Delphinida Temporal range: | |
---|---|
A Commerson's dolphin | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Artiodactyla |
Infraorder: | Cetacea |
Parvorder: | Odontoceti |
Clade: | Delphinida Muizon, 1984 |
Superfamilies | |
Delphinida is a clade of cetaceans in the parvorder Odontoceti, the toothed whales. It includes all modern oceanic dolphins, porpoises, and their relatives, such as Lipotidae [2] and Iniidae. [3] [1] [4] [5]
Iniidae is a family of river dolphins containing one living genus, Inia, and four extinct genera. The extant genus inhabits the river basins of South America, but the family formerly had a wider presence across the Atlantic Ocean.
Lipotidae is a family of river dolphins containing the possibly extinct baiji of China and the fossil genus Parapontoporia from the Late Miocene and Pliocene of the Pacific coast of North America. The genus Prolipotes, which is based on a mandible fragment from Neogene coastal deposits in Guangxi, China, has been classified as an extinct relative of the baiji, but is dubious. The oldest known member of the family is Eolipotes from the Late Miocene of Japan.
Platanistidae is a family of river dolphins containing the extant Ganges river dolphin and Indus river dolphin but also extinct relatives from freshwater and marine deposits in the Neogene.
Physeteroidea is a superfamily that includes three extant species of whales: the sperm whale, in the genus Physeter, and the pygmy sperm whale and dwarf sperm whale, in the genus Kogia. In the past, these genera have sometimes been united in a single family, the Physeteridae, with the two Kogia species in the subfamily Kogiinae; however, recent practice is to allocate the genus Kogia to its own family, the Kogiidae, leaving the Physeteridae as a monotypic family, although additional fossil representatives of both families are known.
Squalodon is an extinct genus of whales of the Oligocene and Miocene epochs, belonging to the family Squalodontidae. Named by Jean-Pierre Sylvestre de Grateloup in 1840, it was originally believed to be an iguanodontid dinosaur but has since been reclassified. The name Squalodon comes from Squalus, a genus of shark. As a result, its name means "shark tooth". Its closest modern relative is the South Asian river dolphin.
Odobenocetops is an extinct genus of small toothed whale known from Chile and Peru. Its fossils are found in Miocene-aged marine strata of the Bahía Inglesa Formation and Pisco Formation. Two species of Odobenocetops are currently recognized, O. peruvianus and the slightly younger O. leptodon.
The Cetruminantia are a clade made up of the Cetancodontamorpha and their closest living relatives, the Ruminantia.
Kentriodontidae is an extinct family of odontocete whales related to modern dolphins. The Kentriodontidae lived from the Oligocene to the Pliocene before going extinct.
Artiofabula is a clade made up of the Suina and the Cetruminantia. The clade was found in molecular phylogenetic analyses and contradicted traditional relationships based on morphological analyses.
Cetotheriidae is a family of baleen whales. The family is known to have existed from the Late Oligocene to the Early Pleistocene before going extinct. Although some phylogenetic studies conducted by Fordyce & Marx 2013 recovered the living pygmy right whale as a member of Cetotheriidae, making the pygmy right whale the only living cetotheriid, other authors either dispute this placement or recover Neobalaenidae as a sister group to Cetotheriidae.
Squalodontidae or the shark-toothed dolphins is an extinct family of large toothed whales who had long narrow jaws. Squalodontids are known from all continents except Antarctica, from the Oligocene to the Neogene, but they had a maximal diversity and global distribution during the Late Oligocene and Early to Middle Miocene.
Hadrokirus is an extinct genus of true seal (Phocidae) that lived on the coast of Peru and North Carolina about 6 million years ago. The type species, H. martini, was found in the Pisco Formation, together with other marine animals such as crustaceans, sharks, coastal birds, whales and aquatic sloths. The distinguishing feature of the seal was its teeth: they were extremely robust, hence the name. It is assumed that Hadrokirus martini was durophagous; its diet probably comprised crustaceans, small bivalves and other shelled animals, similar to that of the living sea otter. The living seals most closely related to Hadrokirus are the Antarctic seals.
The Pisco Formation is a geologic formation located in Peru, on the southern coastal desert of Ica and Arequipa. The approximately 640 metres (2,100 ft) thick formation was deposited in the Pisco Basin, spanning an age from the Late Miocene up to the Early Pliocene, roughly from 9.6 to 4.5 Ma. The tuffaceous sandstones, diatomaceous siltstones, conglomerates and dolomites were deposited in a lagoonal to near-shore environment, in bays similar to other Pacific South American formations as the Bahía Inglesa and Coquimbo Formations of Chile.
Atocetus is an extinct genus of pontoporiid dolphin found in Miocene-age marine deposits in Peru and California.
Aetiocetidae is an extinct family of toothed baleen whales known from the Oligocene and latest Eocene, so far only from rocks deposited in the North Pacific Ocean. The whales ranged in size from 3 to 8 metres long. Many of the described specimens were discovered from the Upper Oligocene of the Japanese Morawan Formation, the largest known one from the Morawan's Upper tuffaceous siltstone. Other formally described extinct toothed mysticetis from this time are smaller, from 3 to 4 metres in length. Mysticeti with true baleen are seen in fossils from the Upper Oligocene. The monophyly of the family is still uncertain, as are the evolutionary relationship between the early toothed baleen whales and the early and extant edentulous baleen whales. However, the cladistic analyses of Coronodon and Mystacodon seem to indicate that Aetiocetidae and Llanocetidae are more closely related to crown Mysticeti than to Mammalodontidae, Coronodon, and Mystacodon.
Mystacodon is a genus of toothed baleen whale from the Late Eocene Yumaque Member of Paracas Formation of the Pisco Basin in southwestern Peru. It is the oldest known baleen whale, and was probably a suction feeder of small prey on the seafloor.
Liolithax is an extinct genus of dolphin from the Middle Miocene (Serravallian) Temblor Formation of California.
Lophocetus is an extinct genus of dolphin belonging to the clade Delphinida that is known from late Miocene (Tortonian) marine deposits in California and Maryland. Although usually placed in Kentriodontidae, recent studies have found it only distantly related to Kentriodon.
Hadrodelphis is an extinct genus of dolphin once assigned to the paraphyletic/polyphyletic family Kentriodontidae. Remains have been found in the middle Miocene (Langhian) Calvert Formation of United States.
Saurocetes is an extinct genus of probable iniid river dolphins from South America. Two species have been described: S. argentinus and S. gigas. It has been suggested that Saurocetes is a synonym of the possible platanistid Ischyrorhynchus.