Ancient Whale With Sharp Teeth and Huge Eyes Found in Australia
A new species reported from a 25-million-year-old fossil discovered in Victoria was a gnarly whale I wouldn't want to be in the ocean with.'
Scientists have characterized a new species of ancient whale based on a 25-million-year-old fossil discovered on Victoria's surf coast as "small and deceptively cute, but not harmless".
This early species, Janjucetus dullardi, was a very odd animal, according to Dr Erich Fitzgerald, principal curator of vertebrate palaeontology at Museums Victoria Research Institute.
It was tiny, about the size of a dolphin, with razor-sharp teeth, and bore little similarity to its closest surviving relatives in the baleen whale family, which included blue whales, some of the largest animals that have ever lived.
"It's essentially a little whale with big eyes and a mouth full of sharp, slicing teeth," said Ruairidh Duncan, co-author and researcher at the Museums Victoria Research Institute and Monash University. "Imagine the shark-like version of a baleen whale - small and deceptively cute, but not harmless."
Duncan and Fitzgerald described the new species in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, citing a "exceedingly rare" fossil find that featured a half skull, ear bone, and eight teeth - essential traits that allowed the scientists to identify it as a novel species.
When fully mature, the animal was most likely approximately 3 meters long. However, the fossil was most likely a juvenile, as evidenced by its wide open root canals, scarcely worn teeth, and bone connections that were not as tightly bonded as those in a mature species. "This individual was probably no more than about two to 2.2m long," according to Fitzgerald. "You could fit it on to a beach towel."
Janjucetus dullardi lived during the Oligocene (30-23 million years ago), which was around halfway between the dinosaur extinction and a period of global warming and rising sea levels. It was the fourth known species of mammalodontids, a group of odd animals that were an "early offshoot" of the baleen whale family tree, Fitzgerald explained.
He said that fossils of microscopic plankton from the Jan Juc Formation, which is the same type of rock, indicated that sea temperatures in southern Australia would have been warmer at the time, more equivalent to subtropical waters around Coffs Harbor.
"There was an astonishing amount of life in these seas, including all these small whales, gigantic penguins, sharks - roughly a third, if not twice, as long as today's great white shark - and numerous other primitive dolphins and whale species. It was a very different world,” Fitzgerald said.
It was a watershed moment in the history of ocean life, marking the start of a boom in whale and dolphin diversity.
Prof. John Long, a palaeontologist at Flinders University who was not involved in the study, described the fossil as a fantastic find that could help unravel the evolutionary processes as early carnivorous whales evolved to become filter feeders.
"To understand the radiation and evolution of the big baleen whales that live today, we need to look at the fossil record to see the stages of how they acquired their special characteristics," the biologist stated.
It also emphasized the importance of fieldwork for both professional scientists and the general public, according to Long.
The finding would not have been possible without Ross Dullard, a resident and school principal who discovered the specimen while walking along the beach near Jan Juc on Victoria's surf coast in 2019.
Recognizing the fossil's significance, Dullard gave it to the museum for further study. In honor of his contributions, the new species was named after him.
This highlighted the critical role that members of the public continued to play in Australian palaeontology, Fitzgerald said. "It's a reminder that world-changing fossils can be found in your backyard."
"Victoria has got a rich fossil heritage," Long added. "I grew up in Melbourne and have been collecting fossils since the age of seven. Victoria has fossils from almost every geological period, assuming you know where to look.