Ruairidh Duncan
@inxcetus.bsky.social
Whaleontology PhD candidate (Monash University/Melbourne Museum) and palaeoartist (of sorts) from Port Glasgow.
🖖🐋🏎️🦕
Okay at some things. (he/him)
🖖🐋🏎️🦕
Okay at some things. (he/him)
"I sleep in a racing car, do you?"
August 15, 2025 at 2:21 AM
"I sleep in a racing car, do you?"
Reposted by Ruairidh Duncan
#whalewednesday New paper - introducing the new toothed baleen whale from down under, Janjucetus dullardi - a 26 myo juvenile specimen closely related to the more completely preserved Janjucetus hunderi, published yesterday by @inxcetus.bsky.social. Read it here: academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...
August 13, 2025 at 4:53 PM
#whalewednesday New paper - introducing the new toothed baleen whale from down under, Janjucetus dullardi - a 26 myo juvenile specimen closely related to the more completely preserved Janjucetus hunderi, published yesterday by @inxcetus.bsky.social. Read it here: academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...
Putting this on my CV
This wins the “best size comparison in palaeoart” award.
We think this individual was just over 2 metres long when it perished—so, just about able to uncomfortably lie on a single bed.
August 14, 2025 at 1:00 AM
Putting this on my CV
A few years in the making, but I can finally share my first PhD paper and my first ever first-authored whale paper. In it, we name a new species of toothed baleen whale: Janjucetus dullardi. You can find our conversation article here: tinyurl.com/dullardi
A cornucopia of tiny, bizarre whales used to live in Australian waters – here’s one of them
If alive today, these tiny whales would be as iconically Australian as kangaroos.
tinyurl.com
August 13, 2025 at 1:40 AM
A few years in the making, but I can finally share my first PhD paper and my first ever first-authored whale paper. In it, we name a new species of toothed baleen whale: Janjucetus dullardi. You can find our conversation article here: tinyurl.com/dullardi
Reposted by Ruairidh Duncan
New publication: taxonomy and classification of every fossil mammal species in Australasia—Wallace Line to New Zealand!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
An annotated checklist of Australasian fossil mammals
Australasia has had a rich history of discovery of fossil mammals, with the first specimens collected within Wellington Caves, New South Wales and described by Richard Owen in 1838. Currently, a to...
www.tandfonline.com
February 10, 2025 at 1:34 AM
New publication: taxonomy and classification of every fossil mammal species in Australasia—Wallace Line to New Zealand!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Ruairidh Duncan
🐬🦖 New paper by Cedillo-Avila et al. in Palaeo-Electronica: newly named eomysticetid baleen whale from the Oligocene of Baja California, Cochimicetus convexus! Elated to see another eomysticetid named from the Pacific coast. Read it here: palaeo-electronica.org/content/in-p...
January 6, 2025 at 6:37 PM
🐬🦖 New paper by Cedillo-Avila et al. in Palaeo-Electronica: newly named eomysticetid baleen whale from the Oligocene of Baja California, Cochimicetus convexus! Elated to see another eomysticetid named from the Pacific coast. Read it here: palaeo-electronica.org/content/in-p...
Reposted by Ruairidh Duncan
New Artwotk - " Migration "
December 12, 2024 at 11:38 PM
New Artwotk - " Migration "
Reposted by Ruairidh Duncan
Reposted by Ruairidh Duncan
I have a new paper out on the evolution of hearing in toothed whales! It looks like a narrow range of high-frequency auditory sensitivity in some living dolphins and porpoises may be an ancestral physiology rather than novel specializations in select groups.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Variation in whale (Cetacea) inner ear anatomy reveals the early evolution of “specialized” high‐frequency hearing sensitivity
Our findings support sensitivity to low-frequency sound in the archaeocete Zygorhiza kochii and an early toothed mysticete cf. Aetiocetus. Narrow-band high-frequency hearing was present in Oligocene ...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
December 4, 2024 at 2:15 AM
I have a new paper out on the evolution of hearing in toothed whales! It looks like a narrow range of high-frequency auditory sensitivity in some living dolphins and porpoises may be an ancestral physiology rather than novel specializations in select groups.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Thrilled to have been a co-author and palaeoartist on my good friend Jake Kotevski's first PhD chapter (who does not use Bluesky). Always nice to have a reason to draw some theropod dinosaurs 🦖
doi.org/10.1016/j.cr...
doi.org/10.1016/j.cr...
November 3, 2023 at 3:15 AM
Thrilled to have been a co-author and palaeoartist on my good friend Jake Kotevski's first PhD chapter (who does not use Bluesky). Always nice to have a reason to draw some theropod dinosaurs 🦖
doi.org/10.1016/j.cr...
doi.org/10.1016/j.cr...
Reposted by Ruairidh Duncan
All cetaceans are classified as "even-toed ungulates" (Order: Artiodactyla), while horses are "odd-toed ungulates" (Order: Perissodactyla).
That means a giraffe is more closely related to a narwhal (58 MYA) than to a zebra (76 MYA).
(diagram by K. L. Mariott)
That means a giraffe is more closely related to a narwhal (58 MYA) than to a zebra (76 MYA).
(diagram by K. L. Mariott)
September 7, 2023 at 1:35 AM
All cetaceans are classified as "even-toed ungulates" (Order: Artiodactyla), while horses are "odd-toed ungulates" (Order: Perissodactyla).
That means a giraffe is more closely related to a narwhal (58 MYA) than to a zebra (76 MYA).
(diagram by K. L. Mariott)
That means a giraffe is more closely related to a narwhal (58 MYA) than to a zebra (76 MYA).
(diagram by K. L. Mariott)
Reposted by Ruairidh Duncan
New paper by my colleagues and I on the reproductive anatomy of a leopard seal 🦭
Leopard seal reproduction is mostly unknown. This note from a Monash Uni dissection discusses the importance of morphology in providing some clues.
Open access paper here:
doi.org/10.1111/mms....
Leopard seal reproduction is mostly unknown. This note from a Monash Uni dissection discusses the importance of morphology in providing some clues.
Open access paper here:
doi.org/10.1111/mms....
https://doi.org/10.1111/mms.13067
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doi.org
September 4, 2023 at 2:21 PM
New paper by my colleagues and I on the reproductive anatomy of a leopard seal 🦭
Leopard seal reproduction is mostly unknown. This note from a Monash Uni dissection discusses the importance of morphology in providing some clues.
Open access paper here:
doi.org/10.1111/mms....
Leopard seal reproduction is mostly unknown. This note from a Monash Uni dissection discusses the importance of morphology in providing some clues.
Open access paper here:
doi.org/10.1111/mms....
Hello new social media hellscape! I'm Ruairidh, a palaeontology PhD candidate and palaeoartist (of sorts) at Monash University and Melbourne Museum studying toothed baleen whales. I like DS9 and making weird animals out of other animals. Please share all the cool science and art with me! 🐋🖖🦖
September 4, 2023 at 12:31 PM
Hello new social media hellscape! I'm Ruairidh, a palaeontology PhD candidate and palaeoartist (of sorts) at Monash University and Melbourne Museum studying toothed baleen whales. I like DS9 and making weird animals out of other animals. Please share all the cool science and art with me! 🐋🖖🦖