Chrysocetus
Name:
Chrysocetus
(Golden whale).
Phonetic: Kry-so-see-tus.
Named By: Mark D. Uhen & Philip D.
Gingerich - 2001.
Classification: Chordata, Mammalia, Cetacea,
Basilosauridae.
Species: C. healyorum
(type), C. fouadassii.
Diet: Carnivore/Piscivore.
Size: Unavailable.
Known locations: USA, South Carolina - Tupelo
Bay Formation (initial description cited the Cross Formation which is
now placed as a member of the Tupelo Bay Formation).
Time period: Bartonian to Priarbonian of the Eocene.
Fossil representation: Partial skull and post
cranial skeleton from a possible sub-adult.
An
exciting find, the genus name of this whale
is a reference to the
golden colouration of the bones of the type specimen. It is important
to note that should further fossilised bones of this genus be
discovered they might not have the same colouration since the colour of
holotype bones was due to the mineral content of the rocks that they
were preserved in.
Chrysocetus
has been identified as a basilosaurid whale, a group of oceanic
predatory whales that include genera such as Zygorhiza,
Dorudon,
Ancalecetus,
and of course the type genus and most famous of all of
these, Basilosaurus.
Individual Chrysocetus would of course also
have been expected to be apex predators that targeted everything
from fish to other marine mammals.
Further reading
- New genus of dorudontine archaeocete (Cetacea) from the
middle-to-late Eocene of South Carolina - Marine Mammal Science
17 (1): 1–34. - Mark D. Uhen & Philip D.
Gingerich - 2001.
- New fauna of archaeocete whales (Mammalia, Cetacea) from the
Bartonian middle Eocene of southern Morocco. - Journal of African Earth
Sciences 111: 273–286. - Philip D. Gingerich & Samir Zouhri -
2015.
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