Museum - Mace Brown Museum of Natural History at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina

Shark teeth are common fossil finds (especially in the Charleston area!) but did you know other parts of shark skeletons can fossilize? Sharks do not have a skeleton like us - their skeleton is made of cartilage rather than bones (aside from their teeth). Having a skeleton made of cartilage rather than bones gives them an edge in the water - it’s less dense than bone, making swimming more efficient as it weighs less - and it costs less to grow. How would a shark skeleton pre...serve then, if not made of bone? Shark vertebrae are made of calcified cartilage - this is a more rigid structure than the elastic cartilage we commonly think of that makes up our ears. Calcified cartilage preserves readily - and it’s not uncommon to find complete shark vertebrae when out fossil hunting in the area! They can also tell you a bit about the type of shark - those with ‘septa’ in the sides are typically from lamniform sharks, and those with smooth sides are most commonly from carcharhiniform sharks. These are vertebrae from Otodus obliquus, the first truly gigantic ‘mega shark,’ and the ancestor of megalodon. #fossil #fossils #shark #sharks #paleontology #paleo #paleoichthyology #paleontology #megatooth #megateeth #megatoothshark #megatoothedshark #otodus #carcharocles #southcarolina #charleston #lowcountryfossils #paleontologist

#fossilfriday This adorable little skull is about the size of a Virginia opossum skull - but is actually a small hoofed mammal called Leptomeryx evansi! This little skull is from the White River badlands of South Dakota. Leptomeryx lived during the Eocene and Oligocene epochs (~38-23 Ma). Leptomeryx and other leptomerycids were small-bodied ruminants similar to the modern mouse deer (aka water chevrotain), Tragulus. They are possibly close to the ancestry of ruminant mammals (cow, sheep, deer, giraffe, antelope, pronghorns, etc.). #fossil #fossils #mammal #mammals #ruminant #ruminantia #leptomeryx #cenozoic #eocene #oligocene #mammalogy #whiteriverbadlands #badlands #southdakota #dakotafossils

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Mace Brown Museum of Natural History is remaining closed to general admission. However, beginning November 16th, the museum will allow visits by appointment. If you would like to schedule a visit, please email our Collections, Exhibits, and Outreach Coordinator: Sarah Boessenecker ([email protected]) at minimum 3 days in advance of your planned trip.... Appointments are available during regular business hours, Monday-Friday, 11am-4pm. For the safety of all guests, social distancing protocols limit the maximum number of simultaneous visitors to 20. Larger groups cannot be accommodated at this time. Museum visitors must comply with all College of Charleston safety requirements, including the wearing of masks. The Mace Brown Museum of Natural History considers the safety of its visitors a top priority. We look forward to fully reopening our doors to the general public, once it is safe to do so. Thank you for your continued interest and support! College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston

#WhaleWednesday If you've been following our page for a while you probably know already that we're whale fanatics here - and there's a LOT we can learn about whale and dolphin evolution even from relatively scrappy specimens! This is a fragmentary skull of Ankylorhiza tiedemani found by the Boesseneckers in the Chandler Bridge Formation between June and September 2018 (and the complete skull of our published specimen, CCNHM 103, for comparison). It must have been scooped up b...y an excavator and dumped, because they found fragments of a single skull every visit over several months, starting with teeth. The teeth confirm identification as A. tiedemani, and it critically has a well-preserved periotic (earbone) - which Dr. B found over two days: he returned 24 hours later and found the other half about 10 feet away, about to be washed by rainwater into the bottom of a stormwater pond! Also critical is the discovery of the ethmoid complex: this is a bone in the middle of the skull that houses the nasal sinuses. Since dolphins slowly lost the ability to smell over the first 15 million years of their evolution, we're hoping to CT scan this specimen and take a look inside and see how well Ankylorhiza could smell. #whaleontology #whale #whales #dolphin #dolphins #ankylorhiza #cetacean #cetaceans #marinemammals #oligocene #Cenozoic #fossil #fossils #lowcountrypaleontology #lowcountryfossils #lowcountryscience #science

It's the holiday season, and what better way to spread holiday cheer than with a hand-made cards? For donations of just $10, you get one of six high quality holiday cards (your pick) with a print of a fossil watercolor, featuring fossils from our very own collection. Illustrated by Dr. Boessenecker. $50 gets you the entire set of six! Email [email protected] to make a donation - these donations go to our preparator's fund, and help keep her employed!

Happy #FossilFriday! The perfect gift for the fossil/shark enthusiast in your life! We are offering this 18x27" poster this holiday season showcasing the evolution of the megatoothed sharks in the rock record of South Carolina! South Carolina is one of the few places in the world where you can track nearly every species of megatooth from Otodus obliquus to Carcharocles megalodon over ~50 million years of earth's history.This poster features beautiful watercolor illustrations of these fossil teeth as well as typical characteristics and sizes, body length, and details about the stratigraphy of the rocks where these fossils are from. Offered as a thank-you for donations of $40 to our preparator’s fund. Email [email protected] to snag your copy today!

#toothtuesday Did you know that all teeth evolved from scales? In sharks and rays, scales and teeth are made out of the same exact tissues: enameloid, orthodentine, and osteodentine. Scales evolved before teeth - and paleontologists have hypothesized that scales close to the mouth were co-opted as grasping organs in some of the first jawed fishes. This is a gigantic dermal denticle (=scale) of a roughtail stingray (Bathytoshia centroura) collected/donated by Ashby Gale from t...he early Pleistocene Waccamaw Formation at the Austin Sand Pit back in 2017. This specimen is about 6.4 cm long (~2.5") and heavy - based on measurements of a modern stingray and its denticles, this individual stingray would have been about 3 meters wide (the largest modern B. centroura was measured at 2.7 meters wide). Also... DYK that we have one of the world's largest stingray species here in the western North Atlantic? Have you found large dermal denticles like these? If so, please share photos! #fossil #fossils #rays #stingrays #stingray #dasyatidae #scale #lowcountrypaleontology #lowcountryfossils #paleo #paleontology #paleoichthyology #lowcountryscience #pleistocene #cenozoic

And to finish off our good news from 2020 posts - we got the best gift from mother nature for the holidays: a 36-37 million year old skeleton of a baby transitional whale! Our skeleton of Chrysocetus healeyorum is nearly completely excavated - we need to return once more to retrieve some small plaster jackets - but we've excavated and returned several hundred pounds of plaster jackets containing bones and rock. Another gift was all the help from our colleagues and allies - we... literally could not have done this without the unusual generosity of our volunteers! And, of course, thanks to Giant Cement Company for quarry access. #lowcountrypaleontology #whaleontology #fossil #fossils #ditchdigger #lowcountryfossils #lowcountryscience #cofc #collegeofcharleston #archaeocete #whale #whales #chrysocetus #dorudon #basilosaurus #basilosaurid #evolution #paleo #paleontology #cenozoic #eocene

Have you seen these amazing bumper stickers we have? One can be all yours for just a $5 donation to our museum preparator's fund! Each $5 donation sponsors a 1/2 hour of fossil preparation. Email [email protected] for more details!

