Cetotherium
Name:
Cetotherium
(Whale beast).
Phonetic: See-toe-fee-ree-um.
Named By: Brandt - 1843.
Synonyms: C. rathkei.
Classification: Chiordata, Mammalia, Cetacea,
Mysticeti, Cetotheriidae.
Species: C. rathkii, C. capellinii,
C. crassangulum, C. furlongi, C. incertum, C. klinderi,
C. maicopicum, C. mayeri, C. parvum, C. polyporum, C.
priscum, C. pusillum.
Diet: Filter feeder.
Size: Around 4.5 meters long.
Known locations: Eurasia and North America.
Time period: Mid Miocene to Early Pliocene.
Fossil representation: Multiple specimens.
Cetotherium
represents one of the earlier members of the Mysticeti, which are
more commonly known as baleen whales.
The very first whales where
predators that had pointed teeth for catching and killing other marine
creatures such as fish and even other mammals. Later whales like
Cetotherium diversified to take advantage of an
alternative food
source, and developed baleen to strain small organisms out of the
water. Although small, these organisms would have been caught in
such quantities that they would have provided ample sustenance for such
a large creature.
Because
of its dietary preference, Cetotherium would have
stayed quite near
to the surface of the ocean where its main food source would be.
However despite its size, this was a very dangerous level of water
to be in given the presence of truly gigantic predators such the shark
C.
megalodon and even other whales like Livyatan.
Compression
damage to the vertebra of some whales strongly suggests that these
predators would dive down deep and then look up at their target prey
which would have been silhouetted against the light of the surface.
The popular conception is that the predator would ram into the belly
of the whale at high speed, damaging the vertebrae as they impacted
together in the arc from the impact, and the whale being stunned or
winded would be unable to escape. With this in mind it seems
plausible that whales like Cetotherium would have
formed an
intermediary place in the oceanic predator chain, itself a consumer
of small organisms like krill en masse, but consumed itself by the
apex predators.
Further reading
- De cetotherio, novo balaenarum familiae genre in Rossia Meridionali
ante aliquot annos effoso. - Bulletin de La Classe Physico-Math�matique
de L'Acad�mie Imp�rial des Sciences de Saint P�tersberg
1(10-12):145-148. - J. F Brandt - 1843.
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