Le collezioni a cetacei fossili del Museo di Storia Naturale dell’Università di Pisa

In the Natural History Museum of the Pisa University is kept a rich collection of fossil cetaceans that originated in the second half of the nineteen century, due to the donations, mainly by Roberto Lawley, of specimens from Pliocene sediments out cropping in Orciano Pisano (Province of Pisa). Among the fossils belonging to the first nucleus of this collection, the holotype of Balaena montalionis discovered in 1871 near Montaione (Province of Florence) is particularly significant. Equally important but of relatively more recent acquisition is the holotype of Balaenula astensis, discovered in Portacomaro d’Asti (nothern Italy) in 1940. Since the sixties of the last century, the Museum acquired several specimens (originals and casts) from the Pietra leccese, a Miocene calcareous sandstone outcropping in the Salento Peninsula (southern Italy). Among the last acquisitions, particularly important is the archaeocete skeleton found sectioned in six slabs of nummulitic limestone from Egypt and described as holotype of Aegyptocetus tarfa. Most of these specimens are exposed to the public in two permanent exhibitions of the Museum: the hall of the origin of cetaceans and the reconstruction of the Pliocene sea inside the “Back to the Past” exhibit.