Mauicetus
Name: Mauicetus.
Phonetic: Mow-e-se-tus.
Named By: W. B. Benham - 1937.
Synonyms: Lophocephalus parki.
Classification: Chordata, Mammalia, Cetacea,
Mysticeti, Balaenopteridae?
Species: M. parki
(type).
Diet: Carnivore.
Size: Unavailable.
Known locations: New Zealand - Kokoamu Greensand
Formation.
Time period: Oligocene.
Fossil representation: Partial remains of a few
individuals.
When Mauicetus was first named it was originally as Lophocephalus. However this name had already been used to name a genus of beetle. Under international rules governing the naming of animals, the first use has priority, so the fossils of this whale were renamed Mauicetus. Mauicetus lived in the waters around the Pacific during the Oligocene. A former species, M. waitakiensis, has now been re-assigned to Tohoraata, while another species, M. lophocephalus, has been moved to Tokarahia.
Further reading
- On Lophocephalus, a new genus of zeuglodont
Cetacea. -
Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand
67(1):1-7. - W. B. Benham - 1937.
- Mauicetus: a Fossil Whale. - Nature
143(3627):765. -
W. B. Benham - 1939.
- A new eomysticetid (Mammalia: Cetacea) from the Late
Oligocene of New Zealand and re-evaluation of 'Mauicetus'
waitakiensis. - R. W. Boessenecker
& R. E.
Fordyce - 2014.
- A new genus and species of eomysticetid (Cetacea: Mysticeti)
and a reinterpretation of ‘Mauicetus’ lophocephalus
Marples,
1956: Transitional baleen whales from the upper Oligocene of New
Zealand. - Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. - R.
W. Boessenecker & R. Ewan Fordyce - 2015.
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