Titanocetus
| Titanocetus Temporal range:
| |
|---|---|
| |
| Skull of Titanocetus sammarinensis (holotype) in Bologna, Italy | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Infraorder: | Cetacea |
| Parvorder: | Mysticeti |
| Family: | Cetotheriidae (?) |
| Genus: | †Titanocetus (Bisconti 2006) |
| Species[1] | |
|
†T. sammarinensis Capellini 1901 | |
Titanocetus ("Titano whale") is a genus of extinct cetaceans closely related to the family Cetotheriidae.[1]
Discovery
The fossil remains of Titanocetus were discovered within some marine deposits dating back to the
paleontologist Giovanni Capellini
, who later (1901) named it Aulocetus sammarinensis.
Over a century later, in 2006, the paleontologist Michelangelo Bisconti stated that the remains was too different from the Aulocetus
and thus established a new genus, Titanocetus.
Description
This whale was similar in appearance to the living
Balaenopteridae, although it was considerably smaller in size: the skull
barely exceeded one meter in total length, while the entire animal reached around six meters.
Considered nowadays to be a primitive member of the
Mysticeti, already equipped with baleen, Titanocetus was a carrier of both modern (i.e. the rostrum, wide and flat) and ancestral characters (i.e. the squamosal and parietal bones, which occupy part of the temporal fenestra
).
References
Bibliography
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Titanocetus.
- Capellini, G. 1900. "Balenottera miocenica della Repubblica di San Marino". Atti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei 5:233-235.
- Capellini, G. 1901. "Balenottera miocenica del Monte Titano Repubblica di S. Marino". Memorie della Regia Accademia delle Scienze all'Istituto di Bologna 5:237-260.
- Bisconti, M. (2006). "Titanocetus, a new baleen whale from the Middle Miocene of northern Italy (Mammalia, Cetacea, Mysticeti)". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 26 (2): 344–354.