New Zealand Eomysticetidae - first look

Starting in the late 1970's and early 1980's, Dr. R. Ewan Fordyce received a grant from National Geographic to start conducting extensive fieldwork on the South Island of New Zealand in search of Oligocene cetaceans and other marine vertebrates. Incidentally, non-cetaceans such as abundant penguins, sharks, and bony fish were collected as well. This fieldwork was not limited to the Oligocene, but also included forays into Paleocene, Eocene, and Miocene localities. Over the past 30 years, Ewan has established a massive collection with an astonishing number of beautiful cetaceans. Not only are these fossils beautiful in terms of their preservation, but many of them are extremely bizarre, and the assemblage as a whole includes squalodontid, squalodelphinid, ?dalpiazinid, kentriodontid, and waipatiid odontocetes, as well as several types of baleen whales (toothed mysticetes, Mauicetus and similar "cetotheres", eomysticetids, and others), and even late surviving archaeocetes. Some of these cetaceans have been described, including Waipatia and an eocene archaeocete (Zygorhiza sp.), and several other taxa are on their way to being described.

I first met Ewan in 2005 at the SVP meeting in Arizona, and I vividly remember watching him discuss how to excavate fossil whales with a chainsaw, of all things; I immediately thought it was too extreme of an excavation method for me, but after I saw it in action last monday in the field (ironically, at the same quarry the photographs from the 2005 presentation), I immediately decided I would bring this method back to the United States. In fact, it was quite funny after watching him rev up the chainsaw - an adrenaline-inducing activity in and of itself - and afterwards stating in a polite Kiwi accent "that should clean up quite nicely".

But I digress - prior to graduation from Montana State University last spring, I contacted Ewan about a Ph.D. project, and he suggested studying the large collection of eomysticetid baleen whales from the Kokoamu Greensand and Otekaike Limestone that he had established. I remembered his talk from the 2006 SVP meeting in Ottawa, part of which included a slideshow of beautiful new fossil eomysticetids. I was pretty shocked to have been offered such a beautiful (and large!) collection of fossils to study. The family Eomysticetidae was named by Al Sanders and Larry Barnes in 2002 to accommodate the new taxon Eomysticetus, which is the most primitive described toothless baleen whale (i.e. baleen-bearing baleen whale, if that makes any sense, as opposed to a toothed baleen whale). Previously, the most primitive toothless mysticetes were some of the "cetothere" whales described by Remington Kellogg from the Chesapeake Group on the east coast, AKA "Kelloggitheres"; these however were much younger than any toothed mysticete (such as aetiocetids), and there was an apparently substantial morphological gap between toothed mysticetes and Kelloggitheres. My job is to fill a bit more of this gap in with more eomysticetids from the southern hemisphere- and so far, none of them seem to be identifiable as Eomysticetus, and there are probably several new genera and species represented.

Ewan Fordyce also took on another student recently, which was a total surprise for me. Even when I first got here, it sound like it would be several months away; instead, the new student arrived only two weeks after I did, and even stayed in the same temporary apartment my wife and I stayed in the first week we were here. Cheng-Hsiu Tsai, who goes by just 'Tsai', will be studying the other big group of fossil mysticetes from the Oligocene of New Zealand: Mauicetus and Mauicetus-like mysticetes, which may be the earliest Kelloggitheres. Tsai can be seen inspecting the ventral side of one of the eomysticetid skulls in the above photo.

This specimen, for example, is one of my dissertation specimens: a new taxon, with an extremely narrow rostrum, elongate dentaries, enormous temporal fossae with a long intertemporal region, and really weird squamosals.

Yours truly, examining the extraordinarily freaky squamosals of the specimen.

Tsai, demonstrating the proper way to photograph a mysticete skull.

Yours truly, demonstrating how to use yourself as a scale bar. I am 5'8" tall.

The beautiful skull in oblique view.

