The giant bite of a new raptorial sperm whale from the Miocene epoch of Peru

Olivier Lambert (), Giovanni Bianucci (), Klaas Post, Christian de Muizon, Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi, Mario Urbina and Jelle Reumer
Additional contact information
Olivier Lambert: Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique
Giovanni Bianucci: Università di Pisa
Klaas Post: Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam
Christian de Muizon: Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi: Museo de Historia Natural, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos
Mario Urbina: Museo de Historia Natural, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos
Jelle Reumer: Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam

Nature, 2010, vol. 466, issue 7302, 105-108

Abstract: Sperm whales with the killer instinct Modern sperm whales have the biggest bite of any tetrapod, but their teeth are relatively small and restricted to the lower jaw, and they feed by suction. The discovery of large teeth in the fossil record had suggested, however, that predatory sperm whales once existed, similar in habit to today's killer whales, but much larger. Suggestion becomes reality with the discovery of the fossil teeth and jaws of a predatory sperm whale from the Middle Miocene of Peru, almost as large as a modern sperm whale but with a three-metre head and jaws full of teeth. This beast was probably able to prey upon large marine vertebrates — perhaps the medium-sized baleen whales abundant around 12 million years ago — in a way similar to the modern killer whale.

Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09067 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:466:y:2010:i:7302:d:10.1038_nature09067

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature09067

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().