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Simocetus is an extinct genus of toothed whale that lived 30 million years ago, in the Oligocene period. It is known from a single fossil, a skull, found in marine siltstone deposits of the Alsea Formation on the banks of Oregon's Yaquina River in 1977 by fossil hunter of the region, Douglas Emlong. It was first named by New Zealand paleontologist Ewan Fordyce in 2002 and contains a single species, S. rayi. He found its teeth and jaw different than any other known whale's, and thought it might have been a bottom feeder that fed by suction on marine invertebrates. Features of the basicranium and face suggest that Simocetus may have had comparable echolocation abilities to modern whales[1].
[edit] Species
[edit] References
- ^ Simocetus rayi (Odontoceti, Simocetidae, new family); a bizarre new archaic Oligocene dolphin from the eastern North Pacific. R. E. Fordyce. 2002. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 93:185-222
[edit] External links
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