#happyhalloween You know what we find scary? Fossils with missing data! Fossils that have no data are great paperweights - but have little scientific value. It's easy to rely on your memory - if it's good enough. But how much can you remember? Memories fade. If a fossil cannot be tied to a particular rock layer, or a particular fossil site, its scientific value will be greatly reduced. The only way to permanently associate a fossil specimen with the necessary data for scienti...fic study is to label the specimen and keep notes. The Boesseneckers use the "Grinnell system" - unique field numbers labeled onto a suite of fossils collected at the same time, matching an entry in a waterproof field notebook. When the specimen is later entered into a museum collection, the data including collector name, fossil site, rock layer, and collection date are all copied from the notebook into the museum catalog. Here's an example: "RBEC-1000. October 31, 2020. Folly Beach, SC, between 3rd street and 4th street southwest, near high tide line. Partial megalodon tooth, collected by S.J. Boessenecker." The notes need not be lengthy - this conveys most of what you need. This specimen bears the field number RBEC-105 and is a leatherback turtle shell ossicle collected by collections manager Sarah Boessenecker from the Ashley Formation in North Charleston* and has enough associated data that it was able to be included in a scientific paper by research student Bailey Fallon, which is about to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. RBEC stands for "Robert Boessenecker East Coast notebook". *Actually found at a different, more boring looking construction site. #science #scientist #fieldnotes #fieldscience #fieldpaleontology #fieldwork #paleontology #paleo #fossil #fossils #fossilcollecting #curation #museum #naturalhistory #NaturalHistoryMuseum #oligocene #lowcountryfossils

Happy #Halloween, and happy #FossilFriday! Ghosts in the museum?! While everything in there is dead, there’s no ghosts (that we’re aware of) Rather, these are pictures from 3 years ago when we were preparing for Hurricane Irma. Luckily, we had no damage from high winds and rains at the museum, but it’s always good to have a plan in place to protect everything you can - we were concerned about water leaking in through the ceiling, so we covered our fossils with plastic sheets, with an end result of looking very spooky! We hope everyone has a fun and safe (and dry!) Halloween this year! #spooky #spoopy #halloween #ghosts #stayawayhurricanes #boo #trickortreat #skeleton #skeletons

Day 7 of "good things that came from 2020" Collections, Exhibits, and Outreach Coordinator Sarah Boessenecker had a good 2020 as well - she was promoted to a full-time permanent staff position, won runner-up for a staff member of the year award, and graduated with her master's degree in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester in England! Her thesis was a case study of our museum, and other university natural history museums. While she wasn't able to attend her commencement in the UK due to Covid-19, she used the monetary prize from her award to buy her master's hood, cap, and robes to take some pictures in the museum - which was the focus of her master's work. College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston

#WhaleWednesday Yesterday we achieved a huge milestone - we successfully undercut and flipped our largest block of our juvenile basilosaurid whale - perhaps a 500 lb block or so. After flipping around 3:30pm, we muscled it up out of the pit and onto the quarry floor, and then proceeded to cut a grid into the top with reciprocating saws and rapidly chiseled out small blocks of limestone, reducing the block to around 400 pounds or less - and then completing the plaster jacket. ...We missed posting over the weekend about #volunteerday, but today is a good opportunity: our museum is small and there is no way our team would have been able to do this on our own. We had a small army of volunteers so we could continually swap out diggers and keep everyone in the trenches fresh - breaks are needed to keep from muscles seizing up. We would like to thank everyone who came out to help us - back row, from left to right: Matt Gibson (Charleston Museum), Everett White, Alex Mertz, Ashby Gale, Scott Persons (CCNHM), Schuyler Basak, Josh Basak, Rich Familia; middle row: Jessica Peragine (Charleston Museum), Mark Bunce, Sarah Boessenecker (CCNHM, on jacket), and Robert Boessenecker in front. Next up is using heavy machinery and some strong folks to get the jackets lifted into the back of a pickup for transport downtown. We hope it's light enough to lift! More pictures, and video, coming soon. College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston #whale #whaleontology #dig #diggers #digger #ditchdigger #whales #marinemammal #marinemammals #fieldwork #fieldpaleontology #fieldpaleo #fieldscience #volunteer #volunteers #paleo #paleontology #paleontologist #eocene #basilosaurid #basilosauridae #archaeocete #cenozoic #lowcountryfossils #lowcountrypaleontology #lowcountryscience

Just a reminder: we are still closed to the public, and do not yet have a re-opening date. We are sorry for this, but the health and safety of our museum staff, students, and visitors is important to us, and we hope you understand!

We asked our museum staff to share their favorite fossils. Share your favorite fossil(s) in the comments!

Day 6 of "good things that came from 2020" This year Dr. Boessenecker had two important milestones: in August he was honored with his position at CCNHM being formalized as the Mace Brown Museum Research Fellow, and in July, finally published a long-awaited paper re-naming "Genus Y" as Ankylorhiza tiedemani. Ankylorhiza is a giant predatory dolphin known only from the Oligocene of South Carolina, but marks a critical intermediate stage in the evolution of swimming adaptations ...between ancestral basilosaurid whales and modern dolphins. Read the paper on Ankylorhiza here: https://www.cell.com/current-biolo//S0960-9822(20)30828-9 #whaleontology #whales #whale #lowcountrypaleontology #lowcountryfossils #lowcountryscience #dolphin #dolphins #paleo #paleontology #science #ankylorhiza #genusy #odontocete #odontoceti #toothedwhale #cenozoic #oligocene #paleontologist #cofc #charleston

#ThrowbackThursday and it's also #nationalcatday! Who wore it better? While modern housecats may be small, they certainly act like they are still as ferocious as some of their larger extant and extinct relatives! On the left is "Burt Reynolds" (named for his luxurious white handlebar mustache), our collections manager's cat - Felis catus - demanding tribute from his humans. On the right is Xenosmilus hodsonae, a true saber toothed cat from the lower Pleistocene of Florida. Xe...nosmilus is a narrow-skulled sabertooth with relatively short canines. Although saberteeth have evolved numerous times in parallel, we don't really have any modern analogs to help us understand how they killed prey and how the sabers were used. For example, biomechanical modeling of the skulls of the later sabertooth Smilodon indicate that the canines would have broken if the skull moved from side to side while subduing prey - but would have functioned quite well if, and only if, movement was front to back. Sabertooth cats, and the convergently evolved nimravids (like Hoplophoneus) also have unusually robust forelimbs with respect to modern cats. Formerly placed into their own family, true sabertooths are now grouped into the subfamily Machairodontinae within the family Felidae and are thus now firmly recognized as true cats. Nimravids on the other hand were even more distantly related to modern cats than hyenas, civets, meerkats, and mongooses are. Many mysteries and questions remain unanswered in the evolution of these fearsome extinct predators! #kitty #kitties #cat #cats #felis #feliscatus #domesticcat #sabertooth #sabertoothcat #xenosmilus #smilodon #felidae #machairodontinae #machairodontine #pleistocene #skeleton #evolution #extinction #carnivore #carnivorous #mammal #mammalogy #floridafossils #paleo #paleontology #gocougars #cofc See more

#MeteoriteMonday Meteors often fall to earth, but often burn up in the earth’s atmosphere before landing, and are what are commonly called ‘shooting stars.’. Those shooting stars that do survive falling through the atmosphere are called meteorites. This is a fragment of a LL6 chondrite meteorite - the LL means Low (total) iron and Low metal. The 6 is a class of chondrite meteorites that has been metamorphosed from thermal activity. Chondrites are quite old - most dating back... to the formation of the solar system over 4 billion years ago. Chondrites in general are stony meteorites - stony, as opposed to metallic - that possess little spherical elements, called chondrules - and have not undergone any sort of melting or differentiation - processes involved in the evolution of early planets. This indicates that chondrites have been non-metallic ‘space rocks’ since the beginning of the solar system, without accreting into large planet or planetesimal size bodies. Similar nonmetallic meteorites that lack chondrules - called achondrites - include chunks of the moon and Mars that we have geochemically matched to their source - blasted off into space by earlier impacts, and eventually making the journey to be captured by earth’s atmosphere. Similarly, Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard collected a 20 lb sample he called Big Bertha while on the moon - now understood to be a meteorite derived from Earth that landed on the moon! This particular fragment is from the Cherokee Springs Meteorite, a 12 pound meteorite that fell near Spartanburg, South Carolina on July 1st, 1933! This was graciously donated by Yinan Wang. #solarsystem #meteor #meteorite #chondrite #shootingstar #stonymeteorite #donation

#whalewednesday The Eomysticetidae are a group of early baleen whales, originally named from the Oligocene Chandler Bridge Formation Ladson, SC, based on Eomysticetus whitmorei - but are now known to be worldwide in distribution! This is Waharoa ruwhenua, a 30' long eomysticetid from New Zealand (Oligocene Otekaike Limestone) - with Dr. B for scale! Eomysticetids had long, flat snouts - and are nicknamed 'surfboard whales' by some as a result. Waharoa appears to have some too...th sockets, but also has a series of channels in the palate that transmitted arteries. These arteries fed the specialized gum tissues that produce baleen, like in a modern baleen whale - though these grooves are missing from the front of the mouth. This suggests that eomysticetids had a few non-functional (e.g. vestigial) peg-like teeth in the front of the jaw, and perhaps short baleen along the rest of the jaw, and were dedicated filter feeders. Artwork by Dr. B, photograph by Dr. R.E. Fordyce. Read more about Waharoa ruwhenua here: https://peerj.com/articles/1129/ #whale #whales #eomysticetidae #eomysticetid #baleen #baleenwhale #baleenwhales #mysticete #mysticeti #cetacea #cetaceans #cetacean #marinemammal #marinemammals #oligocene #newzealand #cenozoic #mammal #whaleontology #fossil #fossils #skull #skeleton #paleo #paleontology #paleontologist #science #evolution

