New sperm whale remains from the late Miocene of the North Sea and a revised family attribution for the small crown physeteroid Thalassocetus Abel, 1905

This dataset contains the digitized treatments in Plazi based on the original journal article Alfsen, Apolline, Bosselaers, Mark, Lambert, Olivier (2021): New sperm whale remains from the late Miocene of the North Sea and a revised family attribution for the small crown physeteroid Thalassocetus Abel, 1905. Comptes Rendus Palevol 20 (39): 807-822, DOI: 10.5852/cr-palevol2021v20a39, URL: doi.org/10.5852/cr-palevol2021v20a39 ABSTRACT In spite of a continuously expanding physeteroid fossil record, our understanding of the origin and early radiation of the two modern sperm whale families Kogiidae Gill, 1871 (including the pygmy and dwarf sperm whales, Kogia spp.) and Physeteridae Gray, 1821 (including the great sperm whale, Physeter Linnaeus, 1758) remains limited, especially due to the poorly resolved phylogenetic relationships of a number of extinct species.

Among those, based on fragmentary cranial material from the late early to middle Miocene of Antwerp (Belgium, North Sea basin), the small-sized Thalassocetus antwerpiensis Abel, 1905 has been recognized for some time as the earliest branching kogiid. The discovery of a new diminutive physeteroid cranium from the late Miocene (Tortonian) of Antwerp leads to the description and comparison of a close relative of T. antwerpiensis.