I cetacei fossili della Pietra leccese nei musei del Salento

Significant collections of fossil cetaceans from Pietra leccese - a calacarenite limestone out cropping in Salento (southern Italy) - are kept in three museums of the Lecce Province: 1) the Museo di Scienze Naturali dell’Istituto Costa di Lecce (MSNIC); 2) the Museo Civico di Paleontologia e Paleoetnologia di Maglie (MCPPM); 3) the Museo dell’Ambiente dell’Università del Salento (MAUS). The oldest Collection is the one of MSNIC, studied since the nineteenth century by famous naturalists as Oronzo Gabriele Costa and Giovanni Capellini. The Collection MSNIC includes the holotype of Priscodelphinus squalodontoides and a skull referred to Ziphiodelphis abeli. In the MCPPM are kept fragmentary remains collected at the end of the sixties of the last century and referred to Scaldicetus grandis. The Collection of MAUS is the result of a twenty-years collaboration between the Salento University and the Pisa University that led to the discovery and the collection of an impressive number of fossil cetaceans including the holotypes of Archaeschrichtius ruggieroi, Messapicetus longirostris and Zygophyseter varolai.