Newly Discovered Prehistoric Whale Is ‘Deceptively Cute’—It’s Tiny but Has a Mouth Full of Razor-Sharp Teeth
Found on the southern coast of Australia, the species could fill gaps in scientists’ understanding of baleen whale evolution
:focal(1900x1430:1901x1431)/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/85/6d/856d6e34-6087-4a09-8597-ed8843291606/janjucetus_dullardi_calf_and_mother_artwork_by_ruairidh_duncan.png)
About 25 million years ago, the warm, shallow seas off the southern coast of Australia were home to a bountiful scene of ocean-dwelling creatures.
“In these seas, there was this extraordinary abundance of life, including all these little whales, giant penguins, sharks—about a third, or even twice as long as today’s great white shark—and various other primitive dolphins and other species of whales,” Erich Fitzgerald, a paleontologist at Museums Victoria, tells the Guardian’s Petra Stock. “It was a very different world.”
Among this faunal cornucopia, one small whale—only a few yards long—would have posed a scary sight to the other swimmers, despite its diminutive size. Called Janjucetus dullardi, the newly discovered species and ancestor of modern baleen whales had a short snout, large eyes and deeply rooted, slicing teeth perfect for ripping into prey.
“Imagine the shark-like version of a baleen whale—small and deceptively cute, but definitely not harmless,” Ruairidh Duncan, a paleontologist at the Museums Victoria Research Institute and Monash University in Australia, says in a statement.
“This was a really gnarly whale that I personally wouldn’t want to get in the water with,” Fitzgerald adds to the Guardian.
Fast facts: Types of whales
- Whales can be split into two main groups based on how they feed: baleen whales, or Mysticetes, filter small animals through keratin plates known as baleen, and toothed whales, or Odontocetes, hunt fish, seals, squid or other creatures.
- Dolphins and porpoises are kinds of toothed whales.
Duncan, Fitzgerald and a team of other scientists describe Janjucetus dullardi in a paper published Tuesday in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
The genus refers to the location this whale was found: Jan Juc, a town on the Surf Coast of Victoria, Australia. And its species name honors the person who discovered it. In 2019, local school principal Ross Dullard was walking the beach when he saw a fossilized partial skull with ear bones and teeth among the eroding bedrock. Recognizing that it might be significant, Dullard donated the specimen to Museums Victoria Research Institute.
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/7c/c3/7cc30be8-18fc-49ad-b277-852229f5a405/10_the_partial_skull_and_teeth_of_janjucetus_dullardi_photographer__tom_breakwell_source__mu.jpg)
After careful study in the lab, the team realized they were looking at an animal that scientists had never described before. It represents only the third known species of mammalodontid—a small, early type of baleen whale that didn’t have baleen—found in Victoria and just the fourth worldwide.
“It’s essentially a little whale with big eyes and a mouth full of sharp, slicing teeth,” Duncan says in the statement.
Scientists say Janjucetus dullardi forms a key link in the evolutionary chain leading to modern baleen whales, such as the iconic blue whale. It helps fill a missing chapter of the transition from early carnivorous whales to the filter-feeding baleen whales that prowl today’s oceans.
John Long, a paleontologist at Flinders University in Australia who wasn’t involved in the study, tells the Guardian that this discovery is remarkable, and “to understand the radiation and evolution of the big baleen whales that live today, we need to look at the fossil record to see the stages of how they acquired their special characters.”
With this finding, among others, the rocks of the Victorian coast are becoming known as a hotspot for finding specimens of early whale evolution. The team says in the statement that they expect more fossil discoveries from the area in the coming years and that these prehistoric whales are uniquely Australian.
Fitzgerald echoes that idea to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “If they were alive today, they would be as iconically Australian as a kangaroo.”