Tsai examining the skull. The brass seam on the floor is actually a joint where the floor opens for a small elevator used to bring large fossils up from the basement. On thursday, I spent most of the afternoon lifting a really really heavy plaster jacket a total of about eight feet - this ordeal took about an hour and a half, three other students, Ewan, and our preparator, Sophie. Fortunately, when the jacket is prepared, it will hopefully be a lot lighter when it goes back downstairs.

Making the Move, Part 2: sights and sounds of Dunedin

Welcome from New Zealand! Kia Ora. We don't quite yet have internet at our house, so I'm typing this up on my nearly embarassingly small HP mini laptop on the wireless connection at the library on the U. Otago campus (the most spectacular library I've ever been in, might I add). Our lack of an internet connection is the reason that this post had to wait nearly two weeks; we initially had an internet connection at the flat we were staying at in City Centre, but after only 5 days we found a house we liked. We arrived on monday, and within 24 hours we had already checked out our first apartment (a bit of a dump and way too far from campus). We checked out another flat on wednesday - also a bit far, but it had an incredible view - but there was no grocery store within a mile, and it was up a flight of 300 stairs or so, and no access road you could ride a bike on (and up a huge hill). Thursday we checked out two places - one was a flat without a garden but a nice view, also on a huge hill, with no groceries - and the fourth place was a whole house with a cute yard, large windows, and only a little over a mile from campus (~25 min walk, 10 min bike ride). The house had a nice view (of a hillside, but not the harbor... or perhaps harbour), and after thinking about it for a bit, we decided to take it. And thus, we had found a great house and had completely moved in during our first week (in fact, on day 5 we signed the lease).

This post will be brief, but shows a bunch of pictures from our first day or two of sightseeing. Parts of it feel a bit like Europe, which is great, and many other aspects are totally unique or perhaps more like the US (Kiwis in particular are decidedly un-European, and have a familiar carefree, relaxed attitude that I am used to along parts of the California coastline). Anyway, enjoy the photos - the next post will have pictures of the Otago campus, which is just about the most beautiful college campus I have ever set foot upon, and I hope the next post will elicit much
jealousy from my friends and colleagues in the states...

I can't remember the official name of this building, but it is basically the city hall of Dunedin.

A cathedral next to city hall, at the Octagon.
A view down Maitland Street where we were staying our first week. South Dunedin and the southern ocean is off in the distance.

A view down another street I can't remember, instead looking a bit east, showing Vauxhall in the distance and the Otago Harbour.

How weird - I flew nearly as far away from California and my field area as you can get, and I find a bike from the Marin Bicycle Co. called the "Drakes beach" model...

The Cadbury Factory, the chocalatey center of Dunedin, and the center of all Cadbury related operations in New Zealand.

I think this was the local courthouse. It's near the famous train station.

The famous Dunedin Rail Station. What a beautiful building! This is the starting point for the Taieri Gorge rail trip.

The other side of the Dunedin Rail Station. It reminds me a bit of the tracks at Bristol Temple Meads station, just scaled down and smaller.

Sarah on board one of the trains. A Taieri Gorge train, perhaps?

This pretty building had a no-nonsense sign labelling it as the "Dunedin Prison". I expected it to be historical, and maybe some sort of museum, until we peeked around the side and saw all sorts of concertina wire.

A really cool church in Dunedin - I believe this is the First Church of Dunedin. Don't ask me what denomination, I don't write that sort of stuff down.

Lastly, the Speights Brewery! I've already enjoyed my fair share of the local brew favorite, Speights "Distinction", which is pretty damn tasty. I was also surprised to find myself in cider country, which was a wonderful discovery much as it was during my 2009 SVP trip to Bristol, England - which is also located in cider country. And damn, that stuff is stronger and tastier than I remember...

