Fossil Skull From Peru Reveals Pygmy Sperm Whale with Record-Breaking Facial Asymmetry
Researchers say the whale’s skull shows extreme asymmetry and a downward-curving snout adapted for feeding near the seabed.
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Fossil Skull from Peru Reveals Pygmy Sperm Whale with Record-Breaking Facial Asymmetry
Some six million years ago (Late Miocene epoch), a pygmy sperm whale with a face unlike anything in today’s oceans may have swept its downturned snout along the shallow seabed off what is now southern Peru. The post Fossil Skull from Peru Reveals Pygmy Sperm Whale with Record-Breaking Facial Asymmetry appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
Extreme cranial asymmetry in extinct benthic feeding sperm whales
The fossil record provides critical insights into morphological changes beyond those observable in extant species, revealing evolutionary novelties. Among mammals, toothed cetaceans are notable for pronounced cranial asymmetry associated with sound-emitting forehead structures. Pygmy sperm whales (Kogiidae),display some of the most extreme cranial asymmetries known. Here, we describe Scaphokogia huachafo sp. nov., a new pygmy sperm whale species…
A whale whose nose is on the wrong side and whose head looks as if it had gone wrong properly: what sounds like a whim of nature at first could indeed have been a sophisticated survival strategy. Researchers have described a hitherto unknown dwarf pottwal species, which lived about six million years ago off the coast of Peru. Their skull was more asymmetric than that of any other previously known mammal.
An approximately six million-year-old dwarf pott whale from Peru had an extremely asymmetric skull and a strongly bent snout. The newly described species could thus have specialized in the food search in shallow coastal waters. Their unusual anatomy provides evidence of a lifestyle that has no direct equivalent in today's tooth whales. Zurich (Switzerland). The [...] Der Beitrag Urzeitzwergpottwal hat den fälsten Skull aller Mammämme erschien zu…
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