Some updates on the ongoing preparation of a right whale (Mysticeti: Balaenidae) skeleton from the Pliocene of Casenuove (Empoli, Florence Province) at the PaleoLab-UniPi

In the summer of 1995, an incomplete and largely disarticulated cetacean skeleton was collected in a clay quarry near Casenuove (Empoli, FI). The finding consists of various cranial bones, the right mandible, two ribs and other postcranial fragments belonging to a baleen-bearing whale (Cetacea: Mysticeti) (Bianucci, 1996). Based on various osteological features (e.g., a rounded anterior outline of the supraoccipital, a ventrolaterally projecting zygomatic process of the squamosal, and a greatly reduced coronoid process of the mandible), this specimen was provisionally determined as belonging to the mysticete family Balaenidae, somewhat reminiscent of the genus Eubalaena (Bianucci, 1996). Nowadays, the Casenuove skeleton is part of the palaeontological collection of the Museo di Storia Naturale dell’Università di Pisa (MSNUP) with catalogue number MSNUP I-16839 (Bianucci & Sorbini, 2014). In November 2023, the preparation of this huge skeleton has finally started within the palaeontological laboratories (PaleoLab) of the University of Pisa. At present, this ongoing effort has led to liberating the right premaxilla and one rib of MSNUP I-16839 from the entombing sediment. Characters of both these newly prepared bones confirm the assignment of the Casenuove whale to the balaenids. Hopefully, the preparation of the remaining skeletal elements will soon allow for an exhaustive description of this fossil whale as well as for its eventual musealization at the MSNUP, some thirty years after its discovery.