A search-and-rescue team removed a rare half-ton whale fossil from a California backyard Friday.
The fossil is believed to be a baleen whale from between 16 and 17 million years ago, the Associated Press reported. It is one of only about 20 of this species of baleen whale fossil known to science.
The fossil was found in a 1,000 pound boulder. It was hoisted from a ravine by Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department search-and-rescue volunteers using pulleys and trolleys; it was then loaded into a truck bound for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
Gary Johnson, 53, first noticed the fossil as a teenager. He called a local museum, but inspectors were not interested in the sample. In January the discovery of a 12-million-year-old sperm whale fossil nearby inspired Johnson to give it another shot.
"I thought, maybe my whale is somehow associated," Johnson, who works as a cartoonist and art director, told the AP.
Paleontologist Howell Thomas wanted to feature the fossil at the museum, but was unsure of how to recover it since the museum is located about 25 miles from the site of the fossil. The sheriff's department search-and-rescue unit would not send a helicopter, but instead offered to have the search-and-rescue team retrieve it as a training exercise. This crew mainly rescues hikers and motorcyclists who fall onto rugged and steep terrain.
"We'll always be able to say, 'it's not heavier than a fossil,"search-and-rescue reserve chief Mike Leum told the AP.
Baleen is composed of soft tissue and is used to filter out small prey (such as krill) from seawater.
"Baleen whales don't just grab fish individually - they actually open their mouth and they suck in a lot of small animals. That actually gives them the capacity to grow large because they're eating a large quantity of small animals at one time. They're filter-feeders," Thomas told the Los Angeles Times.
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