John Day Fossil Beds team uncovers the first hedgehog skull in PNW
By Logan Bagett on Friday, December 2nd, 2022 in Eastern/Southeast Oregon News Featured Stories
KIMBERLY – Earlier this week we mentioned Dr. Nicholas Famoso, Chief Paleontologist, and his team at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument recently uncovered the partial skull fossil of a 3-toed horse called Miohippus. Dr. Famoso also informed our newsroom of an even more significant find from a specimen picked up in 2019. He had found a concretion, and after his team prepared the fossil this past season, they discovered it to be a rare hedgehog skull:
“Hedgehogs are really rare on the fossil record, you don’t find them very frequently at all. Throughout all of time in North America, there’s maybe, like, 200 specimens like that have been published, which is really tiny when you think about all the other groups of animals we have fossils off of.”
Dr. Famoso said it’s the first hedgehog fossil skull found in the Pacific Northwest, and it’s about 23-to-25-million years old. He said it’s entirely possible the skull could belong to a whole new species not yet known to science.
Find Wednesday’s Miohippus story here: https://elkhornmediagroup.com/paleontologists-discover-first-3-toed-horse-from-lake-bed-site/
Listen to the Coffee Time Episode with Dr. Nicholas Famoso here: https://omny.fm/shows/coffee-time/november-29-john-day-fossil-beds-national-monument
