A 25-million-year-old whale fossil from southeastern Australia has revealed a bizarre early type of 'baleen' whale. The creature was an ancient cousin of our modern blue whales and humpbacks, but it was hardly a gentle giant of the sea. Instead it was small and predatory, with enormous eyes and teeth.
Enormous blue whales and humpbacks fall into the category of baleen whales (Mysticeti), which have no teeth, feeding instead by filtering out krill and plankton from huge gulps of sea water. For filters, the whales use large whalebone or 'baleen' plates arranged in comb-like rows on their jaws. Blue whales can grow up to 30 metres in length.
But the fossil relative of these whales, Janjucetus hunderi, discovered in Jan Juc, Victoria, looks quite different. "It's almost like a whale from outer space: truly weird," says study author Erich Fitzgerald of Monash University in Clayton, Australia. "In overall appearance and lifestyle, it looks more like a modern leopard seal." The skull is just 50 centimetres long, meaning that the whale would be no larger than a bottle-nosed dolphin. The snout is foreshortened, quite unlike the surfboard-like elongated snouts of modern whales, which have adapted to increase their surface area for filter feeding. And the eye sockets are enormous relative to the whale's size.
Furthermore, Janjucetus has large sharp teeth but no baleen. Considering its shape and large eyes (providing good underwater vision), it looks as though this whale was a predator that ate large fish -- possibly sharks and other whales, Fitzgerald speculates.
I just love the description of this animal because it totally reminds me of the drawings I used to do when I was a kid.
Mom: "What are you drawing?"
Jake: "A whale."
Mom: "I don't think that whales have teeth like that."
Jake: "This one does. It is a super whale. And it eats sharks and other whales. And it can fly in outer space. It has comets for friends -- comets and He-Man."
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