A jewel of paleontology. Some 12 million years old, a whale skull was found in October on a beach in the Chesapeake Bay, in the US state of Maryland, according to a local museum.
The discovery was made by Pennsylvania native Cody Goddard who was searching for fossils and shark teeth, a popular activity in the area, the Calvert Marine Museum said in a statement.
“We feel like we won the Paleontology World Cup!” said Stephen Godfrey, the museum’s head of paleontology.
“We still don’t know what species of Miocene whale this is,” he added.
A fossil named “Cody”
According to the museum, it took two months to remove and move the skull, which is embedded in a block of sediment. The whole set weighs about 295 kilos.
It is the most complete fossil whale skull found in the Calvert Cliffs area, according to the museum, and was named “Cody” after its discoverer.
Stephen Godfrey said the skull had been transferred to the museum’s fossil laboratory and special tools would be used to extract it from the sediment, a process that will take several months.
Source: BFM TV
