Robert Boessenecker, Doctor of Whaleontology™️さんのイラストまとめ

Here's some of my graphite + digital illustrations of extinct marine fauna - each of these takes about 20-50 hours. Clockwise from upper left: Phiomicetus; Ankylorhiza; Psephophorus; Olympicetus

New pub #4-5: Comment (and reply) to the Sibert & Rubin on an early Miocene shark extinction: Feichtinger et al. suggest that denticle data does not indicate an extinction event. https://t.co/wzYugDA26Q

New pub #3: convergent evolution of dense bones (pachy/osteosclerosis) in Miocene marine mammals as response to hypersaline conditions in Paratethys https://t.co/XMc7aRTGIl

#artadventcalendar Day 10/11 - I missed yesterday so here's a twofer: watercolor/gouache paintings of the skull of the archaeocete whale Zygorhiza (top) and toothed baleen whale Coronodon (bottom) to raise $ for @CofCNatHistory. Each is about 14" across. #sciart #art

@FrecklesXX20 @EccentricPoor @wyn_o Can't remember what the homology is in a terrestrial mammal but they have the nasal plug muscles which close the airways - npm on this image:

New paper #2: A new EXTANT species of beaked whale Mesoplodon, Mesoplodon eueu- closely related to M. mirus (True's beaked whale). Native to the southern ocean; holotype is stranded individual from New Zealand. https://t.co/6lvwVUQ1Nl

@TyrantLzrdQueen see though it's a total missed opportunity to instead illustrate something like this

@GodHathSaid @Travis_Statham @heshamsallam that's because whales evolved quite dramatically over millions of years. Why are you so triggered by this?

Phiomicetus anubis is known from a partial skull and mandible with a large temporal fossa and large incisors, suggesting a greater bite force potential than other protocetids of the same size. It's also a surprisingly early diverging taxon to occur outside Indo-Pakistan:

Ancient wombats clearly had a melon /s https://t.co/8l6NH8ZpQ5