News & Events

Press Room

• Découverte: Watch this 10-minute segment from October 18, 2009. (In French).
  
  
• Not Exactly Rocket Science: Read "Puijila, the Walking Seal—A Beautiful Transitional Fossil", a posting in Ed Yong's science blog.
  
  
• The Coastal Paleontologist: Read "Puijila, a Very Basal 'Pinnipedimorph'" in the palaeontology blog of Robert Boessenecker Bozeman.
  
  
• Laelaps: Read "Puijila darwini: A Significant Seal" in Brian Switek's science blog.
  
  
• BBC News: Check out the story "'Missing Link' Fossil Seal Walked".
  
  
• New Scientist: Read "Fossil Seal Had the Feet of an Otter" in the April 25, 2009 (number 2705) issue of this magazine.
  
  
• Nature Podcast: Listen to an interview with Natalia Rybczynski on the April 23, 2009 edition of this audio show, published by the journal Nature.
  
  
• CTV Newsnet: Watch this clip for an interview with Natalia Rybczynski by host Dan Matheson.
  
  
• CTV National News: Watch this piece about the Puijila fossil and its discovery, which includes interview footage of Natalia Rybczynski.
  
  
• Canada AM: Watch Natalia Rybczynski being interviewed about the Puijila discovery by host Seamus O'Regan, on this CTV show.
  
  
• Quirks and Quarks: Listen to the "Perambulating Pinnipeds" segment, featuring Natalia Rybczynski and what we're learning from the Puijila fossil, on this CBC Radio One show.
  
  
• Daily Planet: Watch this six-minute segment featuring Natalia Rybczynski and the significance of the Puijila discovery, from this Discovery Channel television show.
  
  
• Press Release: April 22, 2009—Canadian Museum of Nature palaeontologist finds Arctic "missing link" fossil (seal evolution), publishes about it in Nature.

Events

• Exhibition: A replica (a 3D print) of the Puijila darwini fossil appears in the exhibition Extreme Mammals. Visit the exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History from May 16, 2009 to January 3, 2010, and then at the Canadian Museum of Nature in 2011.
  

Resources

• The scientific paper: Rybczynski, N., M. Dawson, and R.H. Tedford. A semi-aquatic Arctic mammalian carnivore from the Miocene Epoch and origin of Pinnipedia. Nature 458 (23 April 2009): 1021–1024.
  
  
• Overview video: Watch this short documentary for a summary of what lead researcher Natalia Rybczynski is learning from the Puijila darwini fossil.
  
  
• Relevant web sites of the Canadian Museum of Nature:
  • Ukaliq: The Arctic Hare
  • Sila: Clue in to Climate Change
  • Natural History Notebooks
    
    
• Arius3D Imaging Centre at the Canadian Museum of Nature.
  
  
• Wikipedia: Read the article about Puijila darwini.
  
  
• Tiktaalik roseae web site (from the University of Chicago). Learn about this "fishapod", a fossil fish with tetrapod ("four-footed") features from the Canadian Arctic.
  
  
• Haughton-Mars Project web site (from the Mars Institute). Learn about this international, interdisciplinary field-research project, which uses the Haughton Crater on Devon Island, Nunavut, as an analogue for the terrain on Mars.