It’s party time on Solomons Island. A new species of extinct dolphin is to be named in Calvert this week. The Solomons Island region is on the western shores of the Chesapeake Bay, in Maryland. Solomons Island, specifically, is on the north side of the mouth of Patuxent River, where it meets the Chesapeake Bay. (Solomons Island is not to be confused with the Solomon Islands, a nation in Melanesia, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands.)

At 3 p.m. (Eastern) on Thursday, June 12, 2008, the Calvert Marine Museum (a typical exhibit is shown above) will celebrate the publication in the June issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the naming of a new genus and species of extinct fossil dolphin from Calvert Cliffs. The partial skull of this dolphin was discovered several years ago by Jean Hooper (long-time prep lab intern, fossil club member, and paleo volunteer). This new species is named in her honor.

The Calvert Marine Museum is a maritime museum, founded in 1970, located in Solomons, Maryland. Among its exhibits are the Drum Point Light and the bugeye (a type of sailboat developed in the Chesapeake Bay for oyster dredging) Wm. B. Tennison, the latter a National Historic Landmark. It also houses artifacts from the old Cedar Point Light, and maintains the Cove Point Light and grounds.

The museum will celebrate the official release of the scientific name of this dolphin, which is most closely related to the La Plata Dolphin, the only living species within the family Pontoporiidae. During the Miocene epoch, pontoporiid dolphins had a much wider distribution than they do today. Currently, they are known only from shallow marine waters off the southeast coast of South America.

The public is invited to come and help celebrate this important discovery. The meeting will take place in the 3rd floor lounge of the museum.