Heritage Malta said today that recent studies of fossils had found species of toothed whales not previously recorded in Maltese rocks. The fossils have been put on display ,at the National Museum of Natural History in Mdina.

The discoveries were made by a joint team of Maltese and Italian palaeontologists who presented the results of their work as a poster at the Darwin-Bernissart Congress in Brussels, Heritage Malta said.

A scientific paper describing these finds, co-authored by Michael Gatt, Charles Galea Bonavia and Richard Curmi together with Giovanni Biannuci, Rita Catanzariti, and Angelo Varola, three palaeontologists from the Universities of Pisa and Lecce in Italy, will be published in a leading scientific journal.

Heritage Malta said that in recent years, new toothed whales fossil remains were discovered in almost all the rock layers of the Maltese Islands ranging from 35 to five million years ago. Although this new material is rather fragmentary, consisting mainly of ear bones and teeth, in most cases the identification to family level was possible.

A preliminary analysis of these fossils and a revision of the previously published records permitted the identification of at least seven such families. Three of them constitute first records for the Mediterranean. Furthermore, analysis of microscopic marine organisms on sediments in association with some of the studied material made possible their localisation within the sedimentary succession.

The National Museum of Natural History is involved in a number of similar research studies. The projects by local and foreign researchers cover different fields including insects, birds, fish, shells and fossils.

The new fossil species display is at the George Zammit Maempel Hall of Geology and Palaeontology of the museum. The museum is open Monday to Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.