Ocucajea
| Ocucajea Temporal range: Middle Eocene (Divisaderan),
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Scientific classification 
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Infraorder: | Cetacea |
| Family: | †Basilosauridae |
| Genus: | †Ocucajea Uhen et al. 2011 |
| Species: | †O. picklingi
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| Binomial name | |
| †Ocucajea picklingi | |
Ocucajea is an extinct genus of basilosaurid cetacean from Middle Eocene (Bartonian stage) deposits of southern Peru. Ocucajea is known from the holotype MUSM 1442, a partial skeleton. It was collected in the Archaeocete Valley site, from the Paracas Formation of the Pisco Basin about 40.4 to 37.2 million years ago.[1]
The genus was named after the town Ocucaje in the Ica Province near the type locality, and the species after José Luis Pickling Zolezzi, naturalist, artist, and a vital contributor to Peruvian palaeontology.[2]
Ocucajea is smaller than all other dorudontines. It differs from Saghacetus and Dorudon in cranial morphology; in Ocucajea the nasals extends further posteriorly than the maxillae, and there is no narial process of the frontal like in Saghacetus.[3]
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ Ocucajea at Fossilworks.org
- ^ Uhen et al. 2011, Etymology, p. 963
- ^ Uhen et al. 2011, Diagnosis, p. 963
Bibliography
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