‘Ocucaje predator’: They find a whale ancestor that inhabited the Peruvian sea 36 million years ago

A team of Peruvian paleontologists presented this Thursday the fossilized remains of a basilosaurus, a “primitive whale” that inhabited the seas 36 million years ago, researchers announced.

The discovery of the gigantic skull, which measures 1.35 meters and preserves its sharp teeth intact, was produced last year by a team of researchers led by the paleontologist Mario Urbina, and, with more or less 36 million years, from rocks from the Otuma formation (late Eocene age), in the desert of Ocucaje, Ica, explained the paleontologist Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi, in charge of the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology of the Museum of Natural History of the University of San Marcos (MHN-UNMSM).

“The most incredible thing is that the skull is in a very good state of preservation, it has complete teeth; It was a first-order predator, from the top of that time that ; a sea monster as they imagine it and we think that it is a new species”, Salas referred, in the act of presentation of the fossil.

“We have presented the new Peruvian basilosaurus, it is the complete skull of an archaic whale that lived 36 million years ago”, paleontologist Mario Urbina, head of the team that discovered the remains, told AFP.

Urbina indicated that the discovery of the cetacean was at the end of 2021 in the Ocucaje desert, in the Ica region.

The “Ocucaje Predator”, as its discoverers baptized it, was about 12 meters long and fed with its powerful teeth on tuna, sharks and a large number of sardines.

“This finding is very important because highlighted the researcher from the National University of San Marcos, the oldest in America.

“The sea was warm”

For his part, the paleontologist Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi explained that the basilosaurus differs from other known species by the great development of its teeth and its size.

These characteristics suggest that this animal was probably

“This is an extraordinary find due to its great state of conservation. It is a predator of the seas of the world, this animal was one of the largest predators of its time. It’s a primitive whale.” Salas-Gismondi told AFP.

“At that time the sea of ​​Peru was warm, it was not cold as it is today. Thanks to this type of fossils we can”, added the person in charge of the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology of the Museum of Natural History.

The first cetaceans evolved from land animals about 55 million years ago.

By the late Eocene (between 56 million and 34 million years ago), cetaceans had fully adapted to marine life and roamed nearly all the world’s oceans. At that time, the whales had not yet evolved and almost all cetaceans were marine macropredators, according to the scholars.

The Ocucaje desert is a place rich in fossils, according to the researchers.

“Thanks to the Ocucaje fossils we canWe have a record of 42 million years of evolution and of marine species”Salas-Gismondi explained.

Fossils of four-legged dwarf whales, dolphins, sharks and other species from the Miocene period (between 5 and 23 million years ago) were discovered in the same desert more than two decades ago.

Salas-Gismondi explained that in the aforementioned geological formation of coastal environments, other fossils were also previously found, such as the giant Inkayacu penguin, whose study was published in the journal Science in 2010, and many other fossils with great scientific value that have already been located. in the Ocucaje desert, as the first whale with legs in South America.

Like the other fossil remains, the basilosaurus is exhibited in the Natural History Museum of the University of San Marcos.

Agencies/Commerce