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Salishicetus meadi, a new aetiocetid from the late Oligocene of Washington State and implications for feeding transitions in early mysticete evolution

Living baleen whales, or Mysticeti, lack teeth and instead feed using keratinous baleen plates to sieve prey-laden water. This feeding strategy is profoundly different from that of their toothed ancestors, which processed prey using the differentiated dentition characteristic of mammals. The fossil...

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Autores principales: Peredo, Carlos Mauricio, Pyenson, Nicholas D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society Publishing 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5936946/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29765681
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172336
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author Peredo, Carlos Mauricio
Pyenson, Nicholas D.
author_facet Peredo, Carlos Mauricio
Pyenson, Nicholas D.
author_sort Peredo, Carlos Mauricio
collection PubMed
description Living baleen whales, or Mysticeti, lack teeth and instead feed using keratinous baleen plates to sieve prey-laden water. This feeding strategy is profoundly different from that of their toothed ancestors, which processed prey using the differentiated dentition characteristic of mammals. The fossil record of mysticetes reveals stem members that include extinct taxa with dentition, illuminating the morphological states that preceded the loss of teeth and the subsequent origin of baleen. The relationships among stem mysticetes, including putative clades such as Mammalodontidae and Aetiocetidae, remain debatable. Aetiocetids are among the more species-rich clade of stem mysticetes, and known only from fossil localities along the North Pacific coastline. Here, we report a new aetiocetid, Salishicetus meadi gen. et sp. nov, from the late Oligocene of Washington State, USA. Salishicetus preserves a near-complete lower dentition with extensive occlusal wear, indicating that it processed prey using shearing cheek teeth in the same way as its stem cetacean ancestors. Using a matrix with all known species of aetiocetids, we recover a monophyletic Aetiocetidae, crownward of a basal clade of Mammalodontidae. The description of Salishicetus resolves phylogenetic relationships among aetiocetids, which provides a basis for reconstructing ancestral feeding morphology along the stem leading to crown Mysticeti.
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spelling pubmed-59369462018-05-15 Salishicetus meadi, a new aetiocetid from the late Oligocene of Washington State and implications for feeding transitions in early mysticete evolution Peredo, Carlos Mauricio Pyenson, Nicholas D. R Soc Open Sci Biology (Whole Organism) Living baleen whales, or Mysticeti, lack teeth and instead feed using keratinous baleen plates to sieve prey-laden water. This feeding strategy is profoundly different from that of their toothed ancestors, which processed prey using the differentiated dentition characteristic of mammals. The fossil record of mysticetes reveals stem members that include extinct taxa with dentition, illuminating the morphological states that preceded the loss of teeth and the subsequent origin of baleen. The relationships among stem mysticetes, including putative clades such as Mammalodontidae and Aetiocetidae, remain debatable. Aetiocetids are among the more species-rich clade of stem mysticetes, and known only from fossil localities along the North Pacific coastline. Here, we report a new aetiocetid, Salishicetus meadi gen. et sp. nov, from the late Oligocene of Washington State, USA. Salishicetus preserves a near-complete lower dentition with extensive occlusal wear, indicating that it processed prey using shearing cheek teeth in the same way as its stem cetacean ancestors. Using a matrix with all known species of aetiocetids, we recover a monophyletic Aetiocetidae, crownward of a basal clade of Mammalodontidae. The description of Salishicetus resolves phylogenetic relationships among aetiocetids, which provides a basis for reconstructing ancestral feeding morphology along the stem leading to crown Mysticeti. The Royal Society Publishing 2018-04-18 /pmc/articles/PMC5936946/ /pubmed/29765681 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172336 Text en © 2018 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Biology (Whole Organism)
Peredo, Carlos Mauricio
Pyenson, Nicholas D.
Salishicetus meadi, a new aetiocetid from the late Oligocene of Washington State and implications for feeding transitions in early mysticete evolution
title Salishicetus meadi, a new aetiocetid from the late Oligocene of Washington State and implications for feeding transitions in early mysticete evolution
title_full Salishicetus meadi, a new aetiocetid from the late Oligocene of Washington State and implications for feeding transitions in early mysticete evolution
title_fullStr Salishicetus meadi, a new aetiocetid from the late Oligocene of Washington State and implications for feeding transitions in early mysticete evolution
title_full_unstemmed Salishicetus meadi, a new aetiocetid from the late Oligocene of Washington State and implications for feeding transitions in early mysticete evolution
title_short Salishicetus meadi, a new aetiocetid from the late Oligocene of Washington State and implications for feeding transitions in early mysticete evolution
title_sort salishicetus meadi, a new aetiocetid from the late oligocene of washington state and implications for feeding transitions in early mysticete evolution
topic Biology (Whole Organism)
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5936946/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29765681
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172336
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