An artistic reconstruction of Isthminia panamensis SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, JULIA MOLNAR
A 6 million-year-old dolphin-like fossil found off the Caribbean coast of Panama has now been dubbed a new species by researchers at the Smithsonian Institute. A detailed description of the fossilized skull fragments, teeth, jawbones, shoulder blade and flipper bones of Isthminia panamensis was published yesterday (September 1) in PeerJ.
“We discovered this new fossil in marine rocks,” study coauthor Nicholas Pyenson, curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, said in a statement. “And many of the features of its skull and jaws point to it having been a marine inhabitant, like modern oceanic dolphins.”
Although the ancient mammal likely lived in the ocean, the researchers concluded that I. panamensis’s closest living relative is the Amazon river dolphin; its ...