Making the move: 30 hours to the bottom of the world

Well folks, we made it! Six months of preparations finally culminated in our flight and successful move to the South Island of New Zealand. We left Saturday evening from SFO, and arrived on Monday afternoon (skipping sunday because of the International Date Line). So far, we've been here for three days, and already we have managed to pick up cell phones, open a bank account, get my registration started, check out four houses/apartments (and choose one!), explore campus, and have been able to explore a bit of the town. We've been walking anywhere from 3 miles a day to 7 miles (today, for example) and it has been quite the adventure. Here are some photos from the plane flight to start off, and later I'll show another post with pictures of the town, and another with pictures of campus to make everyone reading this from US university jealous (yes, everyone). The Otago U. campus has to be the most spectacular college I have ever seen.

My brother and our large pile of checked and carry on bags. Some were way too heavy, and we needed to move some stuff from my heavy bags into Sarah's lighter bags.

Well, crap. There's a long way to go still... taken on the flight to Auckland from SFO. This flight lasted 13 hours, and we had a 9.5 hour layover, and a second 2 hour flight to Dunedin.

Now you can see how little time I had to prepare for this, due to trying to wrap up various research in California: I did not get a chance to read this book (kindly lent to us by fellow student Gabriel Aguirre-Fernandez) until I got onto the plane to New Zealand.

Yes, that is Richard Simmons about to tell us to "Blow and Blow". While the Richard Simmons bit was a bit intense and totally off the wall, this had to be the most entertaining airline safety video I've ever seen.

My wife, excited at the possibility of seeing penguins, watching Happy Feet 2 on the plane.

Dawn at the Auckland Airport, 5:00 am.

Pushing the cart of carry on luggage to the domestic terminal, which is located about a half mile from the international terminal - you're supposed to follow the green line. After sitting and sweating and feeling nasty for 13 hours, it was nice to get outside in the night air and move our legs.

Finally on our second flight! This is looking southwest over the entrance to a large bay near Auckland, on the North Island.

On the ground in Dunedin! Seriously, 1/3 of the stuff - including both suitcases coming down that ramp - are ours.

The driver's on the wrong side! This will still take a bit of time to get used to. Gabriel was kind enough to pick us up from the airport and drive us in to town, although I'll admit he had a pretty terrified look on his face when he saw how many checked bags we had to pick up.

T-minus 7 days until liftoff

My wife and I will be leaving on the not quite so proverbial jet plane next saturday evening. Fortunately, we effectively have eight days, because the flight is so late in the day. The flight into Auckland is about 13 hours long (two hours longer than a flight from California to London). Including the layover time, the total flight time is 24 hours. Because of the time we leave, we will be leaving on March 3rd and arriving on March 5 (New Zealand is a day ahead, so it will already be the 4th in New Zealand when we leave, and at midnight it will turn over to the 5th).

We're still trying to work out the details of what time it is exactly when we land so we can arrange for a ride - both my advisor, Dr. Fordyce, and fellow student (and new father) Gabriel Aguirre-Fernandez have offered to pick us up from the airport.

Anyway, what this most likely means is a blog blackout for the next week or so; I've got a really, really, really long checklist of research stuff to take care of by next saturday, so you can expect some posts once we're in a different hemisphere.

Travel plans coming together

A short update today, and hopefully a longer post before Friday. Last week, my wife and I finally received our visas in the mail, and soon afterward purchased plane tickets. We had to wait about two and a half months for our police certificates to be processed by the FBI - we submitted our paperwork for that within a week and a half of receiving my acceptance letter to the University of Otago, so it's not like we spent any time procrastinating. To be honest, the visa applications took less time to process than I thought they would - just under three weeks. We had both assumed they would take three months.

When we received the prepaid return envelope in the mail, I saw that it was from the consulate, and when I opened it up - I thought something terribly wrong had happened, because all I saw in there were our two passports. No "congratulations" letter, or alternatively, no "sorry, you can't travel to our country" letter. I had forgotten that the visas are just stickers inside the passport, so I was pretty happy to see not one but two passports with visa stickers inside.