Day 5 of good things that came from 2020 - because we still desperately need some good news! 2020 was a banner year for student research at CCNHM: research students published two different papers this year - the second and third such student publications from our program. One of these was published by Bailey Fallon, continuing her research on fossil leatherback sea turtles, and documented a large collection of isolated shell ossicles of these rare sea turtles from the Oligo...cene Ashley and Chandler Bridge formations near Charleston, based on collections made mostly by local amateur collectors who donated the specimens to CCNHM (and a few found by the Boesseneckers). The paper was published this month in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. The other publication was on a small billfish rostrum, initially studied by Nathan McCuen and Aika Ishimori in Dr. Boessenecker's Applied Paleontology course. The specimen was identified as the extinct swordfish Xiphiorhynchus cf. aegyptiacus - clarifying that two species of Xiphiorhynchus are known from the Oligocene of Charleston, one with a relatively flattened sword-like bill. This specimen was also donated. The article was published this summer in the journal Vertebrate Anatomy Morphology Paleontology (VAMP). And, very recent good news: a third student research manuscript by Addie Miller, Charleston Museum natural history curator Matthew Gibson, and Dr. Boessenecker was just submitted for peer review this morning! Read Bailey's paper here for free: https://www.app.pan.pl/article/item/app007402020.html Read Nathan and Aika's paper here for free: https://journals.library.ualberta.ca//V/article/view/29367 #student #studentresearch #goodnews #paleo #paleontology #science #paleontologist #scientist #publishing #leatherback #turtle #iliketurtles #billfish #swordfish #xiphiorhynchus #dermochelys #oligocene #lowcountryfossils #lowcountryscience #lowcountrypaleontology

VIRTUAL TOUR ALERT Did you know today is National Fossil Day? To celebrate, we’re unveiling our FIRST EVER VIRTUAL TOUR! While we are currently closed due to Covid-19, we hope this will help you get your museum fix in. Be sure to check back often as we will continue to upload more videos to this playlist!... College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston https://www.youtube.com/watch

Happy #FossilFriday! College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston

Day 4 of our good things that came from 2020 is here! Today we're re-sharing some of the awesome research that our students at CofC presented on this past Fall at the annual (and virtual this year) Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Conference. Students worked with CCNHM staff to present their research on CCNHM specimens - this was the first international conference for 3 of the 4 students presenting! Bailey Fallon (CofC '20) presented on on ossicles (shell bones) of exti...nct leatherback sea turtles from the Oligocene Ashley and Chandler Bridge formations of South Carolina. William (Nathan) McCuen (CofC '21), presented on marine reptile teeth from late Cretaceous deposits in the vicinity of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Suzanne Grantham (CofC '20) is presented a poster entitled Longirostrine nearly homodont dolphin from the late Oligocene of South Carolina: the origin of Eurhinodelphinidae and affinities of "Phoca" modesta and "Phoca" debilis. And Addie Miller (CofC '20) presented a poster with the playful title Baby Megashark Do Do Do Do: An Oligocene Carcharocles angustidens nursery from South Carolina We are so very proud of all our students this year! College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston

#ToothTuesday Inside the jaws of the late Cretaceous dinosaur Triceratops prorsus were multiple dental ‘batteries’ - columns of teeth used to handle immense amounts of plant matter that made up their diets. These batteries were on the top and bottom jaws, and lined up to make a shearing zone, to slice and dice plant matter. Similar to crocodiles, alligators, and even sharks, they replaced their teeth throughout their lives - only a small fraction of these teeth were used at any given time. Vegetation can be very tough and wearing on teeth; by constantly having new teeth growing in, they could replace those that were worn down over time. #triceratops #dino #dinosaur #cretaceous #fossil #fossils #paleo #paleodiet #paleontology #paleontologist

Day 3 of our good things that came from 2020 is here! Today we are sharing 2 books written by our Curator Dr. Scott Persons - as well as a new paper that just came out TODAY! Mega Rex: A Tyrannosaurus Named Scotty about the world’s LARGEST T. rex skeleton ever found, and A Field Guide to Fossils written by Dr. Persons and his wife, Amanda Kelley. The paper out today highlights the first ostrich-mimic dinosaur bones from an Early Cretaceous site in the Junggar Basin, Chi...na. Many of the elements were collected inadvertently -- found while prepping the jackets of a big sauropod skeleton. College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston Link to the books https://harbourpublishing.com/collections/W-Scott-Persons Link to the paper https://www.sciencedirect.com//a/abs/pii/S0195667120304274 #2020 #newyear #countdown #comeon2021

#toothtuesday The fearsome interlocking cheek teeth of Xenorophus - one of the most primitive known dolphins! Dr. Boessenecker is presenting on this species (and this skull) this week for the annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference (this year is virtual, of course). Xenorophus is closely related to Echovenator, Cotylocara, and Intermorostrum - but much larger - in fact, it's only slightly smaller than Ankylorhiza. Xenorophus has large triangular molars that seem ...to interlock, but it's really no different than the way that modern dolphin teeth 'occlude'. These fossils suggest that, despite the primitive teeth that resemble the teeth of archaeocete whale ancestors (e.g. Basilosaurus, Zygorhiza), the simple interlocking of modern dolphin dentitions evolved very, very early on within echolocating whales. This big beautiful specimen, CCNHM 1077, was collected by Mark Havenstein, and the jaw was found in articulation with the skull - in this orientation (deformation after burial made the jaw go sideways a little bit). In this case it's not careful guesswork; this individual was buried with its mouth closedm and shows that the opposing teeth fit into these nice deep pits in between the teeth. There's a LOT more in this study, which Dr. B and others are working on at the moment. We know more about the anatomy, evolution, growth, ecology, and behavior of Xenorophus than any other early odontocete. #fossil #fossils #teeth #tooth #dolphin #dolphins #xenorophus #xenorophid #xenorophidae #odontocete #odontoceti #cetacea #cetaceans #marinemammal #marinemammals #whaleontology #oligocene #evolution #naturalselection #skull #skeleton #paleo #paleontology #mammal

#MolluskMonday When you think of a nautilus, you normally think of a coiled shell, but did you know some nautiloids had straight shells? Geisonoceras lived during the Ordovician period (465 mya) and had a straight shell. Their shells functioned much the same way as those with coiled shells; they had individual chambers separated by septae which aided in buoyancy control, and the shells helped protect the mollusk inside. #ordovician #paleo #paleontology #mollusk #mollusc #invert #invertebrate #fossil

#MammalMonday A common sight along roads, in fields, and in forested areas, the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) has been around since the Pleistocene, largely unchanged, and are one of the most common herbivores in the US today. Deer are browsers, eating woody plants and shrubs (and on occasion, have been documented eating nesting bird chicks ) and have high-crowned and sharp molars for grinding through tough plant material, as seen here on this right dentary (lower jaw) found and donated to CCNHM by James Comfort.

