The pelvic bones of some cetaceans.

This web site provides digital photographs of the pelvic bones of several different species of whales, dolphins and porpoise. They are referred to as pelvic bones because of the unresolved issue of labeling them vestiges, rudiments or remnants.

The data with each picture, when available, includes species, sex, length and either field number or museum number. Missing information is due in large part to the fact that some bones were collected over a century ago and arrived with incomplete data.

The source of these bones include the Smithsonian, the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, Northeastern University, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the American Museum of Natural History, Los Angeles County Museum, New Brunswick Museum, Florida Museum of Natural History and whale recovery efforts of Dr. Tom French, Dr. Michael Moore, the author and others.

Anyone wishing to contribute photographs of cetacean pelvic bones or comment on existing pictures is encouraged to e-mail me at dbtaylor@whoi.edu.

Species