Kogia pusilla

Kogia pusilla is an extinct species of sperm whale from the Middle Pliocene of Italy. related to the modern-day dwarf sperm whale and pygmy sperm whale. It is known from a single skull discovered in 1877, and was considered a species of beaked whale until 1997. The skull shares many characteristics with other sperm whales, and is comparable in size to that of the dwarf sperm whale. Like the modern Kogia, it probably hunted squid in the twilight zone, and frequented continental slopes. The environment it inhabited was likely a calm, nearshore area with a combination sandy and hard-rock seafloor. K. pusilla likely died out due to the ice ages at the end of the Pliocene.

Kogia pusilla

Giovanni Bianucci and Walter Landini · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/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
Sits inside
KogiaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Odontoceti
Life habit
aquatic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Cetacea
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Cetacea
Environment
marine,freshwaterPBDB, for Odontoceti

Time the record covers

At most 1.1 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 3.6 Mya and 2.58 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Pliocene — about 1 of 1 occurrencePliocenePleistocene — about 0 of 1 occurrence3.6–3.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.6–3.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.5–3.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.4–3.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.4–3.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.3–3.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.2–3.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.2–3.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.1–3.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.0–3.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.0–2.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.9–2.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.8–2.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.8–2.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.6–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.1 Mya2.08 Mya

1 occurrence of Kogia pusilla on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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

1 occurrences

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.

Kogia pusilla and its relatives

Pliocene

Where Kogia pusilla and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.

Found in the same rock

11 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Kogia pusilla, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Kogia pusilla

Credit
Giovanni Bianucci and Walter Landini
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Kogia pusilla was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itKogia through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Pilleri 1987)