Arktocara yakataga skullSMITHSONIAN, JAMES DI LORETOOne of 40 million items in the Smithsonian’s paleobiology collection is a skull specimen that belonged to an ancient, extinct species of subarctic dolphin, whose closest living relative swims in the tropics, according to a study published today (August 16) in Peer J.
More than 60 years ago, geologist Don Miller discovered the 9-inch skull in a 25-million-year-old rock in southeastern Alaska. He deposited the piece at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in 1951. For decades, its identity remained obscure. Only recently were a pair of Smithsonian paleontologists able to trace its evolutionary origins, by X-ray scanning the fossil and building a digital model, finding that it was a previously undescribed dolphin species.
The researchers called the new species Arktocara yakataga, an homage to its habitat—Arktocara stems from the Latin phrase for “the face of the north,”; yakataga is what the indigenous Tlingit people call the region where the fossil was found, according to a statement.
By comparing its anatomical features to other dolphins, the team discovered ...
