Meet a new seal from the Miocene of Moldova, a partial skeleton with a skull:

sjpp.springeropen.com/articles/10....

The new paper Ghazali et al, Humerus shape evolved in cetaceans under relaxed selection and random drift: 3D, phylogeny, humeral head twist, morphological integration, gene evolution, and a “fly in a tube model” www.nature.com/articles/s42...

The new paper, maybe among the most important in my life, several first described mammalian bones: Evolution of accessory bones in cetacean skull coupled with decreasing rate of ossification of cranial sutures www.nature.com/articles/s41...

so, here it comes, meet the Miocene seal Monachopsis pontica from Ukraine:

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

do you know what is this?

a short digest from the recent months:

Density and abundance estimates of cetaceans in the Black Sea through aerial surveys (ASI/CeNoBS)

These aerial surveys yielded the first insights on overall abundance, density and distribution for three cetacean species

www.frontiersin.org/journals/mar...

a short digest from the recent months:

Relaxed selection in evolution of genes regulating limb development gives clue to variation in forelimb morphology of cetaceans and other mammals by Valeriia Telizhenko, C Kosiol, M R. McGowen and P Gol'din

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

Karagiye in Mangystau, western Kazakhstan, our field site in 2021. The altitude is minus 132 m under the sea level

Мазут у Чорному морі: наслідки триватимуть понад 20 років, пляма вже досягає багатьох берегів і несе загрозу для птахів та дельфінів

ctrcenter.org/uk/activitie...

done

Hydrological isolation of the Paratethys in the late Middle-Late Miocene: integrated stratigraphy, palaeoenvironments and biotic record of the Caspian Basin, Karagiye, Kazakhstan

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...