museum Paleontology Department

03/15/2022

Photos from San Diego Natural History Museum's post

03/05/2022

Science News Alert! 👇

05/24/2021

NewsCenter | SDSU | Ancient Baleen Whales Had a Mouthful

NewsCenter | SDSU | Ancient Baleen Whales Had a Mouthful

CT scans of a 25 million year-old fossil skull show the Aetiocetus weltoni had both teeth and baleen, unlike modern whales.

04/16/2021

How many Tyrannosaurus rex walked the ancient world? About 2.5 billion.

How many Tyrannosaurus rex walked the ancient world? About 2.5 billion.

Scientists used the fossil record of T. rex and the principles of population ecology to estimate dinosaur demographics and the chances of finding an extinct animal in the fossil record.

02/09/2021

8-Year-Old Calls Out NPR For Lack Of Dinosaur Stories

8-Year-Old Calls Out NPR For Lack Of Dinosaur Stories

How can All Things Considered consider all things without considering dinosaurs? That's the question posed by 8-year-old Leo Shidla of Minneapolis.

12/12/2019

2-3 Million Year Old Whale Skull from Chula Vista

A message from the lab.

05/10/2019

Commentary: The ecosystem collapse is already happening. For humans, this is life and death.

As written in today's op-ed: We need to add a caveat to Jeff Goldblum’s famous line in “Jurassic Park,” “Life finds a way,” when we give it a chance.

Nature conservation should not just be the responsibility of a few government agencies and nonprofits. It needs to be integrated into economic development plans, human health policy, and more.

01/31/2019

The State of Biodiversity

Curious about the state of our local ? Join us at the 2nd Annual State of Symposium coming up on Wednesday, February 6. will share info on emerging threats, current , and more. Tickets to this day-long event are still available and can be purchased at www.sdnat.org/stateofbiodiversity.

01/08/2019

Doodle 4 Google 2018 - US Winner

Have you seen today's ? It's an illustration drawn by a second-grader who wants to be a when she grows up. Adorable!

Rock out with the 2018 winner "Dino Doodle" by Sarah Gomez-Lane! 🦖🦕

04/28/2017

Groundbreaking Discovery: An Evening with the Cerutti Mastodon Scientists

Tickets for this Saturday's NATtalk are sold out. However, we have decided to open up a limited amount of virtual tickets for folks to join via live stream. Registration required. Click below to sign up.

Join the authors of the manuscript titled “A 130,000-year-old archaeological site in southern California, U.S.A.” that is scheduled to be published in the April 27 issue of the prestigious science journal Nature.

04/28/2017

Retired San Diego Natural History Museum Paleontologist Richard Cerutti (left) and Curator of Paleontology and Director of PaleoServices Dr. Tom Deméré (right) examining a drawer full of Cerutti Mastodon site fossils in the San Diego Natural History Museum’s Paleontology Collection Room.

04/27/2017

San Diego Natural History Museum

A little to 1992 ... and 130,000 years ago!

: This morning, the San Diego Natural History Museum announced the discovery of mastodon fossils that yield the earliest evidence of human activity in the Americas. More details: www.sdnat.org/ceruttimastodon.

04/27/2017

Humans in California 130,000 Years Ago? Get the Facts

Yesterday was a big day! So excited to finally share our amazing discoveries from the site - a 130,000 year old site right here in San Diego that documents the earliest evidence of human activity in the Americas.

A new study has dropped a bombshell on archaeology, claiming signs of human activity in the Americas far earlier than thought.

12/22/2016

: Special thanks to PaleoServices Report Writer Shelly Donohue for digging up this gem. This is the first holiday card sent to our PaleoServices clients back in the day. Can you guess what year this was taken?

09/09/2016

These dainty crab fossils were uncovered by ’s paleontologists, in partnership with Caltrans, during construction along I-5 near Genesee Avenue. Believe it or not, these crabs were scurrying along the ocean floor about 46 million years ago, when this part of our region was submerged under water.

05/20/2016

Happy ! Today we are at a construction site in downtown San Diego's East Village, dry screening fossiliferous sandstones of the San Diego Formation (~3.5 - 1.5 million years old). So far we’ve salvaged oysters, snails, sand dollars, barnacles, and a bone from a yet-to-be-identified marine mammal.

04/27/2016

Yesterday we said bon voyage to our lead fossil preparator, Nikki Anderson! For the last 4 years Nikki has been our fearless leader in the prep lab, teaching us how to better jacket and prepare fossils, all while making us laugh, humming great tunes, and setting a new standard for efficiency and organization in the lab. Nikki prepared hundreds of fossil specimens ranging from shells of marine clams and snails, to tiny lizard jaws, to giant bison skulls. Good luck on all of your adventures, Nikki! We sure are going to miss you.

04/01/2016

San Diego Natural History Museum Paleontology Department

12/03/2015

We threw our annual PaleoServices Open House party back in October and finally have our pictures! This night is an opportunity to mingle with our clients and partners, and to showcase the fossils that were collected and preserved throughout the year.

