Retrieving Palaeoecological Information from Historic Fossil Finds: A Taphonomic Cold Case from Orciano Pisano (Central Italy) Reveals a Distinctive Trophic Interaction in the Pliocene Mediterranean Sea

• Published in: Journal of Marine Science and Engineering
• Main Authors: Edoardo Terranova, Giovanni Bianucci, Marco Merella, Chiara Sorbini, Alberto Collareta
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2025
• Subjects: tooth marks; forelimb; mammal-eating sharks; Mysticeti; palaeoecology; taphonomy; Tuscany; Pisano; baleen whale
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse13030508

Evidence of trophic interactions between sharks and cetaceans is rather widespread in the fossil record, consisting as it does of tooth marks on bones and rarer teeth or tooth fragments embedded in (or associated with) skeletal remains. Here, we reappraise a partial mysticete (baleen whale) forelimb...