Pyenson, Nick
WORK TITLE: Spying on Whales
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Washington
STATE: DC
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
Phone: 202-633-1366; lives in Maryland. https://paleobiology.si.edu/staff/individuals/pyenson.html
RESEARCHER NOTES:
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PERSONAL
Male.
EDUCATION:Emory University, A.A., 2000, B.S., 2002; University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D., 2008.
ADDRESS
- Home - MD.
- Office - Smithsonian Institution, P.O. Box 37012, MRC 121, Washington, DC 20013-7012.
CAREER
Writer, paleontologist, and curator. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, postdoctoral research fellow; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, curator of fossil marine mammals; Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Seattle, WA, affiliate curator. Member of editorial boards of the Latin American Journal of Aquatic Mammals, PeerJ, and PLOS ONE.
WRITINGS
- Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures, Viking (New York, NY), 2018
Creator of the Pyenson Lab blog.
SIDELIGHTS
Nick Pyenson is a writer, paleontologist, and museum curator. He holds an associate’s degree and a bachelor’s degree from Emory University, as well as a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Pyenson served as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of British Columbia before joining the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. There, he holds the title of curator of fossil marine mammals. Pyenson has also worked as an affiliate curator for Seattle’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. He has been a member of the editorial boards of scholarly publications, including the Latin American Journal of Aquatic Mammals, PeerJ, and PLOS ONE.
In 2018, Pyenson released his first book, Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth’s Most Awesome Creatures. In this volume, he discusses his quest to learn more about whales and how they have evolved throughout history. Pyenson recalls the places he has visited to research the marine mammals, including the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Atacama Desert of China, Panama, Antartica, and the Arctic. He explains the methods paleontologists use to extract the fossils that provide clues about whales’ origins. Pyenson notes that whales’ oldest ancestors lived on land and had legs. He tells readers how they came to lose their legs and live under water. Pyenson shares details of how whales live today, and he also predicts how they may evolve in the coming centuries.
In an interview with Madeline K. Sofia, contributor to the National Public Radio website, Pyenson explained how he came to study whales. He stated: “I got interested in whales because I thought they were fantastic vehicles to understand evolution. I think that’s the job of any paleontologist, is trying to understand what happened in the history of life that we didn’t see. It’s a big detective story. … How did that ever come to be?”
Critics offered favorable assessments of Spying on Whales. A Kirkus Reviews writer described the volume as “a rich account” and suggested: “What keeps readers going in this occasionally challenging work are Pyenson’s clear love of his subject [and] his thrill at making a scientific discovery.” “This is a hard-to-put-down quest to understand whales and their place on Earth,” asserted Nancy Bent in Booklist. A reviewer in Publishers Weekly noted that Pyenson wrote in a “contagiously enthusiastic style.” The reviewer concluded: “He has delivered a fascinating and entertaining look at whales and the scientists who study them.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 15, 2018, Nancy Bent, review of Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth’s Most Awesome Creatures, p. 8.
Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2018, review of Spying on Whales.
Publishers Weekly, April 2, 2018, review of Spying on Whales, p. 59.
ONLINE
National Public Radio Online, https://www.npr.org/ (June 7, 2017), Madeline K. Sofia, author interview.
Pyenson Lab blog, http://nmnj.typepad.com/ (July 5, 2018), author blog.
Smithsonian Institution website, https://paleobiology.si.edu/ (July 5, 2018), author faculty profile.
Smithsonian Online, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/ (July 5, 2018), author profile.
- Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures Viking (New York, NY), 2018
- Smithsonian - https://paleobiology.si.edu/staff/individuals/pyenson.html
Paleobiology Staff
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faceNicholas D. Pyenson
Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals
Phone: 202-633-1366
Fax: 202-786-2832
E-mail Address: pyensonnat SI dot edu
Mailing Address:
Smithsonian Institution
PO Box 37012, MRC 121
Washington, DC 20013-7012
Shipping Address:
Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of Natural History
10th & Constitution NW
Washington, DC 20560-0121bar
EducationPh.D. University of California, Berkeley, 2008
B.S. Emory University, 2002
A.A. Oxford College of Emory University, 2000
Research InterestsI study the paleobiology of marine mammals, and, more broadly, of other marine tetrapods. The evolution of whales, for example, is just one case of several mammalian lineages that have made a series of independent transitions from terrestrial to marine lifestyles at different times during the past 55 million years. Each group of marine mammals has undergone dramatic evolutionary transformations from their terrestrial ancestries, with attendant modifications to multiple anatomical, behavioral and ecological systems. These multiple transitions provide a series of evolutionary comparisons that form the basis for understanding how marine mammals have diversified in the oceans. By extension, I am also interested in the evolutionary and ecological histories of other marine tetrapods -- four-limbed animals that have that made the great transition from life on land to life in the sea. The scope of these investigations primarily focuses on marine rocks from the Cenozoic, including a broad array of field localities in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
Also, see my Pyenson Lab blog and my Google Scholar page.
