Newfoundland Iceberg Skeleton
Difficult to determine identity without a specimen in hand, but a couple took photos of a rib cage and spinal column sticking out of an iceberg as it passed the eastern coast of Newfoundland. Marine biologists are uncertain if it is a whale or pinniped (or something else). From the news:"Stenson said he is fairly certain the pictures aren't a hoax.
"'If it was Photoshopped, it's a damn good job,' he said. 'The way that it's laying there, with what looks to be part of it underwater, looks authentic.'
"Stenson said he was told the backbone was roughly 2.4 metres out of the ice, leading him to believe the spine belonged to a large mammalian creature.
"But he is uncertain whether the animal would have fallen into a crevasse in an iceberg and then got stuck, or if it simply died on an ice floe and later became embedded by other pans of ice.
"'It could be a walrus, for example, that died and is laying on its back and the pressure of the snow and the ice has flattened those ribs,' he said.
"The bones don't appear very weathered, and it looks like there may be tissue still attached to them. Stenson wouldn't speculate on how old they are because the ice may have preserved them for years."

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