ABC.Net (Australia) => Ancient whale broke all the rules – 16/08/2006
Recently published: The discovery of a new (extinct) species of fish hunting, dolphin-sized whales in Australia.
Fitzgerald found that the fossil had specific features in the facial region and the base of the skull that marked it as a member of the baleen whale group, which today includes the enormous blue whale.
But unlike modern baleen whales, which eat by filtering tiny krill and plankton from water, the fossil whale had teeth. It also had enormous eyes.
“This animal was capturing big, single prey, which is unusual for a baleen whale,” Fitzgerald says. “It used the front of its mouth to grip its prey and rip it apart.”
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