Thursday, October 23, 2014

Paleontology "kickstarter": relationships of Allodesmus



A mount of the partial holotype skeleton of Allodesmus kelloggi, a junior synonym of Allodesmus kernensis (at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles).

My colleague Reagan Furbish - a master's student under Dr. Annalisa Berta at San Diego State University, has started a kickstarter campaign to fund some of her master's thesis research. Reagan is studying the phylogenetic relationships of the fossil pinniped Allodesmus: controversy exists whether or not it was more closely related to true seals (Phocidae) or to sea lions (Otariidae) and walruses (Otarioidea). She needs to visit several museums including the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. Reagan asked me to post this here - if any readers happen to have a few spare bucks they can part with, think about sending some in Reagan's direction! I will note that recently, my colleague Rachel Racicot successfully funded some future CT work on the bizarre porpoise Semirostrum using an Experiment.com kickstarter. Go donate!

Here's the link: https://experiment.com/projects/written-in-bone-was-the-fossil-allodesmus-a-seal-or-sea-lion

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