Newly discovered extinct whale has close ties to beluga, narwhal

The discovery by two U.S. paleontologists of an extinct, but surprisingly close cousin of the narwhal (pictured) and beluga whales has shed fresh light on the relatively recent evolution of the species’ ancestors in warmer, more southerly climates. (FILE PHOTO/ POSTMEDIA NEWS)

RANDY BOSWELL
Postmedia News

The discovery by two U.S. paleontologists of an extinct, but surprisingly close cousin of the narwhal and beluga whales has shed fresh light on the relatively recent evolution of the species’ ancestors in warmer, more southerly climes.

The previously unknown animal identified by the American researchers is based on a single, three-million-year-old skull fossil unearthed at a Virginia gravel pit in 1969.

Only recently studied using modern scientific techniques, the specimen was found to have come from an extinct whale with strong similarities to both the narwhal, distinguished by its unicorn-like tusk, and the white-skinned beluga.

“Fossils referred to as belugas have been known from fragmentary bits, but skulls are so revealing because they contain so many informative features,” Nicholas Pyenson, a paleobiologist with the Washington, D.C.-based Smithsonian Institution, said in a summary of the study. “We realized this skull was not something assignable to a beluga, and when we sat down, comparing the fossil side by side with the actual skulls of belugas and narwhals, we found it was a very different animal.”

Pyenson and his research partner in the study, Jorge Velez-Juarbe, published their findings on the new whale species in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

They note in the published article that one other extinct, beluga-related toothed whale was previously identified from a fossil discovered in the Baja California peninsula of northwest Mexico.

The southerly origins of the two ancestral whale fossils have led Pyenson and Velez-Juarbe to conclude that the original family of small, toothed whales that gave rise to today’s narwhals and belugas inhabited more temperate waters before adapting to the ice-choked habitats they live in today.

Velez-Juarbe said in the statement that the northward evolution of the two modern whale species may have resulted from changes that happened to the marine food chain before “competition or dietary preferences drove” drove them north.

Belugas and narwhals, which typically weigh between 1,200 and 1,500 kilograms, form a distinct branch of related whales that includes dozens of porpoise and dolphin species, among them the killer whale.