1. Gerardus arie Thewissen is a Dutch-American paleontologister known for his significant contributions to the field of whale evolution.
17 Facts About Hans Thewissen
1. 2.
Hans Thewissen's research has been instrumental in deepening our understanding of cetacean evolution and the adaptations that allowed these mammals to transition from terrestrial to fully aquatic lifestyles.
3.
Hans Thewissen has always been interested in paleontology and natural history.
4.
Hans Thewissen's mother said that when Thewissen was a small boy, she had to sort through his pockets before laundry time to take out the rocks and worms he collected.
5.
Hans Thewissen's father used to take him to the town of Maastricht, and they collected fossils from the Maastrichtian period.
6.
Hans Thewissen's 12th birthday present was a rock hammer, which has accompanied him on all collecting trips since.
7.
Hans Thewissen grew up just 2 miles from Liessel, a fossil locale that yielded the first whales he ever collected.
8.
Hans Thewissen studied a small artiodactyl from the Eocene of Pakistan in the Geology Department, the systematic position of aardvarks in the biology department, and the functional morphology of digging in the veterinary sciences.
9.
Hans Thewissen studied for a semester at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, before moving to the US to earn a PhD in Geological Sciences at the University of Michigan, where he studied phenacodontids, a group of Paleogene ungulate mammals that is ubiquitous in North America, but rare or absent in all other continents.
10.
Hans Thewissen was an assistant professor at Northeast Ohio Medical University from 1993 to 1999, then associate professor from 1999 to 2008.
11.
Hans Thewissen discovered or worked on four missing links in the evolution of cetaceans.
12.
Sunil Bajpai and Hans Thewissen collected fossils in District Kutch, State of Gujarat, India, in the desert area close to the Pakistani border.
13.
Hans Thewissen excavated the site further, discovering hundreds of bones of different mammal species.
14.
Hans Thewissen was able to extract many skeletal bones of Indohyus, which showed that the species was similar in body shape to a modern mousedeer.
15.
Hans Thewissen acquired access to a collection of embryos of the pantropical spotted dolphin.
16.
Hans Thewissen's lab was instrumental in estimating the age of Arctic whales.
17.
Hans Thewissen's lab determined that there are several sets of finer repeated layers within the large-scale layers.