Skeleton of the world’s rarest marine mammal preserved by digital imaging

The reconstruction of the vaquita, whose numbers barely reach double figures in the wild, is designed to help research and conservation efforts Scientists have created a digital reconstruction of the world’s most endangered marine mammal, preserving its anatomy in three dimensions to aid research and conservation efforts as the species teeters on the brink of extinction. The project digitised the skeleton of a female vaquita, a small porpoise found only in Mexico’s northern Gulf of California, using a combination of medical imaging, ultra-high-resolution micro CT scans and photography. Researchers have made the imaging freely available online to ensure that the complete skeleton – of which only a few are thought to exist – can be studied by scientists around the world without risking damage to the rare and fragile physical specimens. Jamie Knaub, the study’s lead author and a doctoral researcher at Florida Atlantic University, said: “We want to influence conservation and awareness of the vaquita, but what it boils down to is open access datasets for biodiversity. “There’s this whole web [of information] that can be shared to study biodiversity, conservation, evoluti