Mammalodon

Mammalodon is an extinct genus of archaic baleen whale belonging to the family Mammalodontidae.

Mammalodon

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
Sits inside
MammalodontidaePBDB
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 most 5.6 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 27.3 Mya and 21.7 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Oligocene — about 9 of 9 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 0 of 9 occurrencesMiocene27–27 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences25–25 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences25–25 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences25–25 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences25–25 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences27.8 Mya21.2 Mya

9 occurrences of Mammalodon on record, most of them in the Oligocene. 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

9 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.

Found in

2 formations

Jan Juc — 38.20°S, 144.27°EJan Juc — 38.33°S, 144.30°EKokoamu Greensand — 44.68°S, 170.49°EKokoamu Greensand — 44.66°S, 170.65°E

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The named rock units Mammalodon has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Mammalodon and its relatives

Oligocene

Where Mammalodon and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.

Found in the same rock

77 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Mammalodon, 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

5 references

Each of the 9 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. 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 content1

Picture of Mammalodon

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itMammalodontidae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Pritchard 1939