Skull and partial skeleton found in Morocco helps link ancient whale species

A team of scientists who studied fossil remains from Morocco have discovered a skull and partial skeleton that they say tie together several species of ancient whales

They describe the fossils and their unusual anatomy, and say these ancient sea creatures probably lived by hunting for their food as they swam through the water.

The researchers describe the fossils and how they tie together the evolution of land-based creatures that evolved into modern whales

Basilosaurid, a family of ancient whales that were land-based but had developed multiple aquatic adaptions, such as flippers, were identified by the fossils found by the researchers

They lived around what is now Africa, North America and Europe in the past. Eventually (over the ensuing 5 million years) they evolved to become modern whales

But the researchers noticed differences in the fossils that link different types of whales that belong to the species

The Antaecetus aithai is the fossil's own genus. The small skull made it different from the others

According to the researchers, members of the species were known to have thick, dense bones that hint at musculature, but they also suggest that they were relatively slow swimmers and not able to swim in the water

It has been suggested that they had a large lung capacity because they were still evolving from land animals to sea creatures

Taken together, these traits suggest that the species probably spent most of its time along the shore, close to the seafloor

they  would have looked more like manatees than whales. One major difference between them and modern manatees, the researchers note, would have been their diet

Today’s manatee eats plants. Some species of the prehistoric Antaecectus genus were predators that ate slow-moving, soft-bodied creatures living near the seafloor

Thus, they were likely to have caught their prey via ambushing it, rather than following them closely.

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