The Coastal Paleontologist returns

perspectives on marine vertebrate paleontology

Monday, October 13, 2025

A new Herpetocetus specimen awaiting excavation

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During a field day in May of 2023, I was out scouting for fossils and came across an interesting bit of skull in a horizontal rock face belo...
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Monday, September 29, 2025

The paltry fossil record of narwhals (Monodon) and the evolutionary history of white whales

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Narwhals are certainly among the strangest and most immediately recognizable of all marine mammals, owing to their fantastic tusk. Narwhals ...
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About the Coastal Paleontologist

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Robert Boessenecker
California, United States
After living on the east coast for eight years, studying fossil cetaceans from the Oligocene rocks of Charleston, South Carolina, I’ve finally returned to the Pacific coast where I belong. Most of my recent research has focused on the study of toothed mysticetes like Coronodon and early odontocetes (dolphins) including xenorophids (e.g. Inermorostrum, Xenorophus), giant dolphins (Ankylorhiza), and spear-toothed dolphins (Waipatiidae). In June 2024 I will be returning to California and starting as the Colclough Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the San Diego Natural History Museum, where I will be studying Miocene and Pliocene baleen whales – and probably a few walruses as well.
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