case_images: PMC6368218_01
case_images: The Georgia Bight and Florida Peninsula, showing the location of the gray whale specimens discussed in the text.. These records include specimens from the JY Reef and Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary in the Georgia Bight and Jacksonville Beach and Hobe Sound on the Atlantic Coast of Florida.
case_images: peerj-07-6381-g001.jpg
case_images: PMC6368218_01_peerj-07-6381-g001.jpg
case_images: fig-1
case_images: Lucie Inlet, on the Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), Martin County, southeastern Atlantic Coast of Florida (Fig. 1). Robertson of Jacksonville University on the beach at Jacksonville Beach, Duval County, northeastern Florida (approximate coordinates, 30 17'N, 81 23'W) (Fig. 1).
case_images: Two partial Holocene skulls of gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) from Florida (USA).. Top row (A-C), Jacksonville Beach (UF 99000), A. posterodorsal, B. right lateral, and C. ventral views; Middle row (D-F), Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) (UF 69000), D. posterodorsal, E. right lateral, and F. ventral views; Bottom row, two views of the left periotic (internal ear bone) of the Hobe Sound skull. G. medial and H. lateral views. Both braincases are relatively intact from the condyles to the broken frontals. All scale bars are 10 cm; overall dimensions in Table 1.
case_images: peerj-07-6381-g003.jpg
case_images: PMC6368218_01_peerj-07-6381-g003.jpg
case_images: fig-3
case_images: The following details on the discovery and exact location of the gray whale skull from Hobe Sound (Fig. 3, Specimen UF 69000) were provided by Burkett S. Neely, Jr. and the USFWS, the Hobe Sound gray whale skull was placed on permanent loan in the vertebrate paleontology collection of the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH), University of Florida (UF), Gainesville (catalogue number UF 69000)., 48) stated that "The specimen consists of most of the cranium of what looks like an adult..." However, upon closer examination, this skull consists only of a braincase, including both periotics (Fig. 3), and is from a very young individual or calf probably less than a year old. Atlantic Ocean, based on distributional maps in. Attached to the internal portion of the periotic (Fig. 3) of this juvenile skull is a small sample of sediment, consisting of medium to coarse quartz sand and fragments of mollusk shells, forming a semi-indurated "coquina." This coquina sand, possibly deposited on a beach or in a nearshore marine environment, was probably the original sediment in which the skull was preserved before being dislodged and washed up on the beach.