Next on our list of positives to come from 2020 is the collections improvements we've made - beginning with our new lane cabinets that allowed for expansion, and our collections manager Sarah to reorganize EVERY. SINGLE. FOSSIL. While it took a ton of work and time, it is now clean, organized, and specific fossils are now quick and easy to find! Read more about how and why it was done here https://blogs.cofc.edu//friday-fossil-feature-museum-coll/... #collections #fossils #fossil #cleaning #organization #lowcountryfossils

Recent graduate Shelley Copeland (CofC class of 2020) was hired back in February as our first fossil preparator - and owing to the pandemic, this specimen sat alone on the table waiting for her return. One of Shelley's honed skills is producing high quality plaster/fiberglass cradles, so large specimens do not need to take up cabinet space. This is a jaw of a Coronodon-like toothed baleen whale specimen nicknamed "Hoss Jr.". Shelley completed the cradle early this week, and i...t looks great. Dr. B. went ahead and labeled the jacket, both sides, as well as the inside: there is nothing worse than visiting a museum collection on a time crunch where the label is only written on one side, or sometimes you need to open up the cradle to figure out what's inside! No guessing games and wasted time here at CCNHM. Needless to say, Shelley has really made some significant progress now that she's back in the lab College of Charleston College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston Geology Department #paleo #paleontology #fossilprep #fossilpreparation #fossilpreparator #whaleontology #archives #museum #museums #naturalhistory #fossil #fossils #curation #museumcollections #naturalhistorymuseum

Did you catch the news last night? WCIV | ABC News 4 interviewed Dr. Boessenecker about the baby mega tooth shark nursery his student Addie was lead author on! Watch here! College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston

It’s almost a new year! While 2020 has been very different from what we expected going into it, we’re going to highlight some of the positive things that came from it each day until we ring in #2021! To start with, we expanded the museum - we now have displays out in the hall out front of the museum, including a new Triceratops skull cast, and a cast of the BIGGEST Tyrannosaurus skull ever discovered! Our very own curator Dr. Scott Persons published on Scotty the T. rex, and... sourced us our new casts. It was quite a feat unboxing these casts at the CofC and getting them from the Central Warehouse in North Charleston into the School of Sciences and Mathematics. We also moved our Tylosaurus out with the other large skulls. College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston #2020 #newyear #countdown #comeon2021

Happy #FossilFriday! Fuzzy Wuzzy was a (cave) bear Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair (it doesn’t fossilize) Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t very fuzzy, was he? (don’t worry, he’s dead and can’t hear this)... #cavebear #iceage #pleistocene #rawr #fossil #fossils #paleo #paleontology

#graduation #graduation2020 Today is bittersweet: we are celebrating our spring 2020 commencement a few months late, and saying farewell to four stellar students in particular: Bailey Fallon, Shelley Copeland, Suzanne Grantham, and Addie Miller - all have done some combination of research, museum docenting, and fossil preparation over the past few years and have formed the core of the museum family here. Addie and Shelley were two of our star docents, and Addie, Suzanne, and ...Bailey have all conducted research on Cenozoic marine vertebrates with Dr. B. Suzanne in particular did her Bachelor's Essay on a fossil dolphin from our collections, and Bailey already has one published paper on fossil sea turtles - with another on its way! Addie has been researching a fossil shark nursery - soon to be submitted. Shelley has been employed as our fossil preparator since February, thanks to private donations that have kept her position funded. We couldn't be prouder of these amazing young women, though we are saddened that their time at CofC has come to an end; the museum family was the better for it! Now it's time to recruit the next batch of research students, who have some very big shoes to fill. Congratulations to Bailey, Addie, Suzanne, and Shelley and the rest of the class of 2020! College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston #commencementceremony #commencement #Commencement2020 #COFC #CofC2020 #classof2020

Get any good presents this holiday season? Our paleontologists got a pretty good one: a copy of "A beachcomber's guide to fossils" by Ashby Gale and family! The book is quite dense: it is both physically heavy and extremely thorough. Quite possibly the best-looking, and most informative field guide we've ever seen for North American fossils - focusing on beach-cast fossils (vertebrate and invertebrate) found on the east coast of the USA. #book #books #present #presents #lowcountryfossils #fossil #fossils #paleo #paleontology #lowcountryscience #science #fieldguide #guidebook

Wishing you and yours a wonderful Christmas on this chilly winter day in Charleston - it's so cold even our ice age critters are in hats and scarves!

Happy #FossilFriday! What's been happening behind the scenes at CCNHM? Lots of improvements in collections! Latest blog post goes into detail on this. College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics

#ThrowbackThursday Shell bone (osteoderm) of a giant armadillo (pampathere) found on our field trip last Friday out at Folly Beach! This little bone makes up a semi rigid shell but is much larger and thicker than in a modern armadillo you'd see as roadkill. It however only has two attachment surfaces (top and right side in the upper specimen photo) - and the other side tapers to a rounded edge - meaning that this is from the edge of the shell. Armadillos, pampatheres, and the... even larger glyptodonts (a group of giant extinct armadillos with thick, rigid shells) have small marginal osteoderms like this along the edge of the shell. Pampatheres are more common than glyptodonts, so we tentatively identify this specimen as Holmesina - already found out at Folly Beach - but note that it is quite thick (10-12 mm) and this might actually therefore be a glyptodont. Left: front end of our mounted skeleton of the pampathere Holmesina, Pleistocene of Florida; top right: external view of the new osteoderm; bottom right: internal view of same. #fossil #fossils #pampathere #armadillo #armadillos #holmesina #edentates #glyptodont #pleistocene #pleistocenemegafauna #iceage #iceagemammal #mammal #megafauna #extinct #evolution #shell #fossilcollector #fossilcollecting #beachcombing #follybeach #follybeachsc #paleo #paleontology #discovery #science #naturalhistory #naturalhistorymuseum

OK this is getting a little out of hand [screenshot from last night's episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert] College of Charleston College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston Geology Department #lookmomImontv #imontv #Colbert #LateShow #StephenColbert #paleontology #paleontologist #megatoothedshark #sharktooth #babyshark #fossilshark #Angustidens #lowcountryfossils

#ThrowbackThursday of a post we shared a couple of years ago - a fossil palate of the extinct giant capybara Neochoerus pinckneyi from the Pleistocene of Florida! The species was originally named from specimens found in the Ashley River just a few miles upstream from downtown Charleston, during the heyday of phosphate dredging in the late 19th century. Modern Capybaras (Hylochoerus) are the world's largest rodent, but Neochoerus was approximately 40% larger and weighed up to ...259 lb (110 kg) - the size of an adult black bear! Teeth of these giant rodents appear during the Pliocene epoch, being some of the earliest large mammals from South America to travel across the proto isthmus of Panama north to North America! Then, subsequently dying out at the end of the Pleistocene. Have you found any fossils of Neochoerus? #capybara #megafauna #rodentsofinstagram #rodent #rodentsofunusualsize #fossil #fossils #skull #teeth #skeleton #caviomorph #paleo #paleontology #mammals #pleistocene #pliocene #cenozoic #floridafossils

#TBT to one of our collections manager's favorite fossils. It's #christmaseve, so we're sharing (again) a fossil deer antler! This isn't a reindeer, but rather a regular whitetail or mule deer from the ice age (Odocoileus sp.). This partial antler is likely about 100,000 years old and was found near Charleston harbor and donated to CCNHM by Casey Garvin. This tiny little antler is adorable - it's only about 1.5 inches long! Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! Thanks to Casey for the donation! #deer #reindeer #caribou #antler #holiday #santa #rudolph #merrychristmas #christmas #fossil #fossils #iceage #pleistocene #paleo #paleontology #lowcountryfossils

Baby Megashark, do do do do Addie Miller's presentation on an Oligocene she did as a senior here at CCNHM and presented at the #2020SVP meeting was featured as one of the most noteworthy discoveries at the conference - here's the article written by LiveScience on our megatoothed shark nursery from the Chandler Bridge Formation! https://www.livescience.com/ancient-megatooth-shark-nursery #megatooth #megatoothedshark #carcharocles #otodus #carcharoclesangustidens #Angustid...ens #oligocene #lowcountryfossils #paleo #paleontology #paleontologist #studentresearch #paleoichthyology #ditchdigger #chandlerbridge #vertpaleo #fossilshark #fossilsharkteeth #sharkteeth #sharktooth #CharlestonSC College of Charleston College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston Geology Department

#whalewednesday This is CCNHM 1077 - a partial skull with associated skeleton of the extinct dolphin Xenorophus - and is the only known specimen of a xenorophid dolphin with the jaws preserved in occlusion, meaning that the mouth was closed during burial and the jaws were not moved. As a result, this is the only specimen where the teeth interlock in a way that is not affected by burial and deformation - and we can correctly interpret the way in which the upper and lower teeth... fit together! This is critical because xenorophids are the most primitive known dolphins, closest to archaeocetes. Deep pits between the lower teeth let the upper teeth slide deep between the lowers; strangely, deep pits are not present on the palate for the lower teeth. These pits are deepest in older individuals and shallow in younger individuals - as the dolphin got larger, the teeth spread out more. The teeth do not interlock precisely like basilosaurids - the last archaeocete whales - and instead seem to show a rapid evolution from shearing teeth that fit together to teeth that slice but chiefly through puncturing. This suggests that the molars, and complex enamel in these teeth, are a primitive holdover of the archaeocete tooth condition - which slowly evolved into the simple cone-shaped teeth of modern dolphins over the next 15 million years. #dolphin #dolphins #whale #whales #whaleontology #marinemammal #marinemammals #cetaceans #cetacean #cetacea #lowcountryfossils #lowcountryscience #xenorophus #archaeocete #evolution #naturalselection #fossil #fossils

Sorry for the late post! Collections manager Sarah Boessenecker has been working hard assembling mineral/rock kits for students unable to take face to face laboratory classes for our Geology 103 labs. Despite a series of delays since mid November, we finally had a giant shipment of mineral samples arrive yesterday - it's a holiday miracle! We couldn't help but remember a scene from a certain Disney adaptation of a Christmas Carol, however...

