The fossil hunters of the Purisima Formation are avid collectors of the dead - they probe the beaches and sandy cliffs around Santa Cruz to find the stony bones of birds and whales and sea creatures that lived and died there millions of years ago.
To scientists, those amateur hunters provide an endlessly renewing source of material that bears witness to the ebb and flow of evolution as environments change over the millennia and life adapts to the changes and moves on into ever-new forms.
Two of those amateurs recently passed on a few of their trophies to Robert W. Boessenecker - known as Bobby to his surfing friends in Capitola - who is now a 27-year-old paleontology graduate student in New Zealand.
Evolutionary ancestors
He and two colleagues have just published a scientific report on the fossil discoveries: a primitive whale skull and two ear bones from two members of the dolphin family that swam in the sea some 5 million years ago and appear to have shared the features of modern whale species. The ancient animals might well have been the common evolutionary ancestors of their modern descendants, Boessenecker believes.
His detailed description of the primitive bones is published in the international paleontology journal Acta Paleontologica Polonica. In the report, Boessenecker creditsStanley Jarocki of Watsonville and Robin Eisenman, a one-time Aptos beachcomber, as the fossils' finders.
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