Researchers reanalyzing 15 - million - year - old fossils unearthed in California over a C ago have described a new sperm whale genus : Albicetus , after the toothy white leviathan of Herman Melville ’s Moby Dick . The findings are bring out inPLOS ONEthis week .
These twenty-four hour period , there are only three species of spermatozoan hulk , and they ’re get throughout the world ’s ocean . The large of them , genus Physeter macrocephalus , is a cryptical diver that can develop 18 meters ( 59 feet ) long . The other two , Kogia brevicepsandKogia sima , are much minor at 2.7 meters ( 9 foot ) and 3.5 meters ( 11 groundwork ) in length , severally . Sperm whale in the fossil record , however , were a diverse array of different form .
name in 1925,Ontocetus oxymycterusis a large but uncomplete fossil spermatozoan whale specimen unearthed in the middle Miocene Monterey Formation along sea cliffs near the original Santa Barbara Lighthouse in Santa Barbara County , California . The incomplete skeleton – which consist of the pulpit ( or snout ) , both mandibles ( humiliated jaws ) , and several isolated but associated teeth sherd – were first blemish as early as 1879 , and then moved to the National Museum of Natural story in 1924 . The whale was pose in the genusOntocetusbased on similarities with another spermatozoan whale calledOntocetus emmonsi .
But!Ontocetus emmonsiwas first reported found on a single tooth from the 19th Century , and investigator have since let out that the fossil is actually the tusk of an nonextant walrus – not a cetacean tooth . That makesOntocetusa genus in the walrus family , Odobenidae .
After re - examine theOntocetus oxymycterusfossils , Smithsonian Institution ’s Alexandra Boersma andNicholas Pyensonassigned this species to the new genusAlbicetus , produce the Modern combination ofAlbicetus oxymycterus . The Modern genus combines the Latin words " albus " for white-hot and " cetus " for whale . It pay off protection to Moby Dick , a whale of " unwonted order of magnitude " with a " remarkable hue " and a " deformed lower jaw . " These traits , according to the writer , are coincidently similar to theAlbicetusspecimen : a snowy dodo spermatozoon whale whose jaw have been displaced due to burial and fossilization mental process . The species name , which combines the Greek words " oxy " for sharp and " mycter " for nose , remains the same .
Additionally , the team create 3D models of the heavyAlbicetusspecimen ( to better view it from all slant ) , and they also estimated its total length . " Albicetushas really Brobdingnagian upper and modest teeth , " Boersma tell IFLScience . " The teeth are on the same scurf as those of the modern sperm whale , but consideringAlbicetuswas around 6 measure [ 20 feet ] long , the teeth are almost comically large . "
innovative sperm whales only have tooth in their lower jaw , and they do n’t seem to expend them when feeding . " It was these really magnanimous teeth that led us to mean that this fossil sperm whale was belike feeding on very different prey from its mod congenator , whose diet lie in primarily of squid , " she adds . The middle Miocene – whenAlbicetuswas swimming around the Pacific Ocean – was a period of time of peak nautical mammal richness and diversity . Albicetuslikely preyed on small-scale whale and seals , which is seldom seen in the ocean these days and confine only to some grampus populations .
When the squad conducted phylogenetic depth psychology with other fossil and living members of the spermatozoon whale superfamily , Physeteroidea , they encounter thatAlbicetusis a stem physeteroid – suggesting that heavy body sizing and robust teeth develop multiple times in distantly related sperm whale lineages .
A pod of Albicetus traveling together through the Miocene Pacific Ocean , surfacing occasionally to take a breather . A. Boersma / Smithsonian
