Pyenson Lab

Fox Trot and Matt Carrano

Yep, dinosaurs. It's a first for this blog, dedicated to the evolution of marine mammals and marine tetrapods, but it certainly won't be the last. 

Earlier this month, Bill Amend's Fox Trot comic strip (a favorite that I read even when I was a kid) ran a timely and characteristically detailed recommendation for our forthcoming renovations to the Dinosaur Hall in the museum's main building on the National Mall. 

You never know who reads what you write -- our Curator of Dinosauria Matt Carrano responds in full on Smithsonian Magazine's  Around the Mall blog. Check it out here.

And we're back...

After a late summer hiatus from our trip in Gondwana, we're back. And we have lots to report. So stay tuned.

While you're waiting, check out the latest from our collaborators (Jean Potvin, Jeremy Goldbogen and Bob Shadwick) about the biomechanics of engulfment feeding in rorquals, published last Friday in PLoS ONE. Read the whole paper here.

PPC 2012: Return to Santiago

After finishing our work in Caldera, we boarded a flight from Copiapo back to Santiago, where we continued our collaborative work at the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural downtown.

NDP and Jorge stand in front of the MNHN in Santiago next to a statue of Alexander von Humboldt, a hero of the age of discovery who spent a considerable part of his prolific career describing the natural history of Latin America. His name graces, among other things, the ocean current system off the Pacific coast of Chile and Peru. (Photo: C. S. Gutstein and J. Velez-Juarbe)

Humboldt worked throughout large parts of what is now Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Cuba and Mexico, but he never actually set foot in Santiago. Darwin did, though, and spent several months in Chile before heading north to Peru and the Galapagos Islands. (Photo: C. S. Gutstein and J. Velez-Juarbe)

The icon of MNHN is a whale skeleton, likely belonging to a fin whale (Balaneoptera physalus). Note the anatomically incorrect placement of the premaxillae; also, the anterior tip of the jaws should be separated about 20 cm to house this thing. Nonetheless, I can't really argue with the glory of a fin whale skeleton inside a cathedral to natural science. (Photo: J. Velez-Juarbe)

We also scope out the lower jaw of an adult sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus). In the foreground stands David Rubilar Rogers, head of paleontology at the museum and longstanding collaborator of our team. His museum has sweet official team gear emblazoned with MNHN's logo. (Photo: J. Velez-Juarbe).

We got lots of great work accomplished at MNHN, which includes an extensive collection of fossils that have historically been collected from the Caldera Basin. I also encourage people to click over to Caribbean Paleobiology, where Jorge has posted some photos from our time in the Stgo.

 

Remington Kellogg Illustration Gallery now online!

 As I mentioned before, a group of us at the Smithsonian are hard at work on creating a new exhibit featuring the art and science of cetaceans -- see teasers here and here. Specifically, this exhibit, through the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, will display the outcomes of artistic and scientific collaborations behind the natural history of cetaceans (both fossil and modern), and the unique legacy of this work at NMNH. Among these interactions, which have been happening since the museum's origin, we focus on the achievements of Sydney Prentice and Remington Kellogg. Who are they, and what did they do?

Click over to the Department of Paleobiology's Kellogg Illustration Gallery to find out more! And watch the exhibit galleries at NMNH in mid 2013...

Many sincere thanks to Paleobiology's Mary Parrish and recent St. John's College graduate Julia Coursey, who were the two primary drivers behind this incredible resource and set of webpages. Click over to Mary Parrish's PaleoArt homepage, hosted by the Department of Paleobiology, to see more!

PPC 2012: Anyone can cook

Well, yes, any one can cook -- but why have anyone cook, when you can have Prof. Mario A. Cozzuol cook?  I'd like to introduce a special dispatch from our South American journey: Cooking with Cozzuol.

Feast your eyes. I defy readers to find a better field cook. Some meals we won't soon forget, all fresh from just offshore Caldera. Condé Nast, you shut down Gourmet too soon!

Professor M. A. Cozzuol, original pose. Transverse cut on that steak is just south of 10 cm in anteroposterior thickness. (Photo: J. Velez-Juarbe).

