Hoplocetus

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Hoplocetus
Temporal range: Middle Miocene-Early Pleistocene
~16.0–1.8 Ma [1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Infraorder: Cetacea
Superfamily: Physeteroidea
Family: Incertae sedis
Genus: Hoplocetus
Gervais, 1852
Species
  • H. borgerhoutensis du Bus, 1872
  • H. crassidens Gervais, 1852 (type)
  • H. curvidens Gervais, 1852
  • H. obesus Leidy, 1868[2]
  • H. ritzi Hampe, 2006[3]

Hoplocetus is an extinct genus of raptorial cetacean of the sperm whale superfamily, Physeteroidea.[3] Its remains have been found in the Miocene of Belgium, France, Germany and Malta, the Pliocene of Belgium and France, and the Pleistocene of the United Kingdom and South Carolina.[1]

Dentition

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The teeth of Hoplocetus are massive (95–150 mm in length; 27–47 in maximum diameter), robust and have a short enamel cap on the crowns.[3] They are somewhat larger than those of modern orcas[4] but considerably smaller than those of macroraptorial sperm whales, such as Zygophyseter, as well as those of Scaldicetus caretti.[5] They display a large degree of abrasion, suggesting a highly predatory niche comparable to that of modern orcas.[3] The genus of the latter, Orcinus, first appears in the middle Pliocene and it may have eventually replaced Hoplocetus.[3]

These teeth features also characterize the other extinct toothed whale genera, Diaphorocetus, Idiorophus and Scaldicetus, sometimes placed with Hoplocetus in the subfamily Hoplocetinae.[6] However, some of these taxa are fragmentary and have been used as wastebasket taxa for non-diagnostic material of stem physeteroids.

References

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