Heritage Malta has just put up a new display at the National Museum of Natural History in Mdina showing the results of recent studies of fossils found in the Maltese Islands thanks to which a number of species of toothed whales not previously recorded in Maltese rocks have been found. These discoveries were made by a joint team of Maltese and Italian palaeontologists who presented the results of their work as a poster at the Darwin-Bernissart Congress held recently in Brussels.

A scientific paper describing these finds, co-authored by Michael Gatt, Charles Galea Bonavia and Richard Curmi together with Giovanni Biannuci, Rita Catanzariti, and Angelo Varola, three palaeontologists from the Universities of Pisa and Lecce in Italy, will be published in a leading scientific journal.

In recent years, new toothed whales fossil remains have been discovered in almost all the rock layers of the Maltese Islands ranging from 35 to 5 million years ago. Although this new material is rather fragmentary, consisting mainly of ear bones and teeth, in most cases the identification to family level was possible. A preliminary analysis of these fossils and a revision of the previously published records permitted the identification of at least seven such families. Three of them constitute first records for the Mediterranean. Furthermore, analysis of microscopic marine organisms on sediments in association with some of the studied material made possible their localisation within the sedimentary succession.

The National Museum of Natural History is involved in a number of similar research studies. The projects by both local and foreign researchers cover different fields including insects, birds, fish, shells and fossils.

The display about the new fossil species can be seen in the George Zammit Maempel Hall of Geology and Palaeontology of the museum. The museum is open Monday to Sunday from 9am to 5pm.

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