Publications - Pyenson Lab - http://nmnh.typepad.com/pyenson_lab/pyenson-lab.html
icholas D. Pyenson, Ph.D., Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals
Please see the Paleontological Society's Distinguished Lecturer page or the Smithsonian Newsdesk for a biography
NDP
Nick is curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, in Washington, D.C. Previously, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of British Columbia; he received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He completed his B.S. from Emory University, and his A.A. from Oxford College of Emory University. Nick grew up in both Quebec and Louisiana, which naturally leads to long discourses about the virtues of Stanley Cup parades and crawfish boils. His research spans the systematics, macroecology, taphonomy, and functional morphology of not just marine mammals, but other marine tetrapods, too. Recently, he has been interested in how digital tools can expand fieldwork, outreach and natural history collections all at the same time. Nick is also an Affiliate Curator at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, and on the Editorial Board at PLOS ONE, PeerJ, and the Latin American Journal of Aquatic Mammals. To find out more about his research publications, see his Google Scholar Page; to see his contact information, check out his Smithsonian staff webpage. (Photo: J. A. Goldbogen) - Smithsonian - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/nick-pyenson-67186541/
Nick Pyenson — Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals at National Museum of Natural History
Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals at National Museum of Natural History
Nick Pyenson
(Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Institution.)
smithsonian.com
May 19, 2013Curator of fossil marine mammals at the National Museum of Natural History, Nick Pyenson is a vertebrate paleontologist whose research focuses on major land-to-sea ecological transitions in the past 245 million years. To understand how and why five different mammal lineages (for example, whales, seals, sea cows) and over a dozen different reptile lineages (such as mosasaurs, ichthyosaurs, turtles) independently entered the oceans, he has participated in paleontological fieldwork on every continent except Antarctica. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and did postdoctoral research at the University of British Columbia.
Nick Pyenson was a featured speaker at Smithsonian magazine’s The Future is Here conference on June 1. See a video of his talk below:
Digitizing a Fossil Whale Graveyard
Nick Pyenson, curator of Fossil Marine Mammals at National Museum of Natural History explains paleontology rescue in the digital age at Smithsonian’s “The Future is Here” event - NPR - https://www.npr.org/2017/06/07/531112519/travel-through-time-with-a-whale-detective
QUOTED: "I got interested in whales because I thought they were fantastic vehicles to understand evolution. I think that's the job of any paleontologist, is trying to understand what happened in the history of life that we didn't see. It's a big detective story. ... How did that ever come to be?"
Travel Through Time With A Whale Detective
June 7, 201710:03 AM ET
Madeline Sofia 2017 squareMadeline K. Sofia
NPR YouTubeIn Suitland, Maryland a giant warehouse holds the largest collection of whale bones in the world.
Stacked from floor to ceiling are bones of sperm whales, gray whales, and the largest whales on Earth—blue whales, which can reach 380,000 pounds. Ancient whale fossils, tens of millions of years old, are also packed into the collection.
It's the job of Nick Pyenson to try to figure out how these whales developed to what they are now. He sees himself as kind of a paleontologist detective. His more formal title is Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals for the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
How The Biggest Animal On Earth Got So Big
The Two-Way
How The Biggest Animal On Earth Got So BigI sat down with him to find out what it's like to be a scientist at the top of their field. Like all scientists, Pyenson is a focused on making sense of the world around him.
Here are some snippets from our conversation:
Why study whales?
For me, I got interested in whales because I thought they were fantastic vehicles to understand evolution. I think that's the job of any paleontologist, is trying to understand what happened in the history of life that we didn't see. It's a big detective story. With whales, we know how amazing they are in the modern world. How did that ever come to be? If you want to be able to answer that question, that is when you turn to the fossil record. So that's what got me broadly interested in where whales came from.
What's the most frustrating part of your job?
The most frustrating thing about my job is that there are not enough hours in the day. I have way too many questions and not enough time for me to do what I want to do. Science takes time. So I have to be choosey. And also being a steward of the legacies. That's something that really weighs heavily on me. I want to make sure the collection is as good, if not better, than when I received it, as it would be for somebody maybe 200 years from now. I want to make sure someone I will never meet will look at the fossils that I brought in to the museum and say, "Yeah, Nick didn't screw it up too badly, he did an okay job."
What motivates you? When you wake up in the morning are you thinking whales?
First I need a coffee before I do anything else. I get up in the morning because I love what I do. It's tremendously exhilarating and exciting to me, to be able to walk through museum collections. It's basically like walking through time. You get to encounter the remains of past worlds that would seem so strange that you would think you're on a different planet - but you're not. You're on planet earth, but at a different time in the geologic past. With different organisms—some of which are extinct, some of which are around today. And you're charged with that detective story, trying to figure things out.
How would you describe yourself?
You can think of me as a marine mammal detective through geologic time. I look to the past to track down whale bones to understand how whales came to be and where they're going.
QUOTED: "a rich account."
