Nick Gardner, PSC library director, poses with a 3D printed replica of the
lower jawbone of a common minke whale. The original bone is in the science hall
on the PSC campus. The bone’s origins are unknown.
Do you know anything about how the WVU Potomac State College biology department came to acquire the lower jaw of a minke whale? Library director Nicholas Gardner is collecting bits of campus history and has been unable to solve the mystery of how this approximately six feet long bone arrived on our campus. Nicholas first became interested in this specimen when a colleague in the biology department (Nate Van Vranken, now at EWVCTC in Moorefield) showed it to him.
Though he could recognize it as a lower jaw of a baleen whale, he did not know what species it was. Nicholas shared photographs of the specimen with Dr. Robert “Bobby” Boessenecker, a noted fossil whale researcher. Dr. Boessenecker identified the bone as belonging to a common minke whale.
Minke whales are a species of whale common in the Northern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and are among the smallest baleen whales. They are typically no longer than 20-25 feet (about the size of a small moving truck) but can reach thirty-five feet in length.
Nicholas and David Miller, SAGE Innovation Lab Coordinator, collaborated to make a life-size 3D printed replica of this jaw which has been a huge hit at the annual STEM festivals and other outreach events. Kids and families like to pose next to the replica. The 3D prints are lightweight and safer for children to handle, unlike the heavy and fragile original bone.
Efforts to dive into the jaw's history, including interviewing retired faculty, have not yielded any information. The specimen has been here since before the 1960s or 1970s. If you have any information, please contact our library director Nicholas Gardner at ngardner@mail.wvu.edu or by mail at Mary F. Shipper Library, WVU Potomac State College, Attn.: Nicholas Gardner, Director, 103 Fort Ave, Keyser, WV 26726.