Still wondering what our resident dinos were dancing for yesterday? Did you catch the news last night? If not, you can watch the news bit right here We unveiled 2 new casts of 2 skulls - a Triceratops, and Scotty, the world's LARGEST T. rex!... While the museum itself remains closed for now, this exhibit is free and open to the public right outside the museum doors. Remember, face masks covering the mouth AND nose are required in the building, and on CofC campus. Hope to see you as you come in to check out our latest exhibit! These are available for viewing Monday-Friday, 7:00am 7:00pm, but the building remains closed on weekends. College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston

Manic Monday got you down? Take a break, relax, and watch our Virtual Tour! https://www.youtube.com/watch

#megalodonmonday We've done a little re-arranging lately - and more to come after the holidays when staff is back on campus!

CCNHM ally Ashby Gale stands in the middle of our pit after the main block containing the mandible and skull of our archaeocete whale was removed - it's not terribly deep, but it is quite wide! As you can see, drainage was continually a problem and we needed to carve in new drainage canals every hour or so. We're heading back out there tomorrow to make this hole slightly wider - and finish the job!

#fossilfriday Did you know that some extinct dolphins evolved serrated teeth? Earlier this week a landmark paper came out on the evolution of serrated teeth in some carnivorous synapsids ("mammal-like reptiles") and carnivorous dinosaurs. Serrations are useful for cutting flesh, and have evolved many times in bony fish, sharks, dinosaurs, marine reptiles, saber toothed cats, false saber-tooths, and early carnivorous synapsids. Teeth of some specimens of the giant killer dolp...hin Ankylorhiza also bear serrations - and in this specimen, most of the molars have serrations! This specimen was collected from the Oligocene Ashley Formation of South Carolina. #fossil #fossils #Paleo #paleontology #whale #whales #whaleontology #oligocene #dolphin #dolphins #tooth #teeth #lowcountryfossils #lowcountryscience #whalevolution #evolution #adaptation #naturalselection

And to finish out the showing of student research presented last week at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference, here's Bailey Fallon's research poster presentation on ossicles (shell bones) of extinct leatherback sea turtles from the Oligocene Ashley and Chandler Bridge formations of South Carolina. These specimens document the first multispecies leatherback fauna ever reported in the fossil record - up to three species present at the same time and place! Bailey ...has identified two species of Natemys, one form corresponding to Psephophorus, and another to Egyptemys - some of these with exceptionally thick shells (Natemys sp. 2). In contrast, the modern leatherback Dermochelys coriaceae is the only modern species, and has a very, very thin shell that does not fossilize easily - meaning that leatherback diversity has declined, and that ecosystems have changed sufficiently so that they no longer support diverse leatherback faunas. The paper from this research is soon-to-be published in a peer-reviewed journal! Many thanks to Shaun Coates and Steve Hildenbrandt for donating the specimens studied herein (other specimens collected by the Boesseneckers). #fossil #fossils #science #scientist #research #paleo #paleontology #paleontologist #studentresearch #researcher #turtle #iliketurtles #vertpaleo #paleoherpetology #fossilturtle #seaturtle #leatherbackturtle #leatherback #seaturtles #cenozoic #oligocene #lowcountryfossils #evolution #summervillesc #chandlerbridge

What are our resident dinosaurs Roxy Rex and Tri-Sarah-Tops so excited about? Tune into Live 5 News tonight at 6pm to find out! @College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics @College of Charleston #dinosaurs

#ThrowbackThursday A year ago, we were dealing with a DIFFERENT basilosaurid whale - Manaia! Manaia is a cast of Dorudon atrox - donated to our museum. Dorudon atrox is similar to the current basilosaurid whale we're digging up - the species we're digging up is Chrysocetus healeyorum. Luckily for us, Chrysocetus is about 30% smaller than Dorudon - making getting it out of the field much easier! Getting Manaia cleaned up and ready for hanging in the library across the street ...also took a lot of work - but rather than hammer and chisel, it was scrubbing and paint brushes! You can read more about this on our blog! https://blogs.cofc.edu/macebrownmus//20/a-whale-of-a-tale/ College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston Cofc Addlestone Library

Big thanks to Schuyler Andrulat and Josh Basak - a couple of weeks ago they dropped off and donated the sea cow skull they discovered in Eocene rocks near Harleyville, South Carolina. The specimen is likely a skull of a juvenile Eotheroides, one of the earliest known sea cows, and one of the earliest known members of the family Dugongidae. Dr. B. started gluing bits back together last week, and will soon begin trimming off limestone with pneumatic air tools. We'll keep y'all ...posted on preparation progress - and, thanks again to the discoverers for finding, collecting, and donating this beautiful skull! Also - thanks to Mark Bunce for getting a lot of the early stages of preparation done. #citizenscience #paleo #paleontology #lowcountryfossils #dugong #dugongidae #sirenia #sirenians #seacow #seacows #marinemammals #mammalmonday #eocene #paleontologist #cenozoic #southcarolina #discovery #science #ditchdigger

#WhaleWednesday cont... However, we still needed a group of strong individuals to load it *into* the bucket! College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston

#fossilfriday a 1.5 meter long tusk of the small gomphothere 'elephant' Cuvieronius. Cuvieronius lived alongside its much larger cousins Mammut americanum (American mastodon) and the Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi). It was much smaller and more rare than either (about the size of a rhino), and often left out of the conversation about giant ice age mammals. It's the "other elephant" of the North American ice age, along with the similarly rare Rhynchotherium and Stegomast...odon. These smaller proboscideans were the only elephants to ever reach South America, where they also gave rise to Notiomastodon ("southern mastodon") - a genus unique to Central and South America. Cuvieronius died out with the rest of the large mammals at the end of the last ice age. #fossil #fossils #elephant #mastodon #mastodons #gomphothere #cuvieronius #mammoth #mammoths #elephants #proboscidea #proboscideans #mammal #mammals #landmammal #megafauna #pleistocene #pleistocenemegafauna #iceage #iceagemammals #lowcountryfossils

#WhaleWednesday We called in the big guns yesterday! This almost comically oversized front loader is usually busy in the mine, but they graciously offered to help us get the BIG jacket out of the quarry, down the slick and muddy hillside, into a pickup bed, and safely downtown to the museum. College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston... @

Last month CCNHM staff along with help from the wonderful staff at the CofC Central Stores and Warehouse had a different type of delivery - read a bit about it here!

