In Depth
Indocetus is a genus of protocetid whale that was first name from the discovery of a partial skull from the Harudi Formation of India in 1975. In 1993 new whale fossils from the Domanda Formation of Pakistan were added to the Indocetus genus, and this was a significant development since these were the first post cranial remains attributed to the genus. However a subsequent study in 1995 came to the conclusion that these post cranial remains actually belonged to the genus Remingtoncetus. The result of this is that Indocetus is still only known from partial skull material from India, though further isolated post cranial remains from the Harudi Formation have been considered to potentially belong to that Indocetus.
As a member of the Protocetidae, Indocetus would have been related to genera such as Babiacetus, Eocetus and of course the type genus of the group Protocetus. The closest known relative of Indocetus though is the genus Rodhocetus, with the teeth of both of these genera being single rooted.
Further Reading
- Lower Tertiary vertebrates from western India - A. Sahni & V. P. Mishra - 1975. - Partial skeletons of Indocetus ramani (Mammalia, Cetacea) from the lower middle Eocene Domanda Shale in the Sulaiman Range of Punjab (Pakistan) - Philip D. Gingerich, S. Mahmood Raza, Muhammad Arif , Muhammad Anwar & Xiaoyuan Zhou - 1993. - New Archaeocetes (Mammalia, Cetacea) from the middle Eocene Domanda Formation of the Sulaiman Range, Punjab (Pakistan). – Philip D. Gingerich, Muhammad Arif, William C. Clyde - 1995. - Synopsis of the Earliest Cetaceans: Pakicetidae, Ambulocetidae, Remingtonocetidae, and Protocetidae - Ellen Williams - 1998. - Middle Eocene Cetaceans from the Harudi and Subathu Formations of India - S. Bajpai & J. G. M. Thewissen - 1998.