We'll be flying out the first week of March, and have also finally figured out shipping. We've discovered that in order to ship a few hundred pounds of cargo, it is cheaper to pay for an extra two checked bags per person than to try and ship that material in boxes. I am excited as hell to get down there and start exploring and starting my dissertation research, and joining I'll be joining Dr. R. Ewan Fordyce's group of Ph.D. students (in no particular order) Gabriel Aguirre-Fernandez, Carolina Loch, Felix Marx, and Yoshi Tanaka.

University of Otago Department of Geology

Update: The coastal paleontologist gets married, and goes down under?

The last couple of weeks have been pretty great, and due to being so busy in relation to recent events, I've been a little slow on posting new material on here. First and foremost, I got married to my longtime girlfriend/fiancee Sarah Michalies on September 17 up at beautiful Lake Tahoe, California. The wedding was fantastic, and a lot of fun - and there were many paleontology students from around North America in attendance. Sarah and I have been together since spring 2005, and it was about time to tie the knot. Sarah and I met as undergraduates in the paleontology program at Montana State University, and have gone on all sorts of paleo field trips together.

This is not our boat, we just borrowed it for cool pictures.

The second awesome thing that happened - I was recently (i.e. on Thursday) accepted into the Doctoral program at the University of Otago in New Zealand. I applied back in late July, and the plan is to start in January. I have the fantastic opportunity to work with Dr. R. Ewan Fordyce, who has offered me a chance to study eomysticetid fossils from the south island of New Zealand. Eomysticetids are a thus far poorly known group of early baleen whales, and constitute the earliest known and earliest diverging toothless baleen whales. So far, the only eomysticetids that have been described include Eomysticetus whitmorei and Eomysticetus carolinensis from the Oligocene of South Carolina, described by Larry Barnes and Al Sanders in 2002 in the Clayton Ray memorial volume. However, in that same volume, Barnes and Sanders name another new family of early diverging mysticetes they term the Micromysticetidae; they remove Cetotheriopsis tobieni from said genus and place it in the new genus Micromysticetus, to which they also name a new species from South Carolina, Cetotheriopsis rothauseni. This family also includes the taxon Cetotheriopsis lintianus. Anyway, Micromysticetus has almost always occurred as a sister taxon to Eomysticetus wherever included in phylogenetic analyses, and I would not be surprised if the Eomysticetidae were to include these even smaller taxa.

The holotype skull of Eomysticetus whitmorei from South Carolina (borrowed from the morphobank account for Ekdale et al., 2011).

The new material from New Zealand includes a collection of eight partial and complete crania, many with dentaries, earbones, and postcrania. In addition, two species of Mauicetus may be referable to the Eomysticetidae, and part of this project will revolve around trying to ascertain whether any of these new specimens represents referable material of Mauicetus; the skulls of the two holotypes of two Mauicetus species (not including Mauicetus parki, which is not an eomysticetid) are very incomplete or have been lost, but are still known from some earbones and postcrania (and photos of the skulls). One of my tasks will almost certainly be to determine whether or not any of this new material could be designated as a neotype specimen.

The clocktower at University of Otago.

All of that interesting paleocetaceanology aside, Sarah and I are going to New Zealand!!! We'll be living in the city of Dunedin on the south island. Above you can see a photo of the clock tower at the university; the campus there looks absolutely beautiful. Granted, Traphagen Hall at MSU Bozeman is a neat old building (but totally shitty inside), but I've seen photos of the Geology Building at OU, and it looks just like another Tudor stone castle like the main building pictured above. It looks totally awesome. Furthermore, unlike my previous 8 years of schooling in Montana, it doesn't get anywhere near as cold on the south island (although Dunedin is about as far south as you can get on the south island). And lastly, there are penguins that live there! There are penguins that have rookeries on the Otago Peninsula, within a 30 minute drive from campus! Blue/Fairy penguins, the smallest known species of penguin!

This is going to be a blast, and I have a lot of work to do to get there.