Charlotte Whale

The Charlotte whale is the skeleton of a beluga whale that was found buried in sediment near Charlotte, Vermont in 1849. It is exhibited at the Perkins Museum of Geology at the University of Vermont. Found at the time when knowledge of Earth's natural history was nascent, it proved key evidence for developing a glacial theory of New England. The whale skeleton was collected by Zadock Thompson and reconstructed by Albert David Hager in an unusual, anatomically-incorrect manner. Later, that error was preserved for its historical significance. It was Vermont's official state fossil from 1993 to 2014, after which it became designated as Vermont's state marine fossil.