Different fish, same fate -- our bellies. Note the cilantro and garlic garnishes. (Photo: J. Velez-Juarbe)

Not quite into all that fish? Why not try some shrimp? Fresh camarones. (Photo: J. Velez-Juarbe)

Chlamys cooked on the grill. After 10 minutes, they popped open, got a sprinkle of parmesan and cilantro. Done. (Photo: J. Velez-Juarbe)

Fiesta de limon. Key ingredients. Reminds me that we also had some killer lemon pie at Casa Tornini with Tuareg (Photo: J. Velez-Juarbe)

Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Big up to my kid for letting me take his IKEA Italian espresso maker. That's now its second trip to Caldera. Eat your heart out, laser cowboys (Photo: J. Velez-Juarbe).

PPC 2012: More on Jorge's blog

Another post from our fieldwork near Caldera, now up over at Caribbean Paleobiology. Go check it out!

End of the day, driving back from a field locality near Caldera. (Photo: J. Velez-Juarbe)

PPC 2012: Dispatch 4

Some more photos from fieldwork in Caldera.

As it happens in our field jaunts, fossil finds come in twos. Carolina and I found nice shark teeth steps apart from one another at a nice locality that has been termed Los Negros. (Jim Parham and I had a similar moment in 2011, same stratigraphic unit). Some the material described in Valenzuela-Toro et al. was collected from this part of the Bahia Inglesa Formation. (Photo: NDP)

A marine mammal rib fragment (maybe a cetacean, maybe something else), with wonderful shark tooth marks criss-crossing through the bone surface. Such teeth marks have been described before elsewhere in the world, although they were likely postmortem, and not the coup-de-grâce for its owner. (Photo: NDP)

End of the day, long afternoon light during the austral wintertime. Things got goofy and we went to go grab a coffee at Casa Tornini. (Photo: NDP)

PPC 2012: Dispatch 3

We're alternating our time out in the field with many hours in the Museo Paleontologico Caldera, housed in the old train station at the harbor of Caldera. Inside, the museum currently holds the entirety of Cerro Ballena fossils that were excavated in 2010 and 2011; we also added a few more on this trip, from some transect surveys we conducted on the west side of the road cut.

David Rubilar Rogers, from the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural in Santiago, excavates a billfish snout from Cerro Ballena that we discovered along our transect. (Photo: Jorge Velez-Juarbe).

A typical afternoon in MPC's collections. MPC curator Mario E. Suarez (in green) laughs as Mario Cozzuol, a professor at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil, shares a funny story. Note students and David Rubilar Rogers preparing fossil material at the bench. (Photo: Jorge Velez-Juarbe)

NDP excavates a mammalian vertebrae discovered along our transect. (Photo: Jorge Velez-Juarbe)

NDP photographing specimens in the MPC collections. (Photo: Jorge Velez-Juarbe)

PPC 2012: Go read Jorge's posts

Over at Caribbean Palaeobiology, NMNH resesarch student and Howard University Ph.D. candidate Jorge Velez-Juarbe is posting about his experiences here on the expedition to Chile.

Go check it out (Post 1, Post 2 and Post 3), and watch for updates. 

PPC 2012: Dispatch 2

We've spent the weekend out and about, revisiting a few localities, finding a new one, and then returning to the cabañas to discuss and write manuscripts. Today was a special blend of fieldwork at Cerro Ballena, twinned with museum work at Museo Paleontologico Caldera, in town. 

Historically, Caldera has staked its claim on being the port of call for major mining operations in the region, especially around the nearby city of Copiapo. Long-distance sea freight has made Caldera even more important, and many companies continue to set up shop in the vincity. Late afternoon, near our beach house, or home base. (Photo NDP)

A freighter anchored in Bahia Caldera, likely from India, loaded in ore, just as it was even 100 years ago in this small desert town. Cerro Ballena is in the center view of the backdrop, cut by the Pan-American Highway now running on strips both north and south. The entire 2011 quarry is now gone, but many questions remain to be answered about the locality. (Photo NDP).

The skeletons of Cerro Ballena, in their current state, at the Museo Paleontologico Caldera. Several dozen jackets -- many the size of a small boat -- along with many more dozen crates. Here, Chilean graduate students help label, triage and examine the material. Hard to believe that all of these fossils once covered the entire 2011 quarry locality, but, thankfully, they're all in a museum now. (Photo NDP)