Albicetus
| Albicetus Temporal range: Langhian | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Cetartiodactyla |
| (unranked): | Cetacea |
| Superfamily: | Physeteroidea |
| Genus: | Albicetus Boersma & Pyenson, 2015 |
| Species: | A. oxymycterus |
| Binomial name | |
| Albicetus oxymycterus (Kellogg, 1925) | |
Albicetus is a genus of stem-sperm whales that lived around 15 million years ago, found in Santa Barbara, California in 1909. It was originally wrongly categorized for decades as belonging to a group of extinct walruses. It was named Albicetus, meaning "white whale," a reference to the leviathan in Herman Melville's classic 1851 novel Moby Dick, centering on Captain Ahab's obsession with a huge white sperm whale.[1][2]
Taxonomic history
It was originally classified as a species of the extinct walrus Ontocetus in 1925. At the time, the whereabouts of the holotype of Ontocetus emmonsi were considered unknown, even though Remington Kellogg considered it a member of Physeteridae.[3] This assignment was followed by later authors, including Barnes (1977) and Hay (1930).[4][5]
In 1994, the holotype of Ontocetus emmonsi was relocated in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, and in 2008 a comprehensive paper was published demonstrating that the Ontocetus generitype was a walrus, not a sperm whale. Hence, Ontocetus oxymycterus, which was not a walrus, was re-assigned to Scaldicetus because of its enameled teeth.[6] However, Scaldicetus, being based on teeth, was hardly diagnostic at the genus or even familial level, and so in 2015 the new generic name Albicetus was coined for O. oxymycterus.
References
- ↑ http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-10/scientists-find-the-real-great-white-whale/7015864
- ↑ Alexandra T. Boersma & Nicholas D. Pyenson (2015). "Albicetus oxymycterus, a new generic name and redescription of a basal physeteroid (Mammalia, Cetacea) from the Miocene of California, and the evolution of body size in sperm whales". PLOS ONE 10 (12): e0135551. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0135551.
- ↑ R. Kellogg. 1925. A fossil physeteroid cetacean from Santa Barbara County California. Proceedings of the United States National Museum 66(27):1-8
- ↑ O. P. Hay. 1930. Second Bibliography and Catalogue of the Fossil Vertebrata of North America. Carnegie Institution of Washington 390(II):1-1074
- ↑ L. G. Barnes. 1977. Outline of eastern North Pacific fossil cetacean assemblages. Systematic Zoology 25(4):321-343.
- ↑ N. Kohno and C. E. Ray. 2008. Pliocene walruses from the Yorktown Formation of Virginia and North Carolina, and a systematic revision of the North Atlantic Pliocene walruses. Virginia Museum of Natural History Special Publication 14:39-80
