FLICKR, SAM BEEBE, ECOTRUST
A road-widening project has unearthed four new baleen whales species in Southern California’s Laguna Canyon. The fossil specimens, at 17 to 19 million years old, are the most recently evolved toothed baleen whales yet discovered, reported ScienceNOW.
Meredith Rivin, a paleontologist at the Cooper Archaeological and Paleontological Center in Fullerton, California, announced the discovery on Sunday (February 17) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. She said that the fossils were members of the same cetacean suborder, called the mysticetes, that gave rise to extant baleen whale species.
Today it’s possible to spot tell the difference between a baleen whale and another cetacean by checking if it has teeth. Baleen whales, such as gray whales, blue whales, ...
