5 Million Year Old Discovery Made in Santa Cruz

Paleontologists say bones uncovered recently by a construction crew may be the remains of an extinct whale at least 5 million years old.
     
The exact location of the bones is a secret, but a Santa Cruz County construction crew notified scientists after uncovering a set of vertebrae in the ground last month.

Experts say preliminary information gathered from the bones indicates the whale was 15-to-20-feet long.

The rock in which the fossils are embedded is from the Miocene Epoch, which helps paleontologists gauge the whale's age.

David Haasl, a paleontologist hired by the county to excavate the bones, says if scientists can locate the whale's skull, it will help determine if it had teeth for meat eating, or if it was a plankton-eating, baleen whale.

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