Eschrichtius robustus

Uncredited · via Wikidata/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- gray whalePBDB
- Sits inside
- EschrichtiusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivore, suspension feederPBDB, for Mysticeti
- Life habit
- aquaticPBDB, for Mysticeti
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Cetacea
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Mysticeti
Time the record covers
At least 762 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 774 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
39 occurrences of Eschrichtius robustus on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
39 occurrences- Pleistocene21%
- Holocene79%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
6 formations
- Ichikawa shell bed Formation1
- Satilla Formation1
- Palos Verdes Sand Formation1
- Rio Dell Formation1
- Waccamaw Formation1
- Oofuna shell bed Formation1
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The named rock units Eschrichtius robustus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 33 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
76 taxa- Balaena mysticetus3 sites
- Megaptera novaeangliae2 sites
- Odobenus rosmarus2 sites
- Orcinus orca2 sites
- Acipenser1 site
- Alces alces1 site
- Alligator1 site
- Alopias vulpinus1 site
- Aluterus1 site
- Astadelphis1 site
- Aves1 site
- Balaenidae1 site
- Balaenoptera1 site
- Balaenoptera acutorostrata1 site
- Balaenoptera physalus1 site
- Balaenopteridae1 site
- Balaenula1 site
- Bathytoshia centroura1 site
- Bison priscus1 site
- Callorhinus gilmorei1 site
- Camelidae1 site
- Canis lupus1 site
- Carcharhinus leucas1 site
- Carcharias taurus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 38 sites for Eschrichtius robustus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
20 references- Atlantic gray whales9
- Dating remains of gray whales from the eastern North Atlantic5
- Forgotten Mediterranean calving grounds of grey and North Atlantic right whales: evidence from Roman archaeological records4
- Recent dating of extinct Atlantic gray whale fossils, (Eschrichtius robustus), Georgia Bight and Florida, western Atlantic Ocean3
- Twentieth century whaling statistics for eastern Pacific gray whales3
- First confirmed finds of baleen whale from Iron Age Scania, Sweden, and their archaeological implications1
- Two new materials of whale remains from the Holocene (Quaternary) of Osaka, Japan: Filling the age of lacking reports on Holocene baleen whales from Japan1
- Determining the ages of sub-fossil cetacean remains, found in the Carse of Stirling, Scotland1
- New Holocene grey whale (Eschrichtius robustus) material from North Carolina: the most complete North Atlantic grey whale skeleton to date1
- Youngest record of the extinct walrus Ontocetus emmonsi from the Early Pleistocene of South Carolina and a review of North Atlantic walrus biochronology1
- Grey whale (Eschrichtius robustus) in Norwegian waters 2000 years ago1
- Evaluating ancient whale exploitation on the northern Oregon coast through ancient DNA and aooarchaeological analysis1
Each of the 39 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 8 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content3

Picture of Eschrichtius robustus
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Eschrichtius robustus · l-aps:R-2
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itEschrichtius through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Lilljeborg 1861)