Bob Yirka is a research scientist at Phys.org.
Three researchers, one with the University of Michigan, the other two with the University of Casablanca, have discovered a skull and partial skeleton of an ancient whale. The fossils and how they tie together the evolution of land-based creatures that evolved into modern whales have been published in a paper.
Basilosaurid, a group of ancient whales that were land-based but had developed multiple aquatic adaptions, such as flippers, were identified by the fossils found by the researchers. They lived in Africa, North America and Europe in the past.
Over the next 5 million years, they became modern whales. There are differences in the fossils of several types of whales that belonged to the species Antaecetus. Antaecetus aithai is the fossil's own genera. It was the small skull that differentiated it from the others.
According to the researchers, members of the species were known to have thick, dense bones that hint at musculature, but they also suggest that they were not fast swimmers. They may have had a large lung capacity because they were still evolving from land animals to sea creatures.
The species is thought to have spent most of its time close to the shore. They would have looked a lot like the marine mammals. The researchers note that their diet was different from the modern ones.
The Antaecetus species would have been a predator, consuming slow- moving, soft-bodied creatures. They would have had to catch their prey through ambush.
The Aridal Formation contains the skull and partial skeleton of a new pachycetine genera. The journal has a DOI of 10.373/journal.pone.0276110
Journal information: PLoS ONE
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