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The anatomy of the cheek teeth resembles those of Mesozoic marine reptiles which fed on armoured fish, large fish, reptiles, and ammonites, and the teeth may have been used to grip onto prey firmly. Therefore, Thewissen suggested Ambulocetus was most likely an ambush predator, the jaw adapted to handle struggling prey.
Ambulocetidae is a family of early cetaceans from Pakistan.The genus Ambulocetus, after which the family is named, is by far the most complete and well-known ambulocetid genus due to the excavation of an 80% complete specimen of Ambulocetus natans. [2]
Cetacea (/ s ɪ ˈ t eɪ ʃ ə /; from Latin cetus ' whale ', from Ancient Greek κῆτος () ' huge fish, sea monster ') [3] is an infraorder of aquatic mammals belonging to the order Artiodactyla that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises.
Dorudon was a medium-sized whale, with D. atrox reaching 5 metres (16 ft) in length and 1–2.2 metric tons (1.1–2.4 short tons) in body mass. [13] [14] Dorudontines were originally believed to be juvenile individuals of Basilosaurus as their fossils are similar but smaller.
Gerardus arie (Hans) Thewissen is a Dutch-American paleontologister known for his significant contributions to the field of whale evolution.Thewissen's fieldwork has led to the discovery of key fossils that have shed light on the transition of whales from land to water, including the discovery of Ambulocetus, Pakicetus, Indohyus, and Kutchicetus.
Species of the infraorder Cetacea A phylogenetic tree showing the relationships among cetacean families. [1]The evolution of cetaceans is thought to have begun in the Indian subcontinent from even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla) 50 million years ago (mya) and to have proceeded over a period of at least 15 million years. [2]
The size of a male sea lion, it had a large head with a long snout and robust, strongly worn teeth. The lower jaw shows that Ambulocetus had an unusual soft tissue connecting the back of the jaw to the middle ear — a small equivalent to the large sound-receiving fat pad in modern odontocetes. Its eyes were placed dorsally on the head, but ...
Transitional forms are seen as falling between the various groups in terms of anatomy, having a mixture of characteristics from inside and outside the newly branched clade. [ 7 ] With the establishment of cladistics in the 1990s, relationships commonly came to be expressed in cladograms that illustrate the branching of the evolutionary lineages ...