#MammothMonday How do we know woolly mammoths were, well, woolly? We have samples of their hair! Mammoths that have been preserved since the last Ice Age in the permafrost of Siberia often are ‘natural mummies’ - encased essentially in ice for the last 30,000+ years, skin, hair, and even gut contents have been found on these exquisite specimens. Some researchers have also found fossilized pollen grains in their hair, giving scientists a more thorough understanding of the worl...d woolly mammoths lived in. Frozen mammoth carcasses have been known to science since the 17th century - and beautiful cave paintings made in Europe during the Pleistocene epoch showcase extremely shaggy elephants! Mammoths were originally placed in the genus Elephas alongside the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) - and though now in a different genus (Mammuthus), they both share a greater degree of hair than the relatively bald African elephant (Loxodonta), and some Asian elephant calves are unusually hairy, somewhat resembling miniature mammoths themselves! baby elephant from Wikipedia #elephant #mammoth #proboscidea #mammoths #iceage #iceagemammals #iceagemegafauna #megafauna #extinct #extinction #pleistocene #pleistocenemegafauna #fossil #fossils #mammals #paleo #paleontology #pleistocene

#WhaleWednesday Baby it's cold... inside? Our heat is out of order at the moment, and it's a balmy 53 degrees in the building - so of course, let's talk about arctic marine mammals! Belugas and narwhals are members of the family Monodontidae, and are closely related to the true porpoises (Phocoenidae). Monodontids are mostly known from the Northern Hemisphere, but in the past, must have had a tolerance for warmer waters as fossils of extinct belugas have been found in subtrop...ical deposits in Baja California, Florida, and the Mediterranean - all in the Pliocene epoch (~5.3-2.5 Mya). Here is a periotic bone (inner ear bone) of a beluga from the Lee Creek Mine (eastern North Carolina), possibly belonging to either the modern genus Delphinapterus or perhaps the extinct beluga Bohaskaia. These are somewhat uncommon fossils in the early Pliocene Yorktown Formation of North Carolina - likely reflecting temperatures similar to or somewhat warmer than present. #cold #chilly #fossil #fossils #earbone #earbones #periotic #whale #whales #whaleontology #marinemammal #marinemammals #dolphin #dolphins #beluga #belugawhale #narwhals #iceage #december #lowcountryfossils #pliocene #evolution #Paleontology

#givingtuesday This winter we need your help to keep fossil preparation and science continuing in our prep lab. Shelley is doing great work and we'd like to keep her working as long as we can! Right now, she is cleaning a 24 million year old skull and skeleton of Xenorophus from Ladson, Sc. A 10$ donation pays for one full hour of fossil preparation - and large fossils frequently take hundreds of hours to prepare, and are thus big investments! To encourage folks to donate, we... have some gifts to offer as a thank-you for your generosity. For gifts of 5$ or more, you get a CCNHM bumper sticker. For gifts of 10$ or more, you get one of six high quality holiday cards (your pick) with a print of a fossil watercolor illustrated by Dr. Boessenecker. For gifts of 40$ or more, you get a ~2x3' (*) copy of our shark evolution poster (illustrated by Dr. Boessenecker). For gifts of 50$ or more, you receive a full set of the holiday cards! Please send us a message and we'll get you started!

Plant fossils can give insight into what the world looked like long ago, such as this beautiful specimen on display. This is Macroneuropteris scheuchzeri, a seed fern from the Carboniferous that was widespread across Europe roughly 300 mya. These fossils are often found in coal seams. The first forests appeared at the end of the Devonian, and these scrubbed the CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. This ultimately led to a global cooling, and swamplands - and the formation of coal beds from swamp deposition. #plant #plants #fossil #fossils #seedfern #carboniferous #swamps #extinction #coal

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and we hope everyone enjoyed their delicious theropod dinner - that’s right, your turkey on the table is a dinosaur! Birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs - think Deinonychus, Tyrannosaurus rex, and other bipedal carnivorous dinosaurs. They have many skeletal traits showing this relationship, but one that may be most obvious is the furcula. The furcula is a bone made of the fused clavicles (collar bones) of some theropod dinosaurs, including mo...dern birds, and first evolved some 150 mya. We call this bone the wishbone when carving a turkey. The discovery of a furcula in skeletons (like Deinonychus, T. rex and other theropods) helped scientists solidify the relationship between the extinct dinosaurs (non-avian theropods) to modern birds you see today at your bird feeder, or even on the Thanksgiving table - no other animal, living or extinct possess a furcula. So, break apart that wishbone and wish for more spectacular dinosaur discoveries! College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston #evolution #evolve #paleo #paleontology #fossil #fossils #wishbone #furcula #thanksgiving #dino #dinosaur #theropod #birdsaredinosaurs #gobblegobble credit: Dave Hone

#HappyThanksgiving! Here's something special we're very thankful for: we just found out that a new scientific paper published by our student Bailey Fallon and Dr. Boessenecker was just published this week in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica! This paper reports the first multispecies leatherback assemblages in the world: the modern leatherback is all by itself, but in the fossil record, there used to be many different leatherback species and genera. Leatherback shells... are flexible and thin and composed of a multitude of bony ossicles. Different leatherback forms can be told apart based on subtle differences in ossicle size, thickness, sculpturing, and internal structure. During the Eocene and Oligocene epochs (55-23 Ma, combined), several leatherback genera have been reported - but have never been reported from the same locality. In this study, Bailey and Dr. B report assemblages of three different leatherbacks from each of our Oligocene rock units here - two forms of the thick-shelled leatherbacks Natemys and one of Egyptemys, as well as Psephophorus - the most commonly known leatherback from the Cenozoic. The co-occurrence of these different leatherbacks in the same deposit suggest that these giant sea turtles were not loners like their modern relative, and could share the same environment much like modern hard-shelled sea turtles do today. This Thanksgiving, we're thankful to have brilliant students like Bailey and others! We're also very thankful for donations from Mr. Shaun Coates and Mr. Steve Hildenbrandt for donating the fossils that made this research possible. Bailey conducted this research across spring and fall semesters of 2019, and it began as a research project in Dr. B's Applied Paleontology course in fall 2018. The paper is freely available to read online - check it out here: https://www.app.pan.pl/article/item/app007402020.html College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics #fossil #fossils #studentresearch #studentscientist #science #research #paleo #paleontology #paleontologist #scientist #lowcountryfossils #lowcountryscience #turtle #turtles #iliketurtles #paleoherpetology #seaturtles #leatherbackturtle #leatherbackseaturtle #dermochelys #seaturtle #turtleturtle #oligocene #Cenozoic #marinereptile #charleston [photo is pre-pandemic]

#WhaleWednesday One week ago this afternoon we began uncovering "Mark's basilosaurid" - a juvenile skeleton of a basilosaurid whale found on an afternoon field trip to a limestone quarry by Mark Bunce. The specimen appears to represent the small basilosaurid Chrysocetus healeyorum - originally reported from the same area, but from a substantially less complete specimen. These whales are small - the smallest known basilosaurids, even smaller than Zygorhiza - and have uniquely ...smooth tooth enamel. On Thursday we returned to begin the excavation in earnest - and what began as a small bone scatter quickly grew to a 3 meter wide field - which was a source of anxiety for Dr. Boessenecker! With the skeleton rapidly increasing in size and prospects of leaving with the fossil in one day rapidly diminishing, we salvaged a small block containing the earbone and some vertebrae. We returned on Sunday to continue the excavation, and fortunately managed to find the limits of the skeleton without it growing too much - and managed to collect the few bones we encountered while digging trenches around the main blocks. By the end of the day, we had capped every block with plaster and burlap. Next up: undercutting, supporting, and flipping these blocks, along with reinforcing the two larger jackets with lumber frames. Fortunately, the mine will help us cart the jackets off with heavy machinery, as the slope and quarry floor are much too muddy for any large jackets to be carried off by hand (or even for dragging). Top image: finished jacket 'caps' on our excavation. Bottom: holotype fragments of Chrysocetus healeyorum. Thanks to Mark Bunce for finding this baby basilosaurid, and thanks to Rich Familia, Jordy Taylor, Ashby Gale, Tabytha Walls, and the rest of the museum team for blood, sweat, and bruises donated for the cause! #whaleontology #lowcountryfossils #lowcountryscience #paleo #paleontology #paleontologist #ditchdigger #dig #paleontologydig #fossildigging #excavation #science #basilosaurid #basilosauridae #archaeocete #archaeoceti #Dorudon #Basilosaurus

