Phoberodon

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Phoberodon
Temporal range: Burdigalian
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Phoberodon holotype skull.png
Holotype skull
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Infraorder: Cetacea
Superfamily: Platanistoidea
Family: Squalodontidae
Genus: Phoberodon
Cabrera, 1926
Type species
Phoberodon arctirostris
Cabrera, 1926
Species
  • P. arctirostrisCabrera 1926 (type)

Phoberodon is an extinct genus of archaic odontocete cetacean from the Early Miocene (Burdigalian) of Patagonia, Argentina.

Contents

Taxonomy and description

Phoberodon was described in 1926 from a partially complete skeleton with a skull (holotype MLP 5-4) lacking the earbones, which was found in the Colhuehuapian Gaiman Formation of Chubut Province, Argentina. [1] Subsequent authors either followed Cabrera (1926) in classifying Phoberodon as a squalodontid, or considered it a relative of Waipatia although the genus was included in any cladistic analysis of archaic odontocetes. [2] [3] [4] [5] However, known specimens lack a periotic, which incorporates most defining synapomorphies of Squalodontidae, and Viglino et al. (2018) recovered Phoberodon as distantly related to Squalodon . [6]

Palaeobiology

Palaeoecology

The morphology of its skull and its enamel ultrastructure both suggest that P. arctirostris was a raptorial feeder. [7]

References

  1. A. Cabrera. 1926. Cetaceos fossiles del Museo de La Plata. Revista del Museo de La Plata 29:363-411
  2. Simpson GG. 1945. The principles of classification and a classification of mammals. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 85: 1–350
  3. M. A. Cozzuol. 1996. The record of aquatic mammals in southern South America. Munchner Geowissenshaftliche Abhandlungen. A, Geoligie und Palaontologie 30:321-342
  4. Fordyce RE. 1994. Waipatia maerewhenua, new genus and new species (Waipatiidae, new family), an archaic Late Oligocene dolphin (Cetacea: Odontoceti: Platanistoidea) from New Zealand. Proceedings of the San Diego Museum of Natural History 29: 147–176.
  5. C. Muizon. 1994. Are the squalodonts related to the platanistoids?. Proceedings of the San Diego Society of Natural History 29:135-146
  6. Mariana Viglino, Mónica R Buono, R Ewan Fordyce, José I Cuitiño, Erich M G Fitzgerald, 2018. Anatomy and phylogeny of the large shark-toothed dolphin Phoberodon arctirostris Cabrera, 1926 (Cetacea: Odontoceti) from the early Miocene of Patagonia (Argentina). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society zly053, https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zly053
  7. Viglino, Mariana; Ezcurra, Martín D.; Fordyce, R. Ewan; Loch, Carolina (8 October 2023). "The better to eat you with: morphological disparity and enamel ultrastructure in odontocetes". Scientific Reports . 13 (1). doi:10.1038/s41598-023-44112-8. ISSN   2045-2322. PMC   10560669 . PMID   37807006 . Retrieved 20 November 2025 via Nature.