Affiliation:
1. Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax VA, USA
2. Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC, USA
3. Departments of Mammalogy and Paleontology, Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Seattle WA, USA
Abstract
Living baleen whales, or Mysticeti, lack teeth and instead feed using keratinous baleen plates to sieve prey-laden water. This feeding strategy is profoundly different from that of their toothed ancestors, which processed prey using the differentiated dentition characteristic of mammals. The fossil record of mysticetes reveals stem members that include extinct taxa with dentition, illuminating the morphological states that preceded the loss of teeth and the subsequent origin of baleen. The relationships among stem mysticetes, including putative clades such as Mammalodontidae and Aetiocetidae, remain debatable. Aetiocetids are among the more species-rich clade of stem mysticetes, and known only from fossil localities along the North Pacific coastline. Here, we report a new aetiocetid,
Salishicetus meadi
gen. et sp. nov, from the late Oligocene of Washington State, USA.
Salishicetus
preserves a near-complete lower dentition with extensive occlusal wear, indicating that it processed prey using shearing cheek teeth in the same way as its stem cetacean ancestors. Using a matrix with all known species of aetiocetids, we recover a monophyletic Aetiocetidae, crownward of a basal clade of Mammalodontidae. The description of
Salishicetus
resolves phylogenetic relationships among aetiocetids, which provides a basis for reconstructing ancestral feeding morphology along the stem leading to crown Mysticeti.
Funder
National Museum of Natural History
Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture
Cited by
20 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献
1. First record of an Eomysticetidae from the El Cien Formation (late Oligocene), “Ten Minute” locality, Baja California Sur, Mexico;Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana;2024-04-30
2. Whale evolution: Ancient toothed relative of baleen whales breaches northward;Current Biology;2024-04
3. The first cetacean from the early Oligocene of the SW German Mainz Basin: a probable cheek tooth of a mysticete (Mammalia: Cetacea);PalZ;2024-02-29
4. The enigmatic occurrence, size distribution, and significance of a new macrourid species,
Nezumia armentrouti
, based on otoliths from the Lincoln Creek Formation (upper Oligocene Section), Washington State, USA;Historical Biology;2024-02-03
5. Echericetus novellus n. gen. n. sp. (Cetacea, Mysticeti, Eomysticetidae), an Oligocene baleen whale from Baja California Sur, Mexico;Journal of Paleontology;2023-11