Cephalotropis Explained

Cephalotropis is a genus of baleen whale belonging to the extinct family Cetotheriidae. Its type species is Cephalotropis coronatus.

Description

Cephalotropis is diagnosed by the following features: a long sagittal crest, a more anteriorly produced angle of the supraoccipital angle, among other features.^[1] There is insufficient information to determine how big Cephalotropis was, but it probably grew to about 16–20 feet long.

Taxonomy

Cephalotropis coronatus was originally described from the Late Miocene (Tortonian) St. Mary's Formation of St. Mary's Formation, Maryland, based on the holotype USNM 9352.^[2] A second species of the genus, C. nectus, was named for a specimen from a Tortonian-aged formation in Portugal,^[3] but is now considered a junior synonym of C. coronatus.^[4]

Notes and References

1. Case, E. C., 1904. Systematic Paleontology, Miocene, Mammalia, in Clark, W. B., Shattuck, G. B., and Dall, W. H., The Miocene
2. E. D. Cope. 1896. Sixth contribution to the knowledge of the marine Miocene fauna of North America. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 35(150):139-146
3. R. Kellogg. 1940. On the cetotheres figured by Vandelli. Boletime do Labrotorio Mineralogico e Geologico da Universidade de Lisboa 3(7-8):13-23
4. P. Mocho and L. Povons. 2010. Contribucao para revisao sistematica de um cranio de Cephalotropis Cope, 1896 (Cetacea: Cetotheriidae) do Miocenico superior (Tortoniano inferior) da Adica (Sesimbra, Portugal). Jornadas de la Sociedad Espanola do Paleontologia Lisboa, Portugal 26:180-183