Bruce Museum Curator of Science Dr. Daniel T. Ksepka has coauthored a research paper on fossil penguin brain endocasts that will be published as a feature article in the prestigious academic journal Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology in September. The artwork related to the article, pictured above, will appear on the journal’s cover. The paper, co-authored by Dr. Claudia Tambussi, Dr. Federico “Dino” Degrange (both based in Argentina), and Dr. Ksepka sheds light on the penguin brain based on research conducted with Antarctic fossils, some more than 34 million years old. The international team used computed tomography (CT) scan data to map the areas once occupied by the brain in the fossils, creating a virtual model that includes the brain, cranial nerves, semicircular canals, and blood vessels. This allowed them to compare the volume and morphology of the fossil penguins to modern species like the

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