"What keeps readers going in this occasionally challenging work are Pyenson's clear love of his subject [and] his thrill at making a scientific discovery."
Pyenson, Nick: SPYING ON WHALES
Kirkus Reviews.
(Apr. 15, 2018): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Pyenson, Nick SPYING ON WHALES Viking (Adult Nonfiction) $27.00 6, 26 ISBN: 978-0-7352-2456-8
A paleontologist and self-styled whale chaser weaves his own adventures into a rich account of the largest creatures on our planet.
Pyenson, the curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History and prolific author of scientific articles in newspapers and popular magazines, is both enthusiastic and highly knowledgeable about whales. His research has taken him around the globe, from the Atacama Desert in Chile to examine newly discovered whale skeletons to a whaling station in a fjord in Iceland, where whalers carve up freshly caught whales. He has looked for answers to his questions about their evolution, biology, and behavior in the Arctic and Antarctic, Panama, and North Carolina's Outer Banks. He vividly shows how scientists work and the significant physical demands required to extract fossils from sand and rocks and dissect blubber and flesh from bones. Pyenson divides his account into three parts: the past, the present, and the future. He asks questions about how whales evolved from four-legged land animals, how they grew so big, how and what they eat, how they live today, and what the age of the Anthropocene holds for them. Although the book is packed with information, the author is quick to remind readers that, even among scientists, much about whales remains unknown. Many fossils that would reveal their evolution have not been found, and their behavior is often hidden in the deep ocean world. One particularly intriguing question arises: What can humans learn about surviving in a changing world from these creatures who for millennia have survived on a planet where oceans rose and fell and land masses shifted?
What keeps readers going in this occasionally challenging work are Pyenson's clear love of his subject, his thrill at making a scientific discovery, and his depiction of the world of scientists at
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work.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Pyenson, Nick: SPYING ON WHALES." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Apr. 2018. Book Review Index
Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A534375109/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=3b6ca055. Accessed 24 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A534375109
QUOTED: "This is a hard-to-put-down quest to understand whales and their place on Earth."
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Spying on Whales: The Past, Present,
and Future of Earth's Most Awesome
Creatures
Nancy Bent
Booklist.
114.18 (May 15, 2018): p8. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
* Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures. By Nick Pyenson.
June 2018.336p. illus. Viking, $27 (9780735224568). 599.5.
What is it about whales that we find so fascinating? They are the largest animals that have ever lived on the planet, and humans have wondered about them for all of recorded history. Pyenson, an award-winning paleontologist and curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, takes a unique look at these enigmatic marine mammals. He starts his tour with what we know about whales in their evolutionary past. The narrative of his exciting research follows three broad sections, answering questions about where whales came from, how they live, and what will happen to them in the current age of humans. Combining his research on fossil whales (and making inferences about their lifestyles from studying their bones) with field work aboard whaling ships in demanding climes, during which he teases out a hitherto unknown sensory apparatus revealed as the whales were flensed, or skinned, Pyenson paints a history of how whales became the magnificent creatures they are today. Illustrated with beautiful line drawings, and heavily annotated, this is a hard-to-put-down quest to understand whales and their place on Earth.--Nancy Bent
YA/S: The andecdotal writing style and exotic locales might attract teen readers interested in whales. NB.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
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Bent, Nancy. "Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures." Booklist, 15 May 2018, p. 8. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com /apps/doc/A541400732/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=f45e92a2. Accessed 24 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A541400732
QUOTED: "contagiously enthusiastic style."
"He has delivered a fascinating and entertaining look at whales and the scientists who study them."
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Spying on Whales: The Past, Present,
and Future of Earth's Most Awesome
Creatures
Publishers Weekly.
265.14 (Apr. 2, 2018): p59. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures Nick Pyenson. Viking, $27 (336p) ISBN 978-07352-2456-8
Smithsonian paleontologist Pyenson winningly combines science and travel writing to create what he describes as "a kind of travelogue to chasing whales, both living and extinct." Writing in a contagiously enthusiastic style, Pyenson brings the reader along on an exploration of the evolution of whales, from their prehistoric origins as land-roaming organisms to the at-risk aquatic species of today. He travels to, among other spots around the globe, an ancient whale graveyard on the coast of Chile to investigate fossilized skeletons and an Icelandic whaling station to better understand whale anatomy. Whether describing the technological advances that allow lasers to create 3-D replicas of whale skeletons, or old-fashioned fossil hunting with his son, Pyenson communicates a love of natural history and scientific discovery. Not shying away from charged topics, such as climate change and the human impact on dwindling whale populations, he covers these issues in an evenhanded fashion that avoids polemic. At one point, Pyenson writes, "The best stories of scientific discovery are, at their heart, stories about people." Using this philosophy, he has delivered a fascinating and entertaining look at whales and the scientists who study them. Agent: Bridget Matzie, Aevitas. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures."
Publishers Weekly, 2 Apr. 2018, p. 59. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com /apps/doc/A533555654/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=63ceb868. Accessed 24 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A533555654
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