Top Results for Cetacean
Pakicetus attocki is an early Eocene cetacean known from fossils found in Pakistan, near the ancient shoreline of the Tethys Sea. Although it retained four weight-bearing limbs and was primarily adapted for movement on land, features of its skull and ear region identify it as an early whale relative...
Why this score
Key early cetacean documenting whale origins on land; high evolutionary importance.
Scoring methodology
Basilosaurus cetoides was a fully aquatic early whale that lived during the late Eocene and is known from fossils in North America, especially the southeastern United States. Richard Harlan described it in 1834 and initially interpreted its long vertebral column as belonging to a marine reptile, whi...
Why this score
Classic early whale, historically misidentified and central to whale evolution; strong fossil record.
Scoring methodology
