by Australian scientists discovered a rolled whale meat that enforced the sea 26 million years ago, and said on Wednesday that the species was “deceptively sweet”, but a terrifying predator.
Museums Victoria put together the species from an unusually well -preserved skull fossil, which was found in Victoria’s Surf Coast in 2019.
Scientists discovered a “fast, sharp -toothed predator” that would have been about the size of a dolphin.
“It is essentially a small whale with big eyes and a mouth full of sharp, tailoring teeth,” said researcher Ruairidh Duncan.
“Imagine the sharks-like version of a bare whale and deceptively sweet, but definitely not harmless.”
The skull belonged to a group of prehistoric whales known as mammals, removed smaller relatives of today’s filter whales.
It is the fourth type of mammal that has ever been discovered, said Victoria museums.
“This fossil opens a window about how old whales grew and changed and how evolution shaped its body when it adapted to life in the sea,” said paleontologist Erich Fitzgerald, who also made the study.
The Victoria surf coast is a geological feature of the Oligocene era in the Jan -JUC formation -23 and 30 million years ago.
A number of rare fossils were discovered along the landscape section of the beach, a renowned location for the study on early whale development.
“This region was once a cradle for some of the most unusual whales in history, and we are just starting to uncover their stories,” said Fitzgerald.
“We enter into a new phase of discovery.
“This region rewrites the story of how whales rule the oceans, with some surprising twists.”
The species was called Janjucetus Dullardi, an allusion to the local Ross Dullard, who stumbled across the skull in 2019.
It was described in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society examined by experts.
SFT/DJW
