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Scaldicetus

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Scaldicetus
Scaldicetus grandis teeth
Scientific classification
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Scaldicetus

Du Bus, 1867
Species
  • Scaldicetus caretti du Bus, 1867 (type)
  • Scaldicetus grandis (du Bus, 1872)

Scaldicetus is an extinct genus of toothed cetacean related to sperm whales. Although widely used for a number of extinct physeterids with primitive dental morphology consisting of enameled teeth, Scaldicetus as generally recognized appears to be a paraphyletic assemblage of primitive physeteroids.[1]

Scaldicetus caretti vertebrae

Taxonomy

The name Scaldicetus caretti was coined in 1867 for numerous physeteroid teeth collected in Neogene deposits near Antwerp, Belgium.[2] Synonyms of Scaldicetus include Palaeodelphis, Homocetus, and Eucetus.[3] The genus Physodon Gervais 1872 was previously considered a synonym, but it has been recently considered a nomen dubium.[4]

"Ontocetus" oxymycterus, described from the middle Miocene (Langhian) of Santa Barbara, California, was assigned to Scaldicetus in 2008,[5] but was subsequently made the type of a new genus, Albicetus.[6]

References

  1. ^ Hirota, K.; Barnes, L. G. (1994). "A new species of Middle Miocene sperm whale of the genus Scaldicetus (Cetacea; Physeteridae) from Shiga-mura, Japan". The Island Arc. 3 (4): 453. doi:10.1111/j.1440-1738.1994.tb00125.x.
  2. ^ Du Bus, B.A.L., 1867. Sur quelques Mammifères du Cragd’Anvers. Bulletin de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, 24: 562-577.
  3. ^ McKenna, Malcolm C., and Bell, Susan K. 1997. Classification of Mammals Above the Species Level. Columbia University Press, New York, 631 pp.
  4. ^ O. Hampe. 2006. Middle/late Miocene hoplocetine sperm whale remains (Odontoceti: Physeteridae) of North Germany with an emended classification of Hoplocetinae. Fossil Record 9(1):61-86
  5. ^ Kohno N, Ray CE. 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. 2008;14: 39–80.
  6. ^ Alexandra T. Boersma and 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.