Kolponomos Newportensis

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The extinct marine bear-like carnivore:





To be continued....

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Kolponomos clallamensis





Kolponomos is an extinct genus of marine bears which existed from the Hemingfordian age to the Aquitanian age
of the Miocene epoch, about 20 million years ago. It was described in 1960 by Ruben A. Stirton, a paleontologist
at the American Museum of Natural History, from a partial skull and jaw found on the Olympic Peninsula. Stirton
thought the fossil was a large marine procyonid, but a specimen found in two pieces by fossil collector Douglas
Emlong near Newport, Oregon, in 1969 and 1977, proved the genus was related to ancestors of bears. Since
that time, one other Kolponomos fossil has been discovered, in the Aleutian Islands, bringing the total number of
specimens to three.

Kolponomos had downturned snouts and broad, heavy molars that would have been suited to a diet of hard-shelled
marine invertebrates, and their narrow snouts and anteriorly directed eyes indicate that they would have been able
to view objects directly in front of their heads. Large neck muscle attachments and robust foot bones combine with
these features to suggest that Kolponomos filled a unique niche among marine carnivores, approached today only by
the unrelated sea otter. Due to the lack of a complete skeleton, however, it is difficult to make inferences about this
group's other adaptations.


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Nice work Roman!!!