Annalisa Berta | |
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Citizenship | United States |
Education | Ph.D. |
Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley |
Known for | contributions to the fossil history of pinnipeds and cetaceans |
Awards |
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Scientific career | |
Fields | Vertebrate Paleontology, Evolution, Systematics |
Institutions | San Diego State University (1989–present) |
Thesis | (1979) |
Doctoral advisor | William A. Clemens, Jr. |
Website | www |
Annalisa Berta (born 23 July 1952 [1] ) is an American paleontologist and professor emerita in the Department of Biology at San Diego State University. [2] [3]
The focus of her research is the evolution and fossil history of whales and other marine mammals, and among her contributions is the description of the early pinniped Enaliarctos . [4] [5]
Berta received her Ph.D. from the Department of Paleontology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1979, after which she was a postdoctoral researcher at University of Florida before starting as a faculty member at San Diego State University in 1982. [6] Berta served as president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in 2004–2006 [7] and she was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2015 [8] and of the Paleontological Society in 2022. [9]
The earless seals, phocids, or true seals are one of the three main groups of mammals within the seal lineage, Pinnipedia. All true seals are members of the family Phocidae. They are sometimes called crawling seals to distinguish them from the fur seals and sea lions of the family Otariidae. Seals live in the oceans of both hemispheres and, with the exception of the more tropical monk seals, are mostly confined to polar, subpolar, and temperate climates. The Baikal seal is the only species of exclusively freshwater seal.
Pinnipeds, commonly known as seals, are a widely distributed and diverse clade of carnivorous, fin-footed, semiaquatic, mostly marine mammals. They comprise the extant families Odobenidae, Otariidae, and Phocidae, with 34 extant species and more than 50 extinct species described from fossils. While seals were historically thought to have descended from two ancestral lines, molecular evidence supports them as a monophyletic group. Pinnipeds belong to the suborder Caniformia of the order Carnivora; their closest living relatives are musteloids, having diverged about 50 million years ago.
The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) is a professional organization that was founded in the United States in 1940 to advance the science of vertebrate paleontology around the world.
Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS) is an honor accorded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to distinguished persons who are members of the Association. Fellows are elected annually by the AAAS Council for "efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications [which] are scientifically or socially distinguished".
Enaliarctos is an extinct genus of pinnipedimorph, and may represent the ancestor to all pinnipeds. The five species in the genus Enaliarctos have been recovered from late Oligocene and early Miocene strata of California and Oregon.
R. Michael Roberts is an American biologist who is the Chancellor's Professor Emeritus of Animal sciences and Biochemistry at the University of Missouri. He is a founding co-editor of the Annual Review of Animal Biosciences, first published in 2013.
Douglas Ralph Emlong was an amateur fossil collector from the Oregon Coast in the northwestern United States. His collections contributed to the discovery and description of numerous extinct marine mammal species, many of which are ancestral to extant groups. Described as an 'indefatigable' fossil collector with 'Promethian prowess in discovery of unprecedented vertebrate fossils', he contributed substantially to the field from the age of fourteen. The ancestral pinniped Enaliarctos emlongi was named in his honor by Annalisa Berta in 1991.
Orycteocetus is an extinct genus of sperm whale from the Miocene of the northern Atlantic Ocean.
Waipatia is an extinct genus of odontocetes from the late Oligocene (Chattian) of New Zealand.
The Astoria Formation is a geologic formation in Washington state & Oregon. It preserves fossils dating back to the early to middle Miocene.
The Yaquina Formation is a geologic formation in Oregon. It preserves fossils dating back to the Paleogene period.
Pontolis is an extinct genus of large walrus. It contained three species, P. magnus, P. barroni, and P. kohnoi. Like all pinnipeds, Pontolis was a heavily built amphibious carnivore. Pontolis lived along the Pacific coast of North America along what is now the western coasts of California and Oregon between 11.608 and 5.332 million years ago, during the Miocene and Pliocene.
Homiphoca is an extinct genus of earless seals from the Pliocene of South Africa.
Paul David Polly is an American paleontologist and the Robert R. Shrock Professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Indiana University as well as the sitting chair of the department.
Alopias palatasi, commonly referred to as the serrated giant thresher, is an extinct species of giant thresher shark that lived approximately 20.44 to 13.7 million years ago during the Miocene epoch, and is known for its uniquely serrated teeth. It is only known from such isolated teeth, which are large and can measure up to an excess of 4 centimetres (2 in), equating to a size rivaling the great white shark, but are rare and found in deposits in the East Coast of the United States and Malta. Teeth of A. palatasi are strikingly similar to those of the giant thresher Alopias grandis, and the former has been considered as a variant of the latter in the past. Scientists hypothesized that A. palatasi may have had attained lengths comparable with the great white shark and a body outline similar to it.
Pinnipedimorpha is a clade of arctoid carnivorans that is defined to include the last common ancestor of Phoca and Enaliarctos, and all descendants of that ancestor. Scientists still debate on which lineage of arctoid carnivorans are the closest relatives to the pinnipedimorphs, being more closely related to musteloids.
Callorhinus gilmorei is an extinct species of fur seal that lived in Japan and western North America during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene.
Kawas is an extinct genus of phocid from the Miocene of Argentina. It contains a single species known as Kawas benegasorum.
Nicholas Pyenson is a paleontologist and the curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. He is the author of numerous popular science works including the book Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures.