During the first half of the late decade , workers at a main road - widening undertaking in California ’s Leguna Canyon uncovered a huge batch of fossils . Because the land of California mandate the mien of a paleontologist and an archaeologist at such digs , many of these fossils were identified as unique and scurried away for further analysis . Now , near ten years later , two scientists who had been supervising the undertaking announced they had detect four Modern heavyweight species .
Top example : Ho New / Reuters .
Asreportedin Science , paleontologist Meredith Rivin of the John D. Cooper Archaeological and Paleontological Center in Fullerton , California identify the novel mintage as being early toothed baleen heavyweight who survive about 17 to 19 million age ago . This makes them the youngest known toothed whale mintage ever discovered .
Carolyn Gramling writes :
Three of the fogey belong to the genus Morawanocetus , which is conversant to paleontologists studying hulk dodo from Japan , but had n’t been seen before in California . These three , along with the fourth young species , which is of a unlike genus , lay out the last known occurrence of aetiocetes , a family of mysticetes that coexisted with early baleen hulk . Thus , they are n’t hereditary to any of the living whales , but they could represent transitional steps on the way of life to the toothless mysticetes .
The fourth new species - dubbed “ Willy”-has its own surprise , Rivin enjoin . Although modern baleen hulk are giants , that ’s a fair recent development ( in the last 10 million years ) . But Willy was substantially bigger than the three Morawanocetus fossils . Its teeth were also surprisingly worn — and based on the pattern of wear as well as the other fossils found in the Laguna Canyon deposit , Rivin says , that may be because Willy ’s pet diet may have been sharks . forward-looking seaward killer whales , who also enjoy a repast of shark , tend to have similar patterns of wear in their tooth due to the sharks ’ rough tegument .
Thefindings were presented at a recent session of the AAAS , and will be formally published later this class .
Image : 10 cm tooth sampling , via Dr. John D. Cooper Archaeological and Paleontological Center , USA .
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