Hi again,
Richard is right about the possibility that it is a skeletal remain of something older than zooarchers use to handle. Today I looked at pilot whale and the thoracic vertebrae did not look the one in the picture, rather like one of the lumbar ones except that these have transverse processes. Is the vertebra complete or have there been transverse processes that have been cut off? I also checked vertebrae from a small indian elephant (they are rather flat in their articular surfaces, the epiphyses appears fused in the picture so it must be an adult animal, vertebra 9 cm across, did not fit the elephant in morphology though).
The whale option still seems likely.
Leif Jonsson
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