#toothtuesday Last week while looking in quarry exposures of Eocene limestones (Pregnall Member of the Tupelo Bay Formation), we found a number of specimens that were just "a little" smaller than Mark Bunce's basilosaurid whale. Most of these were shark teeth - typical ones like Isurus/Macrorhizodus and Abdounia. The teeth are often much smaller than in the Oligocene deposits of Summerville, and less plentiful - likely owing to different depositional processes. On the upper r...ight is a complete tooth of the dwarf cow shark Hexanchus microdon (or agassizi?) collected by Dr. B - this entire tooth is perhaps 12-13mm in length. This is one of the prized local Eocene fossils (cow shark teeth from the Miocene and Pliocene are typically 3-5 times this size). On the lower left are the fearsome teeth of Trichiurus, the cutlassfish - collected and donated by Jordy Taylor. On the lower right is an early tiger shark - probably Galeocerdo latidens, but G. eaglesomei is another possibility - only about half the size of an Oligocene tiger shark, and perhaps one quarter the size of the Pliocene to modern tiger shark Galecerdo cuvier. On the upper left is not a tooth but an osteoderm - bearing enamel nonetheless - of a boxfish (Ostraciidae). These are armor pieces that make up the rigid 'exoskeleton' of a boxfish - some of the most rare fish fossils in Atlantic Coastal Plain deposits. These are tropical fish, and this specimen lived on our continental shelf just a couple million years before the Eocene-Oligocene climate crash, representing one of the last tropical periods sustaining reef fish on the Atlantic coastal plain. #fossil #fossils #fossildigging #ditchdigger #paleo #Paleontology #paleontologist #paleoichthyology #fossilfish #sharkteeth #fossilsharkteeth #fossilhunting #fieldscience #fieldpaleontology #fieldwork #limestone #eocene #lowcountryfossils #lowcountryscience

TOMORROW at 5:30 pm EST, join a free zoom event with our museum curator, Dr. Scott Persons! He will be talking all about Scotty the T. rex - the largest rex EVER found! https://royalsaskmuseum.ca/rsm/visit/event-calendar/item

We're heading back up to the limestone quarry today, hopefully to get this sucker out of the ground! Wish us luck. We've got a few small jackets in place to protect parts of the specimen from the elements. We'll have a few more hours of digging trenches and exposing the edges of the bone scatter, and hopefully won't uncover more bone than we already have. Once we're done trenching, then we begin to undercut the block, and start applying plaster in order to make a protective p...laster jacket. We'll be reinforcing the jacket with some lumber. We've got 9 volunteers on hand today so we can work more effectively in shifts as each person gets tired - Dr. B and Mark Bunce both hammered their knuckles pretty bad on Thursday as they were getting tired! #fieldwork #fieldpaleontology #fieldpaleo #fossilcollecting #fossildigging #digger #dig #paleontology #paleo #paleontologist #ditchdigger #whaleontology #lowcountryfossils

Have you ever heard the term 'Lazarus taxon’ or ‘living fossil’? A Lazarus taxon is a species that has disappeared from the fossil record, seemingly going extinct, only to be found at a much later time, and a ‘living fossil’ is a species that has changed very little throughout the ages - almost as if evolution of that particular species was paused. This specimen is from the Jurassic, ~150 mya. Coelacanths represent both a Lazarus taxon and a ‘living fossil’; they first evolve...d during the Devonian (~400 mya) and were thought to have gone extinct at the end of the Cretaceous (~66 mya). However, in 1938 off the coast of South Africa local fisherman Captain Hendrick Goosen pulled in his catch, and museum curator Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer identified a fish long thought to have been extinct! Coelacanths look remarkably similar to their fossil ancestors, with very little change over the last 400 million years. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Coelacanths are sarcopterygians - ‘lobe-finned’ fish (or, more directly translated, flesh-finned or meat-finned fish).This is an ancient group of fish - some of the earliest fish to evolve were sarcopterygians, and other living members of this clade are African lungfish. In ray-finned fish (actinopterygians - virtually all other fish, including trout, tuna, billfish, etc.), the fins are completely made out of bony and/or cartilaginous rays and soft tissues, and the muscles that control the fins are entirely within the body wall. Sarcopterygians have bones and muscles forming a fleshy lobe supporting the fin rays. The bones of the lobe-fins evolved into the humerus, radius, and ulna of land-dwelling tetrapods (including humans) and our fingers and toes evolved from the fin rays! #coelacanth #livingfossil #lazarustaxon #jurassic #fish #innerfish #evolution #evolve #sarcopterygian #actinopterygian #devonian #southafrica #paleo #paleontology #fossil #fossils

Happy #FossilFriday from the field! A brand new discovery made THIS WEEK in the field!

#WhaleWednesday The state of Georgia has their own transitional whale species named after their state - Georgiacetus - but did you know we have our own whale named Carolinacetus? Carolinacetus is another transitional species, though it is not quite as completely preserved as Georgiacetus. It consists of a partial skull, mandibles, a few teeth, vertebrae, and ribs, and was collected in 1994 by a party from Charleston Museum and College of Charleston (Al Sanders, Jonathan Geisl...er, Zhe-Xi Luo, Bricky Way, S. Davis, and J. Hanlon) from "Cross Quarry" in Berkeley County out of the late middle Eocene Cross Member of the Tupelo Bay Formation. Fragmentary earbones from the middle Eocene of Togo, Africa, have been identified as Carolinacetus. Carolinacetus may be less spectacular in preservation, but it is one of the only protocetids out there with a detailed description of the skull, and critically has one of the best preserved sets of earbones known for any protocetid - or indeed for any other of the 'walking whales'. The earlier remingtonocetids were the first to inhabit saltwater - yet some remained in freshwater settings, and they never left the middle east. In contrast, protocetids were the first cetaceans were capable of swimming across ocean basins, and the first to make it across the Atlantic and into the Pacific. Yet protocetids still possessed hind legs capable of some terrestrial "walking" (wriggling?), and based on fantastic discoveries like Maiacetus, still evidently gave birth on land. Fossils like Carolinacetus are critical in piecing together the spectacular macroevolutionary transformation of fully marine whales from their landlubber ancestors. #whaleontology #marinemammals #marinemammal #evolution #macroevolution #transitionalfossil #naturalselection #missinglink #protocetid #protocetidae #ancientwhale #whaleevolution #whale #whales #cetacea #cetacean #archaeocete #archaeoceti #georgiacetus #carolinacetus #eocene #lowcountryfossils

#TaphonomyTuesday The Boessenecker’s have a saltwater tank at home, and caught their pincushion urchin (Lytechinus variegatus) grazing on the algae that is growing on a hermit crab’s shell - urchins are algaevores, meaning they feed exclusively on algae. The scratch marks left on the shell are from the feeding apparatus of a sea urchin called Aristotle's Lantern and show the 5-point symmetry that is generally shared among echinoderms as adults. Why is this important? Well,... they leave traces as they feed that are recognizable by this pattern, and it can even fossilize! This pattern is so distinctive that they are actually named in the field of ichnology (study of trace fossils) and called Gnathichnus pentax. Fossil via Wikipedia #sealife #taphonomy #tracefossil #seaurchin #echinoderm #paleo #paleontology #invertpaleo #spinyboi

Who likes clam chowder? Make sure your clams are fresher than these geoducks - they’re about 3-5 million years old! Pronounced "gooey-duck" they are the largest burrowing clam in the world, and their tube-like siphons can be up to 1 meter long. They will burrow deeper than other clams and use the extended siphon to breath, eat, and reproduce - all while remaining buried multiple feet below the surface. #geoduck #molluskmonday #MolluscMonday #mollusk #mollusc #bivalve #clam #clams #clamchowder #quahog #clamming #fossilclam #pliocene #marineinvertebrates #invertpaleo #invertebratepaleontology #fossil #fossils #paleo #paleontology

If you’ve seen Jurassic Park, you may remember amber - in the movie, they use the mosquitoes preserved in the fossilized resin to get ‘dino DNA’ (I can’t ever read or type that without hearing the Clippy-like DNA narrator). While this is a Hollywood-ized idea, tree sap DOES fossilize under the right conditions, and sometimes does preserve insects that were trapped in the sticky resin - we know this as amber. We have amber in our own museum, complete with preserved insects! (this specimen may be copal rather than amber). Amber can be found around the world, but is more commonly found in the Baltic region of Europe, and the Dominican Republic. #amber #preservation #jurassicpark #dinodna #theoriginalclippy #insects #treesap #paleo #paleontology #fossil #fossils

