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The earliest known ancestor of arctic whales is Denebola brachycephala from the late Miocene around 9–10 million years ago. [55] A single fossil from Baja California indicates the family once inhabited warmer waters. [27] [56] [57] Acrophyseter skull. Ancient sperm whales differ from modern sperm whales in tooth count and the shape of the ...
Archaeoceti ("ancient whales"), or Zeuglodontes in older literature, is a paraphyletic group of primitive cetaceans that lived from the Early Eocene to the late Oligocene 1] Representing the earliest cetacean radiation , they include the initial amphibious stages in cetacean evolution , thus are the ancestors of both modern cetacean suborders ...
The first branch contained ancestors of Cetacea; semi-aquatic protowhales such as Pakicetus in the group Archaeoceti, which developed into the exclusively aquatic ancestors of modern cetaceans. [28] One evolutionarily significant whale ancestor was the raoellid Indohyus, which was a Himalayas-dwelling, digitgrade omnivore roughly the size of a ...
Basilosaurus (meaning "king lizard") is a genus of large, predatory, prehistoric archaeocete whale from the late Eocene, approximately 41.3 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). First described in 1834, it was the first archaeocete and prehistoric whale known to science. [2] Fossils attributed to the type species B. cetoides were discovered in the ...
Ambulocetus (Latin ambulare "to walk" + cetus "whale") is a genus of early amphibious cetacean [a] from the Kuldana Formation in Pakistan, roughly 48 or 47 million years ago during the Early Eocene . It contains one species, Ambulocetus natans (Latin natans "swimming"), known solely from a near-complete skeleton.
The cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) are descendants of land-living mammals, the even-toed ungulates. The earliest cetaceans were still hoofed mammals. These early cetaceans became gradually better adapted for swimming than for walking on land, finally evolving into fully marine cetaceans.
While sifting through rocks and fossils in England, paleontologists discovered two teeth belonging to two different critters living 145 million years ago.
The family Balaenidae, the right whales, contains two genera and four species. All right whales have no ventral grooves; a distinctive head shape with a strongly arched, narrow rostrum, bowed lower jaw; lower lips that enfold the sides and front of the rostrum; and long, narrow, elastic baleen plates (up to nine times longer than wide) with fine baleen fringes.