10/28/2015

The NAT Showcasing Fossils Unearthed At San Diego Construction Sites

Fun video showcasing our two bison skulls found in 2013 and July of this year!

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2015/oct/21/museum-showcasing-fossils-unearthed-san-diego-cons/

A new exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum will show off 500,000-year-old mollusks from downtown's East Village and more.

09/23/2015

Making progress on the Bison skull. Come watch as we prepare it in the Demo Lab on the 3rd floor!

09/18/2015

We've started work on the bison skull in the Demonstration Lab on the 3rd floor, and are starting to see some molars!

09/10/2015

Before and after shots of work on the proboscidean humerus yesterday in the fossil prep lab!

09/10/2015

Construction reveals trove of fossils in Carlsbad

Exciting recent fossil finds in Carlsbad. We're beginning work on these fossils in our Fossil Preparation lab this week! Stay tuned for photos of their progress.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/sep/03/treasure-trove-of-fossils-found-at-carlsbad/

Bones of ancient mammoths, horses, turtles and even a prehistoric bison have been unearthed, all dating from the Ice Age.

05/12/2015

Mammoth Skull transport & CT Scan

05/12/2015

Mammoth Skull Gets Scan, X-Rays

With generous help from the Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD), we were able to successfully CAT scan and x-ray our 500,000-year-old Columbian mammoth fossil to further our knowledge of the species. This specimen resides on Level 3 of the Museum as you enter the Skulls exhibition.

Radiologists at Naval Medical Center San Diego just got one of their most unusual patients ever: it’s 300 pounds, a half-million years old and once belonged to a Colombian Mammoth.

02/25/2015

Annual Paleo Campout 2015

02/02/2015

We had a visiting specimen in paleontology today.

Shout out to our pal Clayton from Canon Exploratory School in Colorado. Our paleo team is taking great care of your dino! We'll be sending him back to you soon along with some other goodies. Thanks again for the note.

10/10/2014

This morning in the lab, Bridget is busy repairing the cast of a Camarasaurus tibia that will be going on display in the upcoming Monsters! exhibit at the Museum of Man. The exhibit opens October 25th.

07/21/2014

Sea cow fossil found along Orange County toll road

Last week, our paleo monitors discovered an almost completely intact sea cow thought to be between 5 and 7 million years old in Orange County, CA, while monitoring along the 73 toll road. Several of our staff were involved in its excavation and retrieval. Check it out!

http://abc7.com/news/sea-cow-fossil-found-along-orange-county-toll-road-/199945/

A Caltrans crew discovered a sea cow fossil while installing a sprinkler system along the 73 toll road in south Orange County.

05/06/2014

Back in 2012, the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) donated two collection cabinets to our department, as part of their museum program to support fossils collected on BLM land. We are always running out of space in our existing cabinets, and are very grateful for the BLM's support in helping us to house our ever-growing collections!

05/05/2014

The Annual Volunteer Appreciation Dinner was held a couple of weeks ago for our hundreds of volunteers who give so much of their time and effort to our museum, both in the public eye and behind-the-scenes in our science departments. It was an especially exciting night for the paleo department, as one of our longtime volunteers, Jim Colclough, was honored for his staggering 25 years of volunteer service to the paleontology department. He is an expert in the preparation of fossil whales, and his calm demeanor and hilarious sense of humor make for fun Thursdays in the lab. Happy 25 years Jim!

04/30/2014

This morning in the lab, Kay is busy putting foam into a new fiberglass/hydrocal cradle that she constructed to house a partial horse skull.

04/30/2014

Today I am working on vertebrate material from the Otay Formation, a fluvial sedimentary rock unit approximately 29 million years old.

04/28/2014

Our Monday volunteers are hard at work in the preparation lab today! Mark is cleaning turtle fragments, Bridget is scribing matrix off of mammal limbs, Bruce is using an X-acto blade to carefully remove the matrix from an 11-15 million year old baleen whale skull, and Carolanne is cleaning 200,000 year old invertebrates.

01/28/2014

Herpetocetus morrowi (Cetacea: Mysticeti), a new species of diminutive baleen whale from the...

Some new research straight out of the Paleontology Department at SDNHM: A new species of fossil baleen whale discovered from right here in San Diego! Unlike modern baleen whales, this species was very small and likely only reached a length of 10 to 12 feet. Museum paleontologists have shown that this 3.5 million year old species of baleen whale (Herpetocetus morrowi) used its unique lower jaw and baleen to suck up prey-filled sediments from the bottom of the ocean to forage for food (much like modern day Gray whales!). Herpetocetus morrowi (pronounced her-pet-oh-seat-us more-oh-eye) was named in memory of San Diego State geologist Jared Morrow. Let us know if you have any questions!


http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/zoj.12108/abstract

El Adli, J. J., Deméré, T. A. and Boessenecker, R. W. (2014), Herpetocetus morrowi (Cetacea: Mysticeti), a new species of diminutive baleen whale from the Upper Pliocene (Piacenzian) of California, USA, with observations on the evolution and relationships of the Cetotheriidae. Zoological Journal of…