Happy #FossilFriday and #FridayThe13th! Friday the 13th is often associated with bad luck, so we’d rather promote some GOOD luck! Since we don’t have any lucky horseshoes in the museum, we’re showing the next best thing - a horseshoe crab. Horseshoe crabs have been around since the Ordovician (~450 million years ago) and have changed very little since then - often called living fossils due to this. This little guy looks identical to modern day horseshoe crabs you may find a...long the beach, but is from the Jurassic Solnhofen Limestone in Germany, which is a lagerstätte. Lagerstätten - aka fossil bonanzas - are formed when environmental conditions are ideal for fossil preservation - they are formed in anoxic environments, such as the sea floor. Lagerstätten famously preserve reptiles, mammals, and even birds, all with exquisite preservation, including feathers - and even horseshoe crabs! #horseshoecrab #livingfossil #Jurassic #Germany #sealife #marine #marineinvertebrate #beach #ocean #fossil #fossils #paleo #paleontology

Did you know we had our 10th birthday back in April? To celebrate, our very own Dr. Boessenecker is the inaugural recipient of the Mace Brown Museum Research Fellowship! Read more about it here https://today.cofc.edu//mace-brown-museum-research-fello/

#WhaleWednesday the atlas vertebra is the first vertebra of the neck - and cradles the skull. In humans, it sits underneath a spherical braincase - and was named as an homage to Atlas holding up the globe! Here are the atlas vertebrae of a medium* sized baleen whale (big vertebra) and a relatively small dolphin from the Miocene-Pliocene of the Carolinas. *Medium sized for the Pliocene, but today, this would be a small baleen whale, only slightly larger than a minke whale.

New #fossilexplainer: know the difference between fossil pufferfish and burrfish beaks! Fossils of burrfish beaks (right) are fused in the middle and have large crushing plates. These are very common fossils along the Carolina coast, and typically belong to the genus Chilomycterus - the same as the modern striped burrfish. These are "fused beaks". Occasionally, very thick crushing plates are found - with more than 20 enamel plates - these belong instead to porcupinefish, Diod...on. Porcupinefish also have fused beaks, and along with burrfish, make up the family Diodontidae (all of which have fused beaks). Diodon means "two teeth" - referring to the upper and lower beaks made up of fused teeth/plates. Pufferfish beaks, on the other hand, are actually quite rare - and are not fused at the midline. These are therefore "split beaks". They also generally lack the enamel crushing plates in the middle, are more pointed, and the beak cutting edge itself is not made of pillow-shaped beads of enamel, but thin layers. Pufferfish actually belong to a completely different family, and lack spines - the Tetraodontidae. Tetraodont means "four teeth", referring to the left and right beaks of the upper and lower jaws (four altogether). There is even an unusual species in a different family - Triodon - that has a fused lower beak but split upper beak (Triodon = "three teeth"). If you think you've found a pufferfish - you probably haven't! Fossil Explainer webcomic by Dr. R.W. Boessenecker #fish #fishes #fossilfish #paleo #paleontology #fossil #fossils #paleoichthyology #pufferfish #puffers #porcupinefish #diodontidae #tetraodontidae #burrfish #Pliocene #miocene #lowcountryfossils #carolinafossils #naturalhistory #lowcountryscience

Since we've gone through our 58th presidential election in the USA, we thought we'd bring up a fascinating tidbit about how paleontology and the presidency have intersected in the past. Did you know that one of the first formal publications on paleontology in North America was published by Thomas Jefferson? In 1796, Colonel John Stuart sent Jefferson some bones including claws, leg, and arm bones of a large mammal from a cave in what is now West Virginia. [Our colleague Fred ...Grady at the Smithsonian published research in the 1990s that confirmed Haynes Cave in West Virginia to be the origin]. After initial study, TJ presented his research on March 10, 1797, titled "A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed Kind in the Western Parts of Virginia" before the American Philosophical Society. What's fascinating is that this was only a week after being inaugurated as Vice President to President John Adams on March 4 1797 - yes, THAT bitter election that resulted in the formation of the Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties (which Washington so deeply feared would ruin the country), where two former friends became political opponents - and ironically the candidate who came in second was declared Vice President. Jefferson was deeply offended by contemporary European (chiefly French) naturalists who were disappointed by the lack of large megafauna in North America and considered it a biological backwater (e.g. Buffon). Jefferson also strictly adhered to "completeness of nature" - and firmly rejected the newly proposed idea of extinction, recently advanced by the preeminent French anatomist Cuvier, ironically based on mammoth fossils from the South Carolina lowcountry. Owing to this, Jefferson hypothesized that this gigantic 'lion' (which was his initial interpretation of the bones) still survived somewhere out west - thereby spitting in the eyes of his European colleagues (though recall TJ was a well-known Francophile). He later instructed Lewis and Clark to be on the lookout for such a creature during their expedition. In the 1820s, later naturalists identified the "certain bones" to be from a gigantic sloth - and named it Megalonyx jeffersonii in his honor - 'Jefferson's giant claw'. Sadly, subsequent presidents, with the clear exception of the Roosevelts, were less and less Renaissance men with naturalist hobbies/backgrounds. #Jefferson #thomasjefferson #whitehouse #president #presidency #presidentialelection #Election2020 #election #megalonyx #history #groundsloth #giantgroundsloth #megalonyxjeffersonii #naturalhistory #naturalism #biology #paleo #paleontologist #paleontologists #paleontology

#fossilfriday Giant sawfish! Did you know that sawfish-like species evolved three different times? Sawfish and sawsharks are two distantly related modern groups of cartilaginous fish - and that a third extinct group existed in the Mesozoic? These are rostral spines (="sawteeth") of sclerorynchoid sawfish: the big one is from the gigantic Onchopristis numidus from the Cretaceous of Morocco, and the smaller one is from the somewhat less gigantic Ischyrhiza mira from the late Cr...etaceous Peedee Formation of Myrtle Beach. Onchopristis has one or more nasty-looking barbs on the end, whereas Ischyrhiza is a more simple blade. Ischyrhiza is actually a relatively common fossil from Myrtle Beach. Sclerorhynchoids had some of the most elaborate rostral spines of the three groups, and differ from modern sawfish in possessing enameloid and from sawsharks in being much, much larger. Sclerorhynchoids are thought to be closely related to skates, leading to some calling them "sawskates". Sclerorhynchoids became extinct at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary extinction event alongside marine reptiles, ammonites, and the nonavian dinosaurs. #sawshark #sawfish #onchopristis #ischyrhiza #paleo #paleontology #paleoichthyology #shark #sharks #rays #chondrichthyes #fossilfish #fossil #fossils #lowcountryfossils #naturalhistory #evolution

It's #ElectionDay! Have you voted early/absentee already? Great! If not, you've got until 7pm here in SC to get to your polling place! To vote in SC, you will need to be registered (deadline has passed) and show up with valid photo ID (drivers license, SCDMV ID card, SC voter registration card (w/ photo), US federal military ID card, or a US passport. Need to locate your polling place? Check here: https://info.scvotes.sc.gov//voterinquiry/VoterInformation... Not in South Carolina? Check here: https://www.vote.org/polling-place-locator/ Want to know who's on your ballot? Check here: https://www.vote411.org/ballot Or here: https://ballotpedia.org/Sample_Ballot_Lookup Know your rights as a voter: if you arrive in line before 7pm, they HAVE TO let you vote. Read more about your rights as a voter here: https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/voting-rights/ Think you've witnessed/experienced voter intimidation? Learn more, and how to report it, here: https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/voting-rights/ #election2020 #ElectionDay2020

#MosasaurMonday Have you seen our newest video for our virtual tour? It's all about Tylosaurus and it's unique skull - on display outside of the museum (so you can visit it any time between Monday-Friday from 7am to 7pm! College of Charleston Geology Department College of Charleston School of Sciences & Mathematics College of Charleston... #mosasaur #tylosaurus #paleo #paleontology #marinereptile #apexpredator #chomp

#MammalMonday A common sight along roads, in fields, and in forested areas, the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) has been around since the Pleistocene, largely unchanged, and are one of the most common herbivores in the US today. Deer are browsers, eating woody plants and shrubs (and on occasion, have been documented eating nesting bird chicks ) and have high-crowned and sharp molars for grinding through tough plant material, as seen here on this right dentary (lower jaw) found and donated to CCNHM by James Comfort.