Douglas Emlong

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Douglas Ralph Emlong (April 17, 1942–June 1980) 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'^[1] fossil collector with 'Promethian prowess in discovery of unprecedented vertebrate fossils',^[2] 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.^[3]

Discoveries

Fossils discovered by Douglas Emlong include:

Marine Mammals:

Aetiocetus cotylalveus, an early, toothed relative of baleen whales and evolutionary link between ancient and modern cetaceans
Simocetus, a genus of bottom-feeding pug-nosed whales which may have had comparable echolocation abilities to modern toothed whales
Behemotops, a genus of primitive, elephant-like desmostylians
A remarkably complete skeleton of Enaliarctos, a late-Oligocene pinniped ancestor, from Pyramid Hill, California
The first complete skull of Kolponomos, a relative of bears specialized in diving for mollusks, which was previously thought to be a raccoon ancestor

Birds:

Tonsala hildegardae, a late-Oligocene pelicaniform which proved the existence of the proposed family Plotopteridae

References

↑ "An unusual small "pug-nosed" dolphin, Simocetus rayi, from Oligocene rocks of the northeastern Pacific". Department of Geology, University of Otago, New Zealand. November 2007.
↑ Daryl P. Domning, Clayton Edward Ray, Malcolm C. McKenna. Two new Oligocene desmostylians and a discussion of tethytherian systematics.
↑ Annalisa Berta. New Enaliarctos*(Pinnipedimorpha) from the Oligocene and Miocene of Oregon and the role of "Enaliarctids" in Pinniped phylogeny.

External links

Emlong archives in Smithsonian

Authority control	VIAF: 38550754

Persondata
Name	Emlong, Douglas
Alternative names
Short description	American amateur paleontologist
Date of birth	April 17, 1942
Place of birth
Date of death	1980
Place of death

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