A heavyweight early whale pushes the boundaries of vertebrate morphology

Giovanni Bianucci, Olivier Lambert, Mario Urbina, Marco Merella, Alberto Collareta, Rebecca Bennion, Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi, Aldo Benites-Palomino, Klaas Post, Christian Muizon, Giulia Bosio, Claudio Celma, Elisa Malinverno, Pietro Paolo Pierantoni, Igor Maria Villa and Eli Amson ()
Additional contact information
Giovanni Bianucci: Università di Pisa
Olivier Lambert: Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique
Mario Urbina: Museo de Historia Natural-Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos
Marco Merella: Università di Pisa
Alberto Collareta: Università di Pisa
Rebecca Bennion: Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique
Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi: Museo de Historia Natural-Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos
Aldo Benites-Palomino: Museo de Historia Natural-Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos
Klaas Post: Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam
Christian Muizon: CR2P (CNRS, MNHN, Sorbonne Université), Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle
Giulia Bosio: Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Claudio Celma: University of Camerino
Elisa Malinverno: Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Pietro Paolo Pierantoni: University of Camerino
Igor Maria Villa: Universität Bern
Eli Amson: Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart

Nature, 2023, vol. 620, issue 7975, 824-829

Abstract: Abstract The fossil record of cetaceans documents how terrestrial animals acquired extreme adaptations and transitioned to a fully aquatic lifestyle1,2. In whales, this is associated with a substantial increase in maximum body size. Although an elongate body was acquired early in cetacean evolution3, the maximum body mass of baleen whales reflects a recent diversification that culminated in the blue whale4. More generally, hitherto known gigantism among aquatic tetrapods evolved within pelagic, active swimmers. Here we describe Perucetus colossus—a basilosaurid whale from the middle Eocene epoch of Peru. It displays, to our knowledge, the highest degree of bone mass increase known to date, an adaptation associated with shallow diving5. The estimated skeletal mass of P. colossus exceeds that of any known mammal or aquatic vertebrate. We show that the bone structure specializations of aquatic mammals are reflected in the scaling of skeletal fraction (skeletal mass versus whole-body mass) across the entire disparity of amniotes. We use the skeletal fraction to estimate the body mass of P. colossus, which proves to be a contender for the title of heaviest animal on record. Cetacean peak body mass had already been reached around 30 million years before previously assumed, in a coastal context in which primary productivity was particularly high.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06381-1

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