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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · 21h

We also had some fantastic out-in-the-open lobster sightings! Usually these guys are tucked inside crevices and you just see their face and antennae, but we saw several out and about in broad daylight. California spiny lobster, Panulirus interruptus. In the last 2 pics it's eating a mussel!🤿🦑🦀

A California spiny lobster on a flat, algae covered slab; it's a tan/brown color, with black and orange striped legs, very long antennae with purplish bases.

A California spiny lobster on a sandy bottom in a deep tide pool channel; it's a tan/brown color, with black and orange striped legs, very long antennae with purplish bases. It is eating a california mussel.

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · 5d

🦀Minus tides are coming! Our first daytime minus tide of the fall is today (in SoCal anyway), though I probably won't go out until tomorrow. But, you know what that means: more nudi pics! And by that I mean nudibranchs, lovely colorful little sea slugs:

coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2024/03/nudi...

Nudibranch hunting in northern California: snapshots from winter tidepooling in Half Moon Bay, CA

This post has more to do with the coastal part of the title and less to do with the paleo part - I'll be doing more of these, since I figure...

coastalpaleo.blogspot.com

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Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭 @tetrameryx.bsky.social · 2d

This cat KNOWS he's pretty, and loves to ham it up for pictures 🖤🤍@coastalpaleo.bsky.social

Large long haired black and white cat posing for a picture next to a sliding door

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · 4d

#whalewednesday The spectacular early toothed whale Xenorophus sloanii from the Oligocene (~28 mya) of South Carolina! This is a critical transitional fossil, known from about a dozen skulls and partial skeletons. Read more about Xenorophus here on my blog: coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-...

A black and white skeletal reconstruction of Xenorophus sloanii, and a pair of photos of the skull and neck vertebrae of the best known specimen in top and side view.

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · 4d

For #worldoctopusday here is my favorite photo I've taken of an octopus, in a hole in a rock about 10 feet down while snorkeling. Octopus are quite hard to spot unless they're moving! This one is a rather small (perhaps ~2' wide) American Octopus, Octopus americana. 🦑🦀🧪🤿

An underwater photograph of an octopus in its hole; the arm is wrapped around the eye, and pale red, whereas the head is bluish green.

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · 2d

#fossilfriday I find early whale and dolphin teeth to be quite beautiful and unusual. This is a lower molar of an extinct, as-yet unnamed simocetid dolphin (?Olympicetus) from the early Oligocene Makah Formation of Washington, USA. Acid prepared; collected by Jim Goedert. 🦖🐬 #whaleontology

A well-preserved molar of an extinct dolphin with dark brown enamel and a tan root; the crown is triangular with several accessory cusps. The lingual side has several short vertical ridges. The mesial edge of the tooth is serrated.

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · 6d

Some of my more beautiful kelp forest photos from August, when I went out snorkeling with @joshualudtke.bsky.social at La Jolla.

A school of smelt - silvery long schooling fish - swim between kelp stalks just below the water surface.

Some senorita fish swimming adjacent to a kelp stalk.

Many strands of giant kelp in a kelp forest canopy.

Many strands of kelp in a kelp forest canopy - the blades have been grazed extensively in the warm water.

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Старый Ворон/Old Raven @oldvalravn.bsky.social · 8d

🔭 Комета Lemmon сегодня утром на снимке Брэя Фоллса ✨

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · 10d

Did you know that we used to have warm water beluga whales? This is the pilot whale-convergent beluga Denebola brachycephala from ~8 million year old rocks (Almejas Fm.) of Isla Cedros just off Baja California. Read more about white whale evolution here: coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-...

A black and white photographic figure of the skull of the pilot whale convergent beluga Denebola brachycephala. The snout is shorter than a modern beluga, and the facial plane is more concave.

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · 9d

#fossilfriday The beautiful skull of the dwarf baleen whale Herpetocetus bramblei (Cetotheriidae) I discovered and excavated as an undergrad from the 5-6 myo Purisima Formation near Santa Cruz, California. Now in @ucmpberkeley.bsky.social collections!

A partial skull of a small baleen whale; it is about a meter long, light brown in color, with a long blowhole and a narrow, pyramidal braincase with high muscle attachment crests and a large eye socket. It's sitting on a white sheet with scale bars next to it.

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · 11d

At the Fordyce lab at Otago, we would do this with sheets of tyvek and illuminate it with LED lamps. It's important to be flexible with space and equipment to make an ad hoc studio when you study fossil whales! Usually, you bring the studio to the whale 🏋️

Tannis Davidson @tannisdavidson.bsky.social · 11d

If you ever wondered how to photograph a gorilla skeleton without a studio …

Hannah Cornish and Alice Holloway holding up a black drape behind UCL Grant Museum’s male gorilla skeleton ‘Hugo’ for some quick photos. They are smiling but their arms are screaming.

