Aegicetus
genus of fossil whales
Aegicetus is an extinct genus of protocetid whale based on a partial skull with much of an associated postcranial skeleton discovered in Egypt. It lived around 35 million years ago (during the Late Eocene), making it the youngest known protocetid to date. Aegicetus was discovered in 2007 at Wadi El Hitan (Gehannam Formation) as a relatively complete skeleton and a partial second specimen. They were assigned to a new genus and species in 2019 by Philip D. Gingerich et al.
Description
Aegicetus is a medium-sized whale weighing about 890 kilograms (1,960 lb), and is reported to have been intermediate in form and functionally transitional in having a larger and more powerful vertebral column of a tail-powered swimmer. It differs from Peregocetus by lacking a firm sacroiliac joint and from Rodhocetus by having smaller hind feet, indicating it were less capable of moving on land and relied less on its hind limbs to propel through the water.
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This entry incorporates text from “Aegicetus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.