Simocetus

Taxobox
name="Simocetus"
fossil_range=Oligocene
regnum=Animalia
phylum=Chordata
classis=Mammalia
ordo=Cetacea
familia=†Simoectidae
genus=†"Simocetus"
genus_authority=Fordyce 2002
type_species= †"S. rayi", Fordyce, 2002
subdivision_ranks=Species
subdivision=
* †"S. rayi"

"Simocetus" is an extinct genus of toothed whale that lived 30 million years ago, in the Oligocene period. It is known from a single fossil, a skull, found in a marine siltstone despost on the banks of Oregon's Yaquina River in 1977 by renowned fossil hunter of the region, Douglas Emlong. It was first named by New Zealand paleontologist Ewan Fordyce in 1977 and contains a single species, "S. rayi". He found its teeth and jaw different than any other known whale's, and thought it might have been a bottom feeder that fed by suction on marine invertebrates. Features of the basicranium and face suggest that "Simocetus" may have had comparable echolocation abilities to modern whales ["Simocetus rayi" (Odontoceti, Simocetidae, new family); a bizarre new archaic Oligocene dolphin from the eastern North Pacific. R. E. Fordyce. 2002. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 93:185-222] .

pecies

*"Simocetus rayi", type species, Fordyce, 1977

References

Further reading

* "At the Water's Edge : Fish with Fingers, Whales with Legs, and How Life Came Ashore but Then Went Back to Sea" by Carl Zimmer ISBN 0684834901
* "Marine Mammals: Evolutionary Biology" by Annalisa Berta, James L. Sumich, and Kit M. Kovacs
* "In Search of Ancient Oregon: A Geological and Natural History" by Ellen Morris Bishop
* "Whales of the West Coast" by David A E Spalding
* "Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals" by William F. Perrin, Bernd Wursig, and J. G.M. Thewissen
* "Aquagenesis: The Origin and Evolution of Life in the Sea" by Richard Ellis
* "The New Encyclopaedia Britannica" By Encyclopaedia Britannica, inc, Robert McHenry ISBN 0852296339
* "Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia" by Bernhard Grzimek, Neil Schlager, Donna Olendorf, and Melissa McDade, of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association. ISBN 0787657913
* "Neptune's Ark: From Ichthyosaurs to Orcas" by David Rains Wallace. ISBN 9780520243224

External links

* [http://paleodb.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?action=checkTaxonInfo&taxon_no=63231&is_real_user=1 "Simocetus" at The Paleobiology Database]