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BHL Program Director Martin Kalfatovic attended the DPLAFest 2015 in Indianapolis (April 17-18) representing both the BHL content hub and the Smithsonian content hub. DPLAFest drew over 300 people to the public programs held at the Indianapolis Public Library, the Indiana State Library, IUPUI University Library, and the Indiana Historical Society. DPLA Director of Content Emily Gore gave important updates on the DPLA hub model and how DPLA hopes that it will evolve over time. At the open poster session during the reception on the first day of DPLAFest, BHL presented

In 1855, after an exhausting trip across the Amazon, botanist Richard Spruce reached the Escalera Mountains of northern Peru. “I am among magnificent scenery and an interesting vegetation,” he wrote. In 2013, botanist Corine Vriesendorp went back to those same mountains—still remote, still magnificent, and essentially unexplored since Spruce. “Stunningly beautiful,” she wrote.

On 13 April 2015, BHL Program Director Martin R. Kalfatovic attended the GBIF-CoL-EOL-BHL-BOLD Summit at Naturalis in Leiden, Netherlands. This meeting followed on the preceding Catalogue of Life meeting in Oostende, Belgium. The meeting took place in the historic Pesthuis on the Naturalis campus. Other participants were: The purpose of the meeting was to discuss synergy and explore potential for intensifying collaboration concerning infrastructure, software tools, and services.

BHL Program Director Martin R. Kalfatovic attended the Catalogue of Life Mini-symposium at the Flanders Marine Institute in Oostende, Belgium on 2 April 2015.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) welcomes The Field Museum as a new member. One of the original founding institutions of BHL in 2007, The Field Museum has participated in the Biodiversity Heritage Library as an Affiliate since 2012 and now represents the consortium’s 16th Member. Founded in 1893 as the Columbian Museum of Chicago, The Field Museum has been inspiring curiosity about life on earth for more than 120 years.

Cetaceans are not closely related to other aquatic vertebrates and represent a unique lineage derived from hoofed land mammals that returned to an aquatic lifestyle about 50 million years ago (Thewissen, 1998). The transition from land to water, i.e. the development from weight-bearing forelimb with five hoofed toes to tissue-encased flipper not capable to support locomotion on land, is well documented by fossils (Thewissen et al., 2001, 2009) and very different from other aquatic vertebrates. Consequently many morphological characteristics that cannot be detected in fossils have remained little documented or speculative.