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · 13d

NEW blog post! The evolution and fossil record of narwhals and belugas - the white whales! Emphasis on the surprising fossil record of belugas and the evolution of the bizarre tusk in the weirdest modern cetacean. 🐬🧪🦖 #whaleontology Read it here: coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-...

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

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

coastalpaleo.blogspot.com

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · 15d

Went to LA comic con with @tetrameryx.bsky.social and @joshualudtke.bsky.social today. The funniest/most incredibly niche costume I saw was, in a star wars family costume, a lady dressed up as gender bent Dave Filoni, complete with the hat and everything

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · 19d

#seaotterawarenessweek Sea otters are some of the most famous modern marine mammals, and considered ecosystem engineers here on the Pacific coast. However, we know surprisingly little about their evolutionary history and fossil record. 🧵1/ coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-...

A photo of an adorable baby sea otter floating on its back and holding its paws together. Its face is brown rather than the white seen in old adults.

The skull of an adult sea otter, stained with echinochrome, a purple pigment found in purple sea urchins.

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Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭 @tetrameryx.bsky.social · 17d

Nerd stuff:
480 frames, stacked (~1.5 hours)
Seestar s50
Stacked in Siril, and processed in Pixinsight, with minor edits in Gimp

Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭 @tetrameryx.bsky.social · 17d

This nebula is sometimes called the “Eye of God,” or the “Eye of Sauron.” The star at the center of a planetary nebula was once a red giant, but is destined to become a white dwarf. This nebula is fairly large - almost 3 light years across, and is estimated to be about 10,600 years old.

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Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭 @tetrameryx.bsky.social · 17d

The Helix Nebula is a planetary nebula around 655 light-years from Earth. A planetary nebula is a bit of a misnomer - it has nothing to do with planets, but instead is an expanding shell of ionized gas ejected from a red giant star at the end of their life.

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Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭 @tetrameryx.bsky.social · 17d

NGC 7293 - The Helix Nebula
🔭 #astronomy #astro #astrophoto #astrophotography

a nebula that looks like an eyeball, with red, yellow, and blueish-green gasses.

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Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭 @tetrameryx.bsky.social · 25d

14 years married, and over 20 years together - he still makes me laugh every day, and is the best friend anyone could ever ask for. I'm the luckiest girl in the world.
Happy lucky 14th wedding anniversary!
Love you to the end, nerd. @coastalpaleo.bsky.social

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · Sep 7

I spent the last day of my 30s and the first day of my 40s snorkeling with friends (with attached and removable fins), and had some of my closest friends and colleagues over to look at far too many whale specimens. @tetrameryx.bsky.social baked her most beautiful cake yet 😍

A couple of kayaks in crystal clear ocean water on the southern California coast; the water is a beautiful turquoise blue.

A pair of California sea lion pups playing next to me underwater, zipping around in circles at dizzying speed over a bed of seagrass.

Sarah's incredible birthday cake - a three layer chocolate cake with white frosting and chocolate ganache (sp) dripping down the sides, and a pair of candles shaped like the numbers 4 and 0.

Me and some other whaleontologists looking at a bunch of fossil earbones at a table like the weirdos we are

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · Sep 1

#gingercatappreciationday here's my orange son, Jonesy

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

James Davenport @jradavenport.com · Aug 31

“… after people expressed concern over his absence for 3 days.”
I mean, I wouldn’t say I was concerned

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Robert @robertdzudzar.bsky.social · Aug 31

The Pleiades, open star cluster. Inspired by The Starry Night, and painted with watercolor on paper.

#SciArt #Astronomy #Watercolor #ArtYear

The Pleiades, open star cluster, painted with thick watercolour on paper. Style is inspired by The Starry Night - thick short dashed brushstrokes twirling around. Bright white stars with a dash of yellow; surrounding is dominated with bright blue colour which fades outward to black.

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Reposted by Sarah Boessenecker, MSc. 🏛️🔭

Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · Aug 29

#fossilfriday Max Mastodon on display at Western Science Center - the holotype skull and partial skeleton of the Pacific mastodon, Mammut pacificus - the recently named species of mastodon unique to the Pacific coast.

The skeleton of Max on display; the skull is enormous and has laterally facing tusks. The bones of the skeletons are mounted on a cutout shaped like the body outline of a live mastodon, and is about five meters tall and perhaps six meters long.

A large white to tan skull of a mastodon in a glass case. The eye sockets are small and located on the side of the skull; the tusk sockets form a large shovel-like platform on the rostrum, and the single retracted bony naris is present between the eyes. The tusks are placed on the ground around the skull.

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Robert Boessenecker, Dr. of Whaleontology ™️ @coastalpaleo.bsky.social · Aug 28

If you've ever struggled to take good photographs of fossils (or other reasonably stationary natural history objects), here's a beginner's guide to scientific fossil photography I wrote a while ago (and should probably update). coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2016/02/pale...

Paleontological Research Tips III: a complete idiot's guide to taking decent specimen photographs

Other posts in this series: Paleontological Research Tips I: field notes for amateurs and professionals alike Paleontological Research...

coastalpaleo.blogspot.com

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