Diaphorocetus

Diaphorocetus is an extinct genus of odontocete cetacean belonging to Physeteroidea. Its remains were found in the Monte León Formation of Argentina, dating to the Early Miocene.[1]

Diaphorocetus
Temporal range: Early Miocene (Deseadan-Colhuehuapian)
~23.03–20.43 Ma
↓
Diaphorocetus poucheti skull
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Infraorder: Cetacea
Superfamily: Physeteroidea
Family: incertae sedis
Genus: †Diaphorocetus
Ameghino, 1894
Species

D. poucheti (type)

Synonyms
  • Hypocetus Lydekker 1893
  • Mesocetus Moreno 1892
  • Paracetus Lydekker 1893

Systematics

Diaphorocetus was originally named Mesocetus by Moreno (1892).[2] Lydekker (1893) found that Mesocetus was already in use for an extinct mysticete, so he renamed the sperm whale Hypocetus.[3] Ameghino (1894) too recognized Moreno's name as preoccupied, but unaware of Lydekker's paper, coined his own replacement name Diaphorocetus for Mesocetus.[4] Diaphorocetus was declared a nomen protectum (protected name) by Paolucci et al. (2019) because Hypocetus and Paracetus have not been used as valid since 1899 under Article 23.9 of the Code.[5]

Paleoecology

The small teeth of Diaphorocetus and the bottleneck-like nature of the rostrum suggest that Diaphorocetus employed a feeding strategy intermediate between that of raptorial sperm whales like Acrophyseter and Livyatan and extant sperm whales.[5]

References
  1. Diaphorocetus at Fossilworks.org
  2. Moreno, F. P. 1892. Lijeros apuntes sobre dos generos de cetaceos fosiles de la Republica Argentina. Revista de la Museo La Plata 3, 393–400.
  3. Lydekker, R. 1893 [1894]. Cetacean skulls from Patagonia. Anales del Museo de la Plata 2: 1–13.
  4. Ameghino, F. 1894. Enum�eration synoptique des especes de mammiferes fossiles des formations �eocenes de Patagonie. Boletin de la Academia Nacional de Ciencias en C�ordoba 13: 259–455
  5. Florencia Paolucci, Mónica R. Buono, Marta S. Fernández, Felix G. Marx & José I. Cuitiño (2019). Diaphorocetus �poucheti (Cetacea, Odontoceti, Physeteroidea) from Patagonia, Argentina: one of the earliest sperm whales, Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, DOI:10.1080/14772019.2019.1605544


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