Pontobasileus

Pontobasileus
Temporal range: Eocene
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Cetacea
Suborder: Archaeoceti
Family: Protocetidae
Subfamily: Georgiacetinae
Genus: Pontobasileus
Leidy 1873
Species: P. tuberculatus
Binomial name
Pontobasileus tuberculatus
Leidy 1873

Pontobasileus is an archaeocete whale known from a fragment of a single tooth described by Leidy 1873.[1][2] It can questionably be dated to the Eocene of Alabama.[3]

Leidy assigned the tooth to Archaeoceti, but without neither a stratigraphic nor a geographic locality it is virtually impossible to argue for or against this classification. The tooth was later classified as an Archaeoceti incertae sedis[4] and even a squalodont odontocete (a more recent whale), but can also be assigned to Protocetidae.[5]

References

Notes
  1. Leidy 1873, Plate XXXVII, Fig. 15
  2. "†Pontobasileus Leidy 1873 (whale)". Fossilworks. Retrieved June 2016. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
  3. Gillette 1975, p. 65
  4. Kellogg 1936, pp. 264–265
  5. Hulbert Jr et al. 1